invited to the field of combat all arrogant and egoistic litterateurs and rhetoricians, and said to them in a manner calculated to break their arrogance: “Come, produce a single sura like it, or else accept perdition and humiliation in this world and the hereafter.” Despite this challenge, the obstinate rhetoricians of that age abandoned the short path of producing a single sura like the Qur’an, and instead chose the long path of casting their persons and property into danger. This proves that the short path cannot be taken.

Millions of Arabic books are in circulation, some written by friends of the Qur’an in order to resemble and imitate it, others written by its enemies in order to confront and criticize it. Not one of them has been able to attain the level of the Qur’an. Should a common man even listen to them, he is sure to say: “The Qur’an does not resemble these other books, nor is it in the same class as they. It must be either below them or above them.” No one -no unbeliever or fool- in the world can say that it is below them. Hence its degree of eloquence is above all of them. Once a man read the verse,

He said: “I cannot see any miraculous eloquence in this verse.” He was told: “Go back to