Home > Surah 17 - The Night Journey
These verses present the People of the Book as the ultimate "expert witnesses" whose deep familiarity with the previous scriptures forces them to recognize the Quran as a legitimate fulfillment of God’s ancient promises.
Surah 17:107-109:
Say: Believe therein or believe not, lo! those who were given knowledge before it, when it is read unto them, fall down prostrate on their faces, adoring, and say: Glory to our Lord! Verily the promise of our Lord must be fulfilled.They fall down on their faces, weeping, and it increaseth humility in them.
The Quran appeals to those who were "given knowledge before it" as the primary evidence of its truth.
You cannot use "knowledge" to validate a new message if that knowledge is corrupted or false. To appeal to their knowledge is to affirm that their source material (the Bible) was accurate and present in the 7th century.
If the Bible was already corrupted, their "knowledge" would be error, making their validation worthless. If their knowledge was true, then the Bible they held was true. Since that Bible contradicts the Quran, the "knowledgeable" people should have rejected the Quran, not prostrated to it.
In verse 108, the witnesses declare that the "Promise of our Lord" is being fulfilled.
This implies the Quran is the intended "next chapter" of the Biblical narrative.
A Christian reading the Gospel with "knowledge" finds the promise of the Holy Spirit (John 14) and the return of Christ. They do not find a promise of a new law that denies the Cross. If a Christian "falls prostrate" to a book that denies the very "Promise" they were waiting for, they are not using "knowledge"—they are abandoning it.
Recognition requires a match between the Original Standard and the New Claim.
You only "recognize" a son because you know what he looks like. The Quran claims Bible-knowers recognize the Quran because it looks like the Bible.
If the Quran says "Jesus did not die" and the Bible says "Jesus died and rose again," there is no recognition—there is a collision. By claiming they "weep with recognition," the Quran is making a claim that is historically and doctrinally impossible for anyone who actually knows the Bible.
How can the Quran claim that 'knowledgeable' people recognize it as a fulfillment, when it actually removes the foundation of their own faith?
Either the Quran is wrong about what 'knowledgeable' people recognize, or it is calling us to recognize a 'promise' that doesn't exist in the Book."
Islam fails to produce a single Biblical prophecy that the Quran fulfills and this leads back to the lack of evidence for Muhammad in the Biblical text.