…and to acknowledge him within themselves.”
Allah, Exalted is He, says:
“Remember when Allah took the covenant of the prophets: ‘Whatever I give you of Scripture and wisdom, then there comes to you…’ ”—to the end of the verse.
His words, “a messenger confirming what you have,” unquestionably include Muhammad, for his mission was universal. Allah also said to him:
“We have sent down to you the Book in truth, confirming what came before it of the Scripture and as a guardian over it.”
Thus his Book exercises authority over all the heavenly books that preceded it. Allah has made it obligatory upon the People of the Two Scriptures and upon everyone else on earth to believe in him. This is affirmed in many places in the Quran and the hadith; it is the unanimous view of the Muslims, something known categorically within the religion and transmitted by recurrent, indisputable reports—just as the reports of his expeditions against the Jews and Christians are mass-transmitted.
Does this wording include any messenger other than him? There are two opinions. One says that Allah took a covenant from each prophet that he would confirm and help the prophet who followed him, and that each prophet was instructed to take the same pledge from his people. The other view—which is held by the majority and is correct—is that the “messenger” here refers exclusively to Muhammad. The prophets before him were sent only to their own peoples and were not commissioned for all humankind. If their summons did not reach everyone living in their own time, nor those who came after them, how could it encompass the prophets who preceded them? Indeed, Allah sent a messenger to every nation, as He says:
“We have sent you with the truth as a bearer of glad tidings and a warner, and never has there been a nation without a warner in its midst,”
and,
“We certainly sent among every nation a messenger: ‘Worship Allah and shun false gods.’ ”
Similarly, His words, “you shall surely believe in him and champion him,” couple faith with championing, and that championing is jihad. Noah, Hud, and others among the earlier messengers were not commanded to wage jihad, whereas Moses and the Children of Israel were.
As for the word lammā, the lām it contains is called the lām that prepares for an oath (lām al-tawṭiʾa li-l-qasam). When a statement contains both a preceding conditional clause and an oath, the response to the oath stands in place of the responses to both. The preparatory lām has therefore been attached to the conditional particle, while mā here functions as a conditional “whatever.” The lām in “you shall surely believe in him” is the response to the oath. A comparable preparatory lām appears in His saying, “And even if you were to bring to those who were given the Scripture every sign, they would not follow your direction of prayer,” and a similar instance is His statement, “And if….”