The Jacobites replied, “In our view and yours alike, the Messiah is truly God; so what difference is there between us and you on that point? You simply wish to placate the Muslims and come closer to them (1) in monotheism.”

Now, the most brazen and defiled among that community believe that God—exalted is He—chose Mary for Himself and for His child, and that He had relations with her as a man has relations with a woman.

Al-Nazzām (2)—after relating this about them (3)—said, “They state this openly when they are with those they trust.”

Ibn al-Ikhshīd (4) reported the same in his work al-Muʿūna, adding, “That is what they are hinting at; do you not hear them say, ‘Whoever is not a father is barren, and barrenness is a defect and an affliction’? This is the view of all of them, and it is sexual intercourse that they mean.”

Anyone who associates with them, debates them, and keeps their company in private comes to know this from them. Such is their unbelief, their polytheism toward the Lord of the worlds, and their reviling of Him.

For that reason one of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (5) said of them, “Humiliate them, but do not wrong them—for they have insulted God with an insult no human being has ever uttered.” (6)