THE LETTER FROM THE PEOPLE OF CYPRUS
.In the name of the living, life-giving God, eternal and everlasting
, To our purpose. This is what our master, the revered teacher
the head, lord, distinguished, unique, and unparalleled professor, may
God prolong his life in the most perfect favor, protect him from ill
: and care for him, taught
You have asked me to make a full inquiry for you about what the
Christians, followers of Christ, who are diverse in their languages and
scattered over the four corners of the earth from east to west, south
to the north, inhabiting the islands of the sea and established on the dry land stretching as far as the setting of the sun, believe
When I landed on the island of Cyprus, I met some great men
of this land and their chiefs, and I conferred with their distinguished
and learned individuals. What I learned about the thought of the people whom I saw and talked with about their faith, what they believe, and what arguments they employ on their own behalf, since you have asked me, I will respond to your request because of deep attachment and great affection for you. So I say
The people say: We heard that a man by the name of
Muhammad appeared among the Arabs, saying that he was the messenger of God and bringing a book that he said had been revealed
to him from God the exalted. So we did not rest until this book was
obtained for us.
I said to them: If you have heard about this man, and made
efforts to obtain for yourselves this book which he brought, then for
what reason do you not believe in him, especially since in the book it
says in The Family of Imran, ‘And whoso seeketh a religion other than
the Surrender will not (50r) be accepted by him, and he will be
a loser in the Hereafter? They replied, saying: For many reasons. I
said: What are they?
They said: One is that the book is in Arabic and not in our
language, according to what is stated in it, ‘And we have revealed it, a
Lecture in Arabic’. Also, we have found what is said in The Poets, ‘And
if we had revealed it unto one of any other nation than the Arabs, and if he had read it unto them, they would not have believed in it;
in The Cow, ‘Even as we have sent unto you a messenger from among
you, who reciteth unto you our revelations and causeth you to grow,
and teacheth you the Scripture and wisdom, and teacheth you that
which ye knew not’; in The Family of Imran, ‘By sending unto them a
Messenger of their own who reciteth unto them his revelations, and
causeth them to grow, and teacheth them the Scripture and wisdom;
although before (he came to them) they were in flagrant error’; in The
Stories, ‘That thou mayest warn a folk unto whom no warner came
before thee, that haply they may give heed’; in The Prostration, ‘That
thou mayest warn a folk to whom no warner came before thee, that
haply they may walk aright’; and in Ya Sin, ‘That thou mayest warn
a folk whose fathers were not warned, so they were heedless. Already
hath the word proved true of most of them, for they believe not.
When we noticed this in it, we knew that he had not been sent
to us but to the pagan Arabs, about whom it says that no messenger or
Warner had come to them before him, and that it was not obliging us
to follow him because messengers had come to us before, addressing us in our own tongues and warning us (50v) about our religion, to which
we adhere today. They delivered to us the Torah and Gospel in our languages, in accordance with what the book brought by this man attests about them. In Abraham it says, ‘And we never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk’; in The Bee, ‘And verily we have raised in every nation a messenger; and in The Romans, ‘Verily we sent before thee messengers to their own folk. They brought them clear proof. So it has been shown correctly according to this book that he was sent only to the pagan Arabs. Its words: ‘And whoso seeketh as religion other than the Surrender it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter, according to the demands of what is just, it means his people to whom he brought it in their language and not others to whom he did not come, as is stated in it.
We know that God the exalted is just, and it is not part of his justice
to require on the day of resurrection that any community should have
followed a man who had not come to them, or whose book they were
not familiar with their language or without the authority of any summoner preceding him. Further, we also find in this book eulogies of the lord Christ and his mother in what he says in Banning, ‘And Mary, she who was chaste, therefore We breathed into her of our Spirit