“This is not the man we used to threaten them with.”

Now, knowledge of the prophethood of Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon them all—does not depend on knowing that those who preceded them foretold and announced their missions; the ways of arriving at such knowledge are many (1). Therefore, once the Prophet’s ﷺ prophethood is established by any of these avenues, it is confirmed and obedience to him becomes obligatory, even if those before him had never foretold his coming (2).

When his prophethood is recognized on the basis of the proofs that attest to it, there are only two possibilities: either the earlier prophets’ foretelling of him is intrinsically necessary to his prophethood, or it is not. If it is not necessary, then its occurrence is not required, and belief in the Prophet does not hinge upon it; indeed, one must believe in him without it. If it is necessary, then we know with absolute certainty that it did occur, while the fact that it has not reached us does not prove that it never happened. The existence of a matter does not entail that it must be universally—or even privately—transmitted. Plainly, not everything Moses (3), Jesus, and the other former prophets informed their peoples of has come down to us; this is self-evident.

Accordingly, even if we were to assume that the glad tidings of his ﷺ prophethood are absent from the books currently in your possession, it would still not follow that Jesus or the others (4) did not herald him. They may have done so without the report reaching us, or it may be recorded in writings other than those famous and widely circulated among you. Every nation has always possessed texts known only to