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The questioner said: “If you claim that ʿAbd Allah ibn Salam, Kaʿb al-Ahbar, and others like them have testified for us on the basis of what is in their scriptures, then why did Ibn Salam and the companions who embraced Islam not bring the copies they possessed so that they might serve as evidence against us?”

The reply may be given from several angles:
(First) The proofs and signs of prophethood are not confined to what the People of the Book hold concerning the Prophet’s ﷺ description (1); rather, these proofs and signs are exceedingly numerous and varied, and his description in the earlier scriptures is but one instance among them.

The vast majority of humankind did not accept Islam through the testimonies and reports found in those scriptures (2). Most people are unaware of them and have never even heard of them (3); instead, they submitted on account of the proofs they witnessed firsthand and the miracles they observed. The evidences preserved by the People of the Book came later as supporting corroboration—additional testimony that strengthens a case whose legal quorum of proof had already been met without it.

Accordingly, the Arabs, from first to last, did not make their acceptance of Islam dependent on knowing the testimonies held by the People of the Book, even though some of them did hear of such matters from them both before and after the advent of prophethood. The Helpers, for example, used to hear from the Jews the Prophet’s ﷺ features, description, and place of emergence. When they finally saw him, they recognized him by the very description the Jews had given and thus raced ahead of them to believe in him. The enemies of Allah then choked on their own saliva and gagged on their water, and they said: