He is not obliged.
He is.
He said it for the simple reason that there are a ton of polemicists
That is why he is :
out there that paint up conspiracies and impugn the character of other scholars.
Kerr is a polemicist?
This situation is precisely because scholars are not at all prudent in their assertions because they do what their "scholar" statute must not allow : they believe in the narrative that they know (now...) not scientifically proved. (Mecca/Medina/Kaba...)
And they whine.
For instance, every inscription that is not in line with their own preferred hypothesis is a Saud forgery to cover up Islam's true origins. This is unfortunately a fact.
Because of the behaviour of scholars, nothing else. Those are trapped, as their universities are founded by the Gulf.
The scholars in the threas have answered these types of questions on several occasions, as I have asked about myself, which resulted in a long discussion.
Ok. They are incapable to discern what are forgeries or not ; the truth lies here... but for the aforementioned reasons, they cannot tell...
Not sure why the Quran says kuffar and mushrikun. Maybe rhetoric.
What rhetoric?
The Quran is ambiguous.
Why he would be ambiguous?