Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayah 103

Proofs of Muhammad's ﷺ Prophethood

Imam Abu Ja`far bin Jarir said that Allah's statement,

وَلَقَدْ أَنزَلْنَآ إِلَيْكَ ءَايَـتٍ بَيِّنَـتٍ

(And indeed We have sent down to you manifest Ayat) means, "We have sent to you, O Muhammad, clear signs that testify to your prophethood." These Ayat are contained in the Book of Allah (Qur'an) which narrates the secrets of the knowledge that the Jews possess, which they hid, and the stories of their earlier generations. The Book of Allah also mentions the texts in the Books of the Jews that are known to only the rabbis and scholars, and the sections where they altered and distorted the rulings of the Tawrah. Since Allah mentioned all of this in His Book revealed to His Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, then this fact alone should be enough evidence for those who are truthful with themselves and who wish to avoid bringing themselves to destruction due to envy and transgression. Further human instict testifies to the truth that Muhammad was sent with and the clear signs that he brought which he did not learn or acquire from mankind. Ad-Dahhak said that Ibn `Abbas said that,

In connection with these two verses, some commentators have reported certain Judaic traditions, which have given rise to a number of doubts, especially in the minds of Muslims with a Western orientation. Maulana Ashraf Thanavi has provided very simple and clear solutions to these exegetical problems, and we shall reproduce them here:

(1) The Jews were impertinent and senseless enough to attribute magic and sorcery to a prophet -- namely, Sayyidna Sulayman (علیہ السلام) (Solomon). So, in saying that they used to learn the black arts of the devils (Shayatin شیاطین), the Holy Qur'an takes care to deny, as a parenthesis, such a vile allegation against Sayyidna Sulayman (علیہ السلام) .

When superstition and apathy set in in the declining Jewish race, certain individuals exploited this tendency in order to make commercial gains, by providing success-seekers with magical prescriptions. To make their business flourish, these unscrupulous profiteers attributed their art to Solomon, saying that the extraordinary powers he exercised over the spirits and winds were, in fact, based on his knowledge of magic, and claimed that this knowledge had been passed on to them by the spirits. This claim to authority accounted in great measure for the rapid spread of sorcery, which soon developed into a highly popular art among the Jews. When angels came to Lot’s people, who were practising homosexuals, they came in the garb of handsome boys in order to test them. Similarly, angels were sent to the Jews in Babylon in the garb of holymen to teach them magic, at the same time making it quite clear that they were only putting the Jews to the test, this being a form of knowledge that should not be practised. But the Jews took no heed of this warning: they practised magic with great fervour and even used it for illicit ends.