and his repeating this to them time after time in every gathering, making them aware of it (1), reproaching them for it, and publicly proclaiming it—all of that constitutes one of the strongest conclusive proofs of its reality from two angles. The first is that definitive evidence had already established his truthfulness. The second is that, by citing it, he was actually inviting them to believe in him; had no such passages existed, this would have furnished them with the clearest pretext for branding him a liar and turning people away from him.

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These lines of argument are followed by those who contend that the Jews and Christians have not tampered with the wording of the Torah and the Gospel and “have not altered anything therein” (2). Some Muslim scholars debate them on that basis alone, without raising the issue of textual alteration or corruption.

Another group, however, maintains that they did in fact substitute and distort many phrases of both scriptures—although the motive that led them to do so was far weaker than the motive that would have impelled them to alter the glad tidings concerning the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Yet because those prophecies were so numerous, they could not conceal or change them all; what they failed to hide or alter ultimately exposed them.

And how can it be deemed unlikely (4) that the nation upon whom wrath was sent—the slayers of prophets who hurled grievous accusations at them—would conceal (5) the description and identifying marks of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, when they even denied the Messiah’s prophethood and hurled vile slanders at him and his mother, despite the fact that his own description as the bearer of glad tidings about Muhammad is preserved in their books, and with