They would have known that through successful opposition to...

They would have known that through successful opposition to the Qur'an all this would vanish, and be nullified. What greater reason would there have been, then, to attempt such opposition? Instead, they resorted to war, wasting their wealth and composing polemical poetry, when all this availed them nothing. Thus, had opposition been possible for them they would have surely hastened to it, if for no other reason but that it would have been far easier than the other hardships which they undertook.

It would have, moreover, been far less costly than any of the other things they did. As for the argument which states that the abandonment of opposition was because of the miraculous nature of the Qur'an, it may be objected that the Prophet was more eloquent than all the men of his time, and that only through this was he able to achieve what they could not. It may be further objected that he was active for too short a time for them to present any opposition.

If, however, both of these objections could be refuted, then it would have to be concluded that this inability was unnatural, and hence was itself a miraculous phenomenon. It may be argued in refutation of the first objection that for any opposition to be effective, the two opposing parties must have similar abilities of eloquence. Since the Arabs did not even come close to the eloquence of the Qur'an, then the accepted norms were indeed miraculously suspended.

It is not possible for the less eloquent to imitate or closely approximate him who is more eloquent in all his speech. R is, however, possible for the less eloquent to approximate him who is more eloquent in some of his speech. This is usually the case. It is for this reason that later poets have equalled those of ancient times, and may have excelled them in some respects.

If the Qur'an challenged the Arabs to produce the like of one of its shorter Surahs, although it is more eloquent than they, that does not mean that they could not have equalled it in so small a portion. Moreover, it was not the case that the Prophet himself was of greater eloquence in his speech than others of his people.

Had he been of greater eloquence, while this special quality belonged only to the Qur'an, and had the Qur'an been his speech, then all his words should have been of eloquence equal to the Qur'an.