years: “The Messiah will come and deliver peoples and nations.”(1) When that period had elapsed, the Messiah did indeed appear—and who other than the perfect God could possibly rescue nations and peoples?(2)

It is therefore said to you: then make all the messengers gods, for they delivered entire communities from disbelief and idolatry and, by God’s permission alone, saved them from the Fire.(3)

There is no doubt that the Messiah freed those who believed in him and followed him from worldly humiliation and from the torment of the Hereafter, just as Moses delivered the Children of Israel from Pharaoh and his people and, by leading them to faith in God and the Last Day, saved them from the punishment of the Hereafter. Likewise, through Muḥammad son of ʿAbd Allāh ﷺ—His servant and Messenger—God, exalted be He, delivered nations and peoples in a way no other prophet ever did. If such deliverance confers divinity upon Jesus, then Moses and Muḥammad(4) are more deserving of it than he!

And if you say, “We ascribed divinity to him because of what the prophet Jeremiah said about his birth: ‘In that time a son will arise for David, the radiance of light; he will rule as king, establish truth and justice upon the earth, deliver those who believe in him—from the Jews, the Children of Israel, and others—so that the Temple remains standing without warfare,(5) and he will be called ‘God.’’”(6)