l despair,
and these doth a grievous chastisement await."(162) Also, "And they say,
'Shall we then abandon our gods for a crazed poet?'"(163) The implication
of this verse is manifest. Behold what they observed after the verses were
revealed. They called Him a poet, scoffed at the verses of God, and
exclaimed saying: "These words of his are but tales of the Ancients!" By
this they meant that those words which were spoken by the peoples of old
Muhammad hath compiled and called them the Word of God.

Likewise, in this day, thou hast heard the people impute similar charges
to this Revelation, saying: "He hath compiled these words from the words
of old;" or "these words are spurious." Vain and haughty are their
sayings, low their estate and station!

After the denials and denunciations which they uttered, and unto which We
have referred, they protested saying: "No independent Prophet, according
to our Scriptures, should arise after Moses and Jesus to abolish the Law
of divine Revelation. Nay, he that is to be made manifest must needs
fulfil the Law." Thereupon this verse, indicative of all the divine
themes, and testifying to the truth that the flow of the grace of the
All-Merciful can never cease, was revealed: "And Joseph came to you
aforetime with clear tokens, but ye ceased not to doubt of the message
with which He came to you, until, when He died, ye said, 'God will by no
means raise up a Messenger after Him.' Thus God misleadeth him who is the
transgressor the doubter."(164) Therefore, understand from this verse and
know of a certainty that the people in every age, clinging to a verse of
the Book, have uttered such vain and absurd sayings, contending that no
Prophet should again be made manifest to the world. Even as the Christian
divines who, holding fast to the verse of the Gospel to which We have
already referred, have sought to explain that the law of the Gospel shall
at no time be annulled, and that no independent Prophet shall again be
made manifest, unless He confirmeth the law of the Gospel. Most of the
people have become afflicted with the same spiritual disease.

Even as thou dost witness how the people of the Qur'an, like unto the
people of old, have allowed the words "Seal of the Prophets" to veil their
eyes. And yet, they themselves testify to this verse: "None knoweth the
interpretation thereof but God and they that are well-grounded in
knowledge."(165) And when He Who is well-grounded in all knowledge,