Appearance
He Who Possesses Knowledge of the Book
وَيَقُولُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَسْتَ مُرْسَلًا ۚ قُلْ كَفَىٰ بِٱللَّهِ شَهِيدًۢا بَيْنِى وَبَيْنَكُمْ وَمَنْ عِندَهُۥ عِلْمُ ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ
(13:43) The faithless say, ‘You have not been sent [by Allah].’ Say, ‘Allah suffices as a witness between me and you, and he who possesses the knowledge of the Book.’
The question
“Say, ‘Allah suffices as a witness between me and you, and he who possesses the knowledge of the Book’” — who is the one with knowledge of the Book: ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām and other converts from the People of the Book, any scholar of the Qur'an, or ʿAlī?
Views answered: those who apply it to ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām and other Jewish and Christian converts, Ibn Taymiyya, who says the verse is Medinan, those who take “the Book” to be the Qur'an
Al-Mizan's argument
Al-Mizan explains God's testimony as the Qur'an's own affirmation of the Prophet's mission, and the testimony of the one who possesses knowledge of the Book as bearing witness to it. Since the chapter is Meccan and none of the scholars of the People of the Book had yet believed, the verse cannot refer to ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām, Tamīm al-Dārī, al-Jārūd or Salmān; he answers the arguments that the verse is Medinan within a Meccan chapter, that it refers to converts who would believe later, or that a witness need not yet believe, and Ibn Taymiyya's claim that the whole verse was revealed in Medina. He sets aside the reading that “the Book” is the Qur'an and anyone who knows it. The verse fits one in that community who was most knowledgeable of the Book of God, which supports the numerous reports from the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt — and others — that it was revealed about ʿAlī; even Ḥadīth al-Thaqalayn would suffice. In the narrations he notes al-Shaʿbī's statement that nothing of the Qur'an was revealed about ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām.
Reading guide
Each part opens the commentary at that point.
- “Allah suffices as a witness”
- What God's testimony means
- “And he who possesses the knowledge of the Book”
- Testimony, not mere knowledge, in a Meccan chapter
- The view that it means ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām and other converts
- Two answers to the claim it was revealed in Medina
- Converts who would believe later?
- A witness who had not yet believed?
- Ibn Taymiyya's claim
- “The Book” as the Qur'an
- Revealed about ʿAlī
- Narrations from the Imams
- The report from ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām, and al-Shaʿbī