When Our clear revelations are recited to them, those who are not convinced of a meeting with Us say : 'Bring a different Scripture or alter its contents!' Say to them (O Mohammed) : 'It is not for me to change it according to how I choose! I follow only that which has been inspired in me. And if I disobey my Lord, I fear the doom of an awesome Day!'

10 : 16

Say : 'If Allah had so willed, I would not have recited them to you nor would He have made them manifest to you! I spent an entire lifetime in your midst before they were revealed to me! So, have you no sense?'

10 : 17
Who commits a greater sin than him that invents lies against Allah or repudiates His revelations? Verily the invidious will never succeed!

(When the Prophet (saws) recited to the citizens of Mecca the revelations inspired in him by the Archangel, it staggered them. They had known him for a long time; they knew that he belonged to a tribe whose reputation for honesty was above board; that he was a trustworthy person employed by a wealthy business woman on account of his sincerity and loyalty and that, whatever else he may be, he was not a literate or an intellectual by reason of his academic pursuits. He was a simple and unobtrusive man who never caused trouble, gave sound advice to those who sought it of him and minded his own business. Yet when they heard him recite the verses of Qur'aan containing an irresistible invitation to renounce the path of error in favour of the path of righteousness for attaining everlasting bliss in the Abode of the Hereafter, they simply could not believe it.

The only viable explanation which occurred to them was that he was probably pulling a stunt; it was all a hoax aimed at making a fast buck, in collaboration with other men who were also capable of coming up with a charismatic work of literature in order to create dissension among them and then fish in troubled waters. It could happen; there was no shortage of literary skills in Arabia; there were poets and writers galore, always on the look out for making a killing in exchange for their talent; it was not altogether impossible to break the hold of a few vulnerable idols on a thriving community, introduce into the complex arena of faith a new player to play a new role; a new God in opposition to the old gods, invisible to the eye and hence unavailable either to be challenged or authenticated, feared by the meek, obeyed by the weak, followed by the 'lost' and espoused by the crafty!

With this in mind, a delegation of the idolaters approached the Prophet (saws) to persuade him to change his tone, turn off the heat a little, scrap the derogatory references made towards their revered idols either by altering the text himself or negotiating with whoever was behind it to replace the Qur'aan with something less disparaging, and draw a formal truce in the War of Gods he had triggered off, but deep down their hearts to test his veracity so that, if he succumbed to their persuasion and altered the text, they would know that behind the garb of respectability he was nothing but a fraud and a hoax; and behind the facade of Divinity, the religion he was seeking to launch was nothing but a travesty.

The rebuttal from Allah contained in the above verses was sharp, clinical, unequivocal and unambiguous. They were told in no uncertain terms that the Qur'aan was from none other than Allah Himself; that Mohammed was chosen as His messenger to deliver His message to all mankind; that the message was non-negotiable and unchangeable; that the duty of a messenger was to deliver the message and not to arbitrate between its 'author' and its 'recipients'; that if the Prophet made any attempt to compromise its text by tampering with it, his punishment for so doing would be the same as anyone else; that there is no sin greater in magnitude than of imputing Him with lies, prevaricating His message and worshipping false deities instead of worshipping Him.

When the idolaters heard this, they immediately realized that Mohammed (saws) was going to be too painful a thorn in their flesh to be taken for granted; that he had the potential to become a serious adversary to the long practised and much cherished religion of their forefathers; that if they did not take steps to contain the threat heading their way soon, they could be in for a wholesale war rather than just a localized battle).