“Love us, O our God! O our Father! You are our Father and our Deliverer!”

They liken themselves to clusters of grapes and all other nations to the thorns that surround the vineyard to guard it. They also maintain that God will raise up for them a prophet from the house of David: the instant he so much as moves his lips in supplication, every nation will perish and no one will remain on the face of the earth except the Jews (1). In their view, this person is the Messiah they were promised. During their prayers they imagine that they rouse God from His sleep, that they prod Him and spur Him on—far exalted is Allah above their slander and their error!

The misguidance of this nation of wrath, together with its lies and fabrications against Allah, His religion, and His prophets, cannot be surpassed.

As for their devouring of usury, illicit gain, and bribes; their unrivalled mastery of wickedness (2), deceit, and brazen calumny; their extreme greed for this world; the hardness of their hearts; the humiliation, abasement, and disgrace that cling to them; their cunning schemes for corrupt ends; their habit of charging the innocent with faults and of vilifying the prophets—these are for them mere trifles. Whatever reproach they level at the Muslims—whether they have stated it explicitly or left it unsaid—exists only among some Muslims, not all of them; and their Prophet, his Book, his religion, and his law are wholly free of it. The sins and offenses of his community are upon themselves alone: to Allah is their return, and upon Allah is their reckoning.

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If the one deriding the Muslims happens to belong to that misguided community, the worshippers of the cross and of the painted images upon their walls and ceilings, then he should be told (3):