Can anyone cause it to rise in the west? Anyone of us can switch the light on and off at will. But can all mankind bring the sun out before its time, or hold it beyond its setting time, or switch off its light, or come out with a similar sun, even though they harness all their physical and mental powers to achieve that purpose?

They certainly cannot create as much as a fly, even if they were to join all their forces to that end. If a fly robs them of anything, they are unable even to rescue it from him. How can they produce something to match those superior objects in the great universe, when they cannot reach them with their hands or even with their missiles? All they can do is to look with admiration at these objects, make use of them and be influenced by them.

This total inability to come up with anything similar to God’s creation is an irrefutable proof that it is the work of no human being. It is this Divine quality that distinguishes the work of the Creator from anything that people can make which is the criterion we wish to apply to the Qur’an.

There are people, however, who remain as stubborn as a brick wall. Such are the ones who said to their prophets: “Whatever sign you may produce before us, with which you aim to cast a spell upon us, we shall not believe you.”

The Qur’anic description of such people goes like this: “Even if We were to send down angels to them, and if the dead were to speak to them, and even if We were to assemble before them, face to face, all the things [that can prove the truth], they would still not believe unless God so wills.” (6:111.)

We call on anyone who truly wishes to arrive at the truth to look with us at the Qur’an from any angle he chooses, its literary style, or the information it provides, or its impact on the history of the world, or from all these angles together.

He will then be free to look at it within the constraints of the period of time and social environment in which it appeared, or to assume that it appeared in the most advanced period in history. It is also the same to us if he takes into account the personality of the man who brought it or attributes the Qur’an to an imaginary personality that combines all the adeptness of the best literary talents, the authority of leaders, and the total sum of research made by the best scientists across all branches of science.

We will then ask him if he finds in the Qur’an anything less than a unique surpassing power, compared to which the strength of all scientists, leaders, poets and authors dwindle into insignificance. Besides, the world will come to its appointed end while the Qur’an’s glitter remains a source of admiration to all. Indeed, life may end before people can grasp its whole truth: “On the day when its final meaning is unfolded, those who had previously been oblivious to it will say: ‘The messengers of Our Lord have indeed told us the truth.’”

We will now embark on the study of these three aspects of the unique nature of the Qur’an and its surpassing excellence: the literary, the scientific, and the moral and social. We will concentrate more on its literary and linguistic excellence, because this is where the challenge was thrown to mankind in substance and detail.