The Manipulation of 7:157
"He allows and he prohibits" - read as a second legislator. One verse later in the Book's own logic, God reprimands him for prohibiting one thing.
I. The Verse and the Claim
"...follow the messenger, the gentile prophet (Muhammad), whom they find written in their Torah and Gospel. He exhorts them to be righteous, enjoins them from evil, allows for them all good food, and prohibits that which is bad, and unloads the burdens and the shackles imposed upon them..." (7:157)
Because the verse says the prophet "allows" and "prohibits," traditional preachers conclude that Muhammad was a lawmaker in his own right - authorized to legislate lawful and unlawful alongside God, his rulings preserved as the hadith. The Quran closes this door three times, each more decisively than the last.
II. One Lawmaker
"Shall I seek other than GOD as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed?..." (6:114)
"The sole duty of the messenger is to deliver the message..." (5:99)
The lawmaker is God; the messenger is the courier of the law. When 7:157 says the prophet allows the good and prohibits the bad, it describes him doing his office: announcing, enforcing, and embodying God's allowances and prohibitions as they came down. A town crier "commands" the king's decree in every square without being king. And God asks, about lawful and unlawful specifically: "...Did GOD give you permission to do this? Or, do you fabricate lies and attribute them to GOD?" (10:59) - permission for legislation has exactly one source.
III. The Reprimand That Settles It
If any doubt survived, God recorded the one experiment: the prophet once prohibited something on his own - and revelation itself corrected him:
"O you prophet, why do you prohibit what GOD has made lawful for you, just to please your wives? GOD is Forgiver, Merciful." (66:1)
A genuine co-legislator cannot be reprimanded for legislating; the rebuke is only coherent if the authority was never his. This is the same Book that warns, under Rashad Khalifa's header "Muhammad Forbidden from Issuing Any Religious Teachings": "Had he uttered any other teachings. We would have punished him. We would have stopped the revelations to him. None of you could have helped him" (69:44-47). The manipulated 7:157 makes the prophet what 66:1 shows he was not and what 69:44-47 forbids him to be.
IV. Conclusion
Read whole, 7:157 is a portrait of the messenger at work: righteousness advocated, evil forbidden, God's good things declared lawful, God's few prohibitions declared - and the man-made burdens and shackles unloaded. There is a bitter irony in the manipulation: the verse celebrates the prophet for removing humanly-invented religious burdens, and it is quoted to authorize the largest body of humanly-invented religious burdens in history. The prophet of 7:157 lightened religion down to what God revealed. Those who legislate in his name have been stacking the shackles back on ever since - against the verse, against 66:1, and against the God who asked: did He give you permission?