Apart from the greatest miracle given to him, the Quran,
Prophet Muhammad performed many physical miracles witnessed by his
contemporaries numbering in hundreds, and in some cases thousands.[1] The miracle reports have
reached us by a reliable and strong methods of transmission unmatched in world
history. It is as if the miracles were performed in front of our
eyes. The meticulous method of transmission is what convinces us that
Muhammad indeed performed these great miracles with divine aid and, thus, we
can believe him when he said, ‘I am God’s Messenger.’
Muhammad’s great miracles were witnessed by thousands of
believers and skeptics, following which verses of the Quran were revealed
mentioning the supernatural events. The Quran made some miracles eternal
by etching them in the conscious of the believers. The ancient detractors
would simply remain silent when these verses were recited. Had these
miracles not taken place, they would have seized the moment to scandalize it
and belie Muhammad. But rather, the opposite took place. The
believers grew more certain of the truth of Muhammad and the Quran. The
fact that the faithful grew stronger in their faith and the silence of the
unbelievers and not denying their occurrence is acknowledgment from both that
the miracles took place exactly as the Quran describes.
In this section we will discuss some of the physical
miracles performed by Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him.
Miracles are from Divine Power
A miracle one of the factors which further strengthens the
claim of a prophet of God Miracles should not be the soul essence of belief, as
supernatural events can also take place by the use of magic and devils.
The truth of prophethood is clear and evident in the actual message
brought, as God has instilled a capability, although limited, in humans to
recognize the truth as it is, specifically in the matter of monotheism But in
order to further strengthen the argument of Prophethood, God performed miracles
at the hands of His Prophets from Moses, Jesus to Muhammad. For this
reason, God did not produce miracles upon the demand of the Meccans,
but the Wise God gave Muhammad the miracles He desired at the time He choose:
“And they say, ‘We will not believe you until you break open
for us from the ground a spring, or [until] you have a garden of date-palms
and grapes and make rivers gush forth within them in force [and
abundance] or you make the heaven fall upon us in fragments as you have claimed
or you bring God and the angels before [us] or you have a house of ornament
[gold] or you ascend into the sky. And [even then], we will not believe
in your ascension until you bring down to us a book we may read.’ ‘Say,
Exalted is my Lord! Was I ever but a human messenger?’’’ (Quran 17:90-93)
The answer was:
“And nothing has prevented Us from sending [this message,
like the earlier ones,] with miraculous signs [in its wake], save [Our
knowledge] that the people of olden times [only too often] gave the lie to
them: thus, We provided for [the tribe of] Thamud the she-camel as a visible
sign, but they wronged her. And never did We send those signs for any
other purpose than to convey a warning.” (Quran 17:59)
When demanded ostensibly, God in His wisdom knew they would
not believe, so He refused to show them miracles:
“Now they swear by God with their most solemn oaths that if
a miracle were shown to them, they would indeed believe in this [divine
writ]. Say: ‘Miracles are in the power of God alone.’ ‘And for all
you know, even if one should be shown to them, they would not believe so long
as We keep their hearts and their eyes turned [away from the truth], even as
they did not believe in it in the first instance: and [so] We shall leave them
in their overweening arrogance, blindly stumbling to and fro.’” (Quran
6:109-110)
We gather here some of the major physical miracles performed
by Prophet Muhammad.
Footnotes:
[1] The
miracles add up to over a thousand. See ‘Muqaddima Sharh’ Saheeh
Muslim’ by al-Nawawi and ‘al-Madkhal’ by al-Baihaqi.
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