forbid – a powerless, valueless, baseless forgery. Whereas, self-evidently, through its powerful laws, sound principles, and penetrating commands, it has equipped that huge army both materially, and morally and spiritually, has imposed on it such an order, regularity, and discipline that it has conquered both this world and the next, and has instructed the minds of people each according to his degree, and trained their hearts, conquered their spirits, purified their consciences, and employed and utilized their limbs and members. To imagine it to be a counterfeit necessitates accepting a hundredfold impossibility.
“Such an impossibility entails the further total impossibility of supposing that a person who, through his deliberate conduct throughout his life taught mankind Almighty God’s laws, and through his honest behaviour instructed humanity in the principles of truth, and through his sincere and reasonable words showed and established the straight way of moderation and happiness, and as all his life testifies, felt great fear at divine punishment and knew God better than anyone else and made Him known, and in splendid fashion has for one thousand three hundred and fifty years commanded a fifth of mankind and half the globe, and through his renowned qualities is in truth the pride of mankind, indeed, of the universe, – it entails the impossibility of supposing that, God forbid a hundred thousand times, he neither feared God, nor knew Him, nor held back from lying, nor had any self-respect. Because in this matter there is no point between the two. For if, to suppose the impossible, the Qur’an is not the Word of God, if it falls from the divine throne to the ground, it cannot remain somewhere between the two. Indeed, it has to be said to be the property of the very worst of liars. And as for this, O Satan, even if you were a hundred times more satanic, you could not deceive any mind that was not unsound, nor persuade any heart that was not corrupted!”
The Devil retorted: “That’s what you think! I have deceived most of mankind, and their foremost thinkers, into denying the Qur’an and Muhammad.”
I replied: “Firstly: When seen from a great distance, the largest thing appears the same as the smallest. A star may even look like a candle.
“Secondly: Also, when seen both as secondary and superficially, something which is completely impossible may appear to be possible.
“One time when an old man was watching the sky in order to spot the new moon of Ramadan, a white hair fell on his eye. Imagining it to be the moon, he announced: ‘I have seen the new moon!’ Now, it is impossible that the white hair was the moon, but because his intention was to spot the moon and the hair was by the way and secondary, he paid it no attention and thought the impossibility was possible.