The second inconceivable thing demanded by the disbelievers was that the Prophet should bring God so that they meet Him and see Him. This is indeed impossible, for God cannot be seen with the eyes; otherwise, He would be limited in certain ways, and He would have color and countenance, and all this is inconceivable for God.
The third inconceivable thing was to bring down a letter from God. What made this impossible was that they wanted a letter sent down that was handwritten by God, and not one that could be created and brought into being. This may be inferred from the fact that if they had meant a letter sent down through any means possible, there was no reasonable ground for demanding that it should come from heaven. An earthly letter would have served the purpose just as well as a heavenly one. There is no doubt that what they demanded was impossible because it would have required that God should possess a body with limbs. Exalted is God from all this, Sublime and Supreme.
The other three things, although possible, had no bearing on the truthfulness of
the claim to be a prophet. This is because causing a spring to gush forth from the Earth, or owning a garden of date-palms and grapes and abundant rivers, or owning a house of gold-these things have no connection with the claim to be a prophet. Many people have one of them,•yet they are not prophets. Indeed, some people have all three of them, yet they are not necessarily believers, let alone prophets. Since these things have no bearing on the claim of prophethood, and do not prove its veracity, producing them in the context of proving this veracity would be a futile act that a wise prophet would not perform.
Some individuals may delude themselves into believing that these three things do not prove the veracity of a prophet only when they are realized through conventional and familiar means. But if they are realized through extraordinary means, then there would be no doubt that they are divine signs, which confirm the truthfulness of a prophethood.
The response to this is as follows. In itself, this is correct. But the unbelievers wanted these things even through the conventional means, for they found it incon‌ ceivable that a divine messenger should be poor and without possessions:

And they say, "If only this Quran had been revealed to some great man of the two towns [Mekka and Taif] (Q. ٤٣:٣١).

Consequently, they asked that the Prophet be a wealthy person. What indicates this is that they qualified their demand by asking that the garden and the house of gold should belong exclusively to the Prophet. Had they truly wanted these things to serve as miracles, then there would have been no valid reason for this condition; rather, there was no reason for them to demand the garden and the house, for it would have been sufficient to produce a single grape or a little bit of gold.
As for the unbelievers saying, "Till you cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us," there is no evidence in it that they were asking for the spring for them, and not for the Prophet, but simply that they were asking him to make it gush forth for their sake. The difference between the two senses is clear. Moreover, the Prophet did not admit to them his inability to perform the miracle, as those [who subscribe to the view under discussion] have imagined erroneously. Rather, what he made clear to them by saying, "Glorified is my Lord" is that God is above any incapacity; that He is capable of anything possible; that He is above being seen or encountered; that