they will most certainly say, “The All-Mighty, the All-Knowing created them.” (9) He is the One who made the earth for you as a cradle and carved out pathways therein so that you might be guided. (10) He is the One who sends down water from the sky in precise measure; then by it We revive a dead land—just so will you be brought forth. (11) And He is the One who created every kind of pair… (12) to the end of the passage.
On either reading, these people could not carry through their denial of the Prophet’s ﷺ mission and their obstinate opposition except by embracing this blanket repudiation and wholesale rejection. They realized that were they to acknowledge some prophets yet deny his prophethood, their contradiction would at once be exposed, for they would be distinguishing between two identical cases. It is impossible to believe in one prophet while rejecting the prophethood of a man whose message is more evident and whose signs are more numerous and weighty than those of the prophet they profess to accept.
The Exalted One has declared that whoever denies that He sent His messengers and revealed His scriptures has not valued Him as He ought to be valued, but has attributed to Him what is unbefitting (1). Such denial in fact rejects His religion (2), His divinity, His dominion, His wisdom, and His mercy, and entertains a vile suspicion of Him: that He created His creatures in vain and left them neglected and without purpose. This runs counter to His perfect transcendence, for He is far above everything that conflicts with His sublime perfection.
Whoever denies His speech, His act of speaking, and His sending of messengers to His creation has not accorded Him His rightful estimation, has not truly known Him, and has not magnified Him as He deserves. Likewise, whoever worships alongside Him any other deity fails to value Him properly, for such a person negates and rejects His attributes of perfection, the splendour of His majesty, the sending of His messengers, and the revelation of His books, and he has not glorified Him with the veneration that is His due.