The Enemies' Judgment

It was the time of Hajj. People were coming to Mecca from everywhere, and the Quraysh were uncomfortable from fear that the news of Muhammad's prophethood might have an effect on the new arrivals. So a group of the Quraysh, with Walid at their head, gathered round them and related what unjust things they could say about the Prophet and thus dissuade the new arrivals from meeting him. Then when they were gathered, one of them said, "Let us say this man is soothsayer." "They will not believe us," said Walid, "for his speech is not like the sayings of soothsayers." "Let us say he is mad," someone else volunteered. "No one will accept that," Walid replied, "because his speech and behaviour are not like a lunatic's." "We shall say he is a poet," they said. "This also will not work, because Arabs know all kinds of poetry, and his words are not like a poem." "We shall say he is a sorcerer." "Sorcerers have special methods, like tying knots and blowing on them, and Muhammad does nothing like this." Then Walid himself declared, "I swear by God, the speech of that man has a special sweetness and pleasantness. His speech is like a tree, luxuriant, with steady deep roots and branches which bend down laden with fruit. Thus we can say to people that his speech is bewitched, because it causes separation between father and child, wife and husband, sister and brother."

To discover the Qur'an's eloquence, and also to find out that it is at the summit of eloquence, non-Arab speakers can turn back to the sayings of those Arabs who were experts in the language of those days and which are recorded in history, and also to present day authors who write on this subject, and to the acknowledgments of those specialists in this branch. Fortunately, from the time of the Prophet (S.A.) till now, all specialists in the art of Arabic eloquence have confessed to the unparalleled eloquence of the Qur'an, and have been overwhelmed in the face of it.

For example, the famous contemporary Arab writer Abdulfattah Tabbarah writes: "Arab history tells us of many famous men, knowledgeable in the best poetry and prose, like Ibn al-Muqaffa', Jahiz, ibn al-'Amid, Farazdaq, Bashshar, Abu Nuwas, Abu Tammam and so forth, but all of them have shown humility when faced with the Qur'an, and have of necessity confessed that the great Qur'an is not of the words of man, but a Divine revelation." Dr. Taha Husayn, the powerful contemporary Egyptian writer, said: The Qur'an transcends the limits of prose and poetry, because it has special qualities which cannot be found in any poem or prose. So the Qur'an cannot be called poetry or prose, rather it should be said:" It is the Qur'an, that is all."