Third point: From the first day, the Qur’an’s eloquence has captivated literary people. For example, it dimmed the Seven Poems.[1] While removing her father’s poem from the wall, Labid’s daughter remarked: “After the revelation of the Qur’an, this has no value.” On hearing: Proclaim openly and insistently what you are commanded (15:94), a Bedouin prostrated. When asked if he had become a Muslim, he said: “No. I prostrated before this verse’s eloquence.” Many geniuses of literature and the science of eloquence, like ‘Abd al‑Qahir al‑Jurjani, al‑Sakkaki, and al‑Zamakhshari, have concluded that the Qur’an’s eloquence is unequaled.

Moreover, it has challenged all geniuses of literature and eloquence to dispute with it: “Either produce a single sura like mine, or suffer humiliation and ruin in both worlds by denying me.” The unbelieving literary people of the Prophet’s time could not meet this challenge, and so took up arms against him. This proves that any dispute with the Qur’an is futile.

Countless books in Arabic have been written by friends of the Qur’an who seek to imitate it and by its enemies who criticize it. Anyone, even the simplest person, who hears the Qur’an will conclude that it is superior to all human works. No other book even comes close to resembling it. This leaves us with two options: either it is inferior or superior to all other books. As no one can honestly claim that it is inferior, it must be superior.

Once someone recited: All that is in the heavens and Earth glorifies God (57: 1), and remarked: “I cannot find in this verse such extraordinary eloquence as the Qur’an is claimed to have.” He was told: “Go to pre‑Islamic Arabia [or another place where the darkness of atheism or materialism prevails] and listen to this verse.” The man imagined that he was living in pre‑Islamic Arabia [or the world of, say, existentialist philosophers]. He saw that all creatures were leading purposeless, wretched, and meaningless lives. In this dark, unstable, and transient world they were travelling aimlessly in a dark, boundless space devoid of meaning.

Suddenly he heard this verse from the tongue of the Qur’an. He saw that it removed the dark veil from the world’s face, illuminating it so much that the eternal sermon and everlasting decree was teaching all conscious beings, lined up in the rows of centuries. It was showing them that the universe is like a huge mosque in which all creatures, including the heavens and Earth, continually glorify, praise, and invoke Him in rapture and utmost happiness. Then, tasting this verse’s eloquence and comparing it with others, he understood one of the infinite reasons why the Qur’an’s resonating and reverberating eloquence has conquered one‑fifth of humanity and has maintained its majestic dominion for 14 centuries.

[1] Known as the Seven Suspended Poems because they were written in gold and hung up on the Ka‘ba’s wall prior to the Qur’an’s revelation.