to force their obedience without Allah’s leave, nor does he deem their blood, property, or homes lawful except with Allah’s permission. Whoever claims that Allah has ordered him to do so when Allah has not is a lying fabricator and an oppressor—“Who does greater wrong than one who forges a lie against Allah or says, ‘Revelation has come to me,’ while nothing has been revealed to him?” ⦗1⦘. Such a person, besides being a sinful liar, is among the worst seekers of domination and corruption on earth, more evil than tyrannical kings; for those despotic rulers fight people to make them submit, yet they do not claim, “We are Allah’s messengers to you; whoever obeys us enters Paradise and whoever disobeys us enters the Fire.” Even Pharaoh and the like never ventured such a claim. No one makes it except a truthful prophet or a false claimant to prophethood, such as Musaylimah, al-Aswad, and their ilk.
Once it is established that he is a prophet, whatever he conveys from Allah must be true; and once he is recognized as the Messenger of Allah, obedience to him is obligatory in everything he commands, as Allah the Exalted says: “We sent no messenger but that he should be obeyed by Allah’s permission” ⦗2⦘. Therefore, when he states that he is Allah’s Messenger to the People of the Book and that obedience to him is binding upon them, that statement is necessarily true.
Whoever acknowledges that he is Allah’s Messenger yet denies that he was sent to the People of the Book is like someone who says that Moses was indeed a messenger but was not required to enter the land of the Levant, nor to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt; that Allah did not command him to do so; that He did not ordain the Sabbath, did not reveal the Torah to him, and did not speak to him on the Mount. He resembles as well the one who says that Jesus was Allah’s messenger but was not sent to the Children of Israel, that they were under no obligation to obey him, and that he wronged the Jews—statements of this sort are among the most blasphemous of utterances.
For this reason Allah, Exalted is He, says: “Indeed, those who disbelieve in Allah and His messengers and seek to make a distinction between Allah and His messengers and say, ‘We believe in some and disbelieve in others,’ and wish to adopt a way in between—those, in truth, are the disbelievers, and We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating punishment” ⦗3⦘.