—a revelation sent down by the All-Mighty, the Most Merciful. That is, this message and this Qur’an are from Allah: He alone dispatched this Messenger and He alone revealed this Book. He is al-ʿAzīz—the Invincible One whom none can overpower—and al-Raḥīm, ever-merciful to His servants.

The wisdom behind revealing this Qur’an and sending this Messenger is, “so that you may warn a people”: in other words, so that you clarify matters for them, fill their hearts with fear of Allah, direct them to the path of truth and guidance, and caution them against the way of shirk (associationism) and the path that leads to the Fire. The people in question here are the Arabs,

for the Prophet ﷺ was sent first and foremost to them, with others following thereafter. Nonetheless, he ﷺ was dispatched to both classes of beings—jinn and humankind—as Allah the Exalted says, “Say, O mankind! I am indeed the Messenger of Allah to you all” (al-Aʿrāf 158); and He says, “We did not send you except as a mercy to the worlds” (al-Anbiyāʾ 107); and He says, “Blessed is the One Who sent down the Criterion upon His servant so that he might be a warner to all the worlds” (al-Furqān 1); and He says, “We have not sent you except universally to all people as a bearer of glad tidings and a warner” (Sabaʾ 28). His mission is therefore universal. Although he was raised up among the Arabs, he ﷺ is a messenger to every jinn and human being. His message is all-embracing: he began by warning the Arabs as part of a gradual approach to delivering the revelation. He conveyed it to them and then to others; for that reason he ﷺ wrote to the kings—Khosrow, Caesar and others—inviting them to Islam, because he was a messenger to them as well.

“As for their forefathers, they had never been warned …” There is no contradiction between this and the verse the questioner mentioned—“We certainly sent to every nation a messenger” (al-Naḥl 36)—because after Ishmael, peace be upon him, no messenger arose from among the Arabs until