had been foretold to them⦗1⦘; yet the Christians have believed in a Messiah who has no real existence, while the Jews are waiting for the Antichrist!

5 – It has long been the practice of the People of the Scripture, both earlier and later generations, to translate proper names by replacing them with what they take to be the names’ meanings, and at times to add explanatory wording without any indication that an addition has been made. Such procedures leave the translated names distorted and obscure, and their books contain many examples of this. It is therefore no wonder that they have altered and substituted the name of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ with another expression that spoils the intended proof—fully in keeping with their habitual obstinacy and denial.

Because of this, the circulating copies of their scriptures have never been consistent: one manuscript may contain what another omits. Hence we sometimes encounter quotations from the old translations of their books—citations preserved by leading Muslim scholars to argue against the People of the Scripture—that do not match, in part or in whole, the well-known translations current today. These discrepancies stem from changes introduced during translation and from textual tampering.

For instance, Imam Ibn Ḥazm debated the Christians and reproduced numerous passages from the Gospels in his work Al-Faṣl fī al-Milal wa-al-Ahwāʾ wa-al-Niḥal to expose their mutual contradictions. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, his student the eminent Ibn al-Qayyim, as well as Imams al-Ghazālī, al-Qurṭubī, Abū ʿUbayda al-Khuzrajī, and other scholars did likewise, quoting texts from Christian scriptures whose wording may not correspond to the Gospel now in the Christians’ possession. Naturally, had any of those Muslim scholars altered or fabricated what they quoted, the Christians would certainly have pointed it out.