, peace and blessings of God be upon him, nor his people, nor his clan knew or recognized prior to the revelation of the Criterion to Muhammad, peace and blessings of God be upon him, such that they could claim ambiguity in his affair, peace be upon him, that he is a prophet and that what he brought is from Allah (1). And how could ambiguity be claimed regarding the truthfulness of an unlettered man who grew up among unlettered people, neither writing, nor reading, nor calculating—so that it might be said he read books and thus knew, or calculated (2) and thus practiced astrology? And he was sent against literate rabbis and scribes (3)—who had studied books and led nations—informing them of their hidden flaws, their guarded knowledge, their concealed reports, and the subtle details of their affairs that those beneath them among their rabbis were ignorant of. Indeed, the matter of one who was such is not obscure, and his truthfulness is evident.

And among that which indicates the correctness of what we have said—that those intended by Allah, exalted be His mention, in His statement, {Indeed, those who disbelieve—it is all the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe}, are the rabbis of the Jews who were killed in disbelief and died upon it—is Allah's, exalted be His mention, recounting of their story, and His reminding them of the covenants and solemn pledges He took from them regarding the matter of Muhammad, peace be upon him, after His, exalted be His mention, recounting what He recounted regarding the matter of the hypocrites, and His placing in between that what He placed of the report concerning Iblīs and Adam—in His statement, {O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you} [Surah al-Baqarah: 40 et seq.], and His arguing for His Prophet against them through what He argued against them therein after their denial of his prophethood. Since the report was initially about the believers among the People of the Book, and finally about their polytheists, it is most appropriate that the middle be about them as well; because speech follows from one part to another, unless a clear indication comes to them showing a shift of some of it away from the meanings with which it began, in which case its turn away from it would then be recognized.