and certainty, when it is known that the prophet was an unlettered man, and lived among a people, uneducated, wild, and nomadic by habit, who had never tried to investigate the universe, as was the case with the Greeks, and other nations, among whom philosophy was perfected in long periods of time. To this very fact refer the words of God, “Thou couldst not read any book before this; neither couldst thou write it with thy right hand, then had gainsayers justly doubted of the divine origin thereof.”[114] Hence God has repeatedly told the people this quality of His prophet. “It is He who hath raised up among the illiterate Arabians an apostle from among themselves,”[115] and, “Those who shall follow the Apostle the illiterate Prophet.”[116] This matter can also be known by another method--that of comparison of this Law with the others. For, if the business of the prophets be the giving of laws by divine revelation, as has been acknowledged by all who believe in the existence of the prophets, then if you look into the teachings of useful knowledge and actions leading to happiness, which are contained in the Quran, and compare them with other divine books and religious systems, you will find it excelling all the others in an unlimited degree. On the whole, if there are books worthy to be called the words of God, on account of their wondrous nature, and separation from the genius of human words and their peculiarity by what they contain in regard to knowledge and deeds, then it is clear that the Quran is much more worth thy, and many times fitter, than they are to be called the words of God. This would be still clearer to you if you could know the past books--the Old and New Testaments. But that is not possible because they have been changed to a great extent. Were we to describe the superiority of one Law over another, and the superiority of the teachings given to us about the knowledge of God, and the Day of Judgment to the laws given to the Jews and the Christians, it would require many volumes with a confession of our own short-comings in dealing with the subject. For this very reason, the Law of ours has been called the last of the divine dispensations. The Prophet, peace be on him, has said, “Had Moses lived in my time, he could not have helped following me,” and the Prophet was right, on account of the universal nature of the teachings of the Quran, and its regulations. That is it is able to satisfy the needs of all, being meant for the whole of the human race. So God has said, “say, O men, Verily I am the messenger of God unto you all.”[117] The Prophet has said, “I have been sent both to the white and the black nations.”