without faith in his heart—it becomes clear that all Jews and Christians engage in blameworthy imitation, as do the hypocrites of this community.

As for the adherents of religious innovation, there is both righteousness and wickedness among them. This can be explained in several ways.

First: the Jews and Christians who claim to follow Moses and Jesus—may Allah bless them both and grant them peace—follow them only because they are Allah’s messengers. Every means by which the prophethood of Moses and Jesus is established applies with still greater force to Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

For example, if Jews and Christians say: “It has been established through mass transmission that Moses and Jesus claimed prophethood and that signs demonstrating their truthfulness appeared at their hands. They also brought religious teachings and revealed law that could not, as is evident, have been brought by a lying fabricator—signs demonstrating their truthfulness appeared at their hands—but could only have been brought by a truthful prophet claiming prophethood.”

The reply is: each of these two lines of evidence establishes the prophethood of Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—with even greater force. For it is well known that those who transmitted the religious teachings and revealed law to which Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—called, and who transmitted the miraculous signs he brought, surpass those who transmitted similar accounts about Moses and Jesus. Moreover, what he brought in both these respects is greater than what Moses and Jesus brought.

Indeed, anyone who at the present time rationally considers the beneficial knowledge and righteous deeds found among Muslims, and what is found among Jews and Christians, would recognize that there is between the two