What we must understand
from 'Miracle'
A miracle is an extraordinary accomplishment which God Almighty brings about at
the hands of a Prophet in order to prove his Prophethood, strengthen the faith of
believers, and to break the obstinacy of unbelievers.
The universe operates according to fixed laws that God has determined. But for these
laws and the uniform character of natural events, everything would be happening
in a continuously changing, unstable flux and we could therefore not have found
out the Divine laws of nature or realized any scientific developments. Although
recent discoveries in atomic physics have made it clear that whatever exists is
a wave in continuous motion and therefore it is not possible to say that a second
later its existence will be in the same state as it is in now, on the surface everything
occurs according to the principles which the ‘classical’ or Newtonian
physics established.
Normally, life has its own laws according to which we behave. We need certain amount
of food and water to satisfy our hunger and thirst and go to a doctor when we are
ill. We use animals to do certain kinds of labor for us but we cannot talk to them.
Trees are fixed in their places and neither they nor stones and mountains give us
greetings. We act in conformity with the laws of gravitation and repulsion and we
do not attempt to rise upwards into the sky without first making calculations based
upon those laws.
God is not dependent on or bound to any “natural”
laws
All these and other laws are for us; but for them, as we pointed out above, life
would be impossible for us. However, since it is God Who has determined them, He
is not dependent on or bound to any of these laws at all. Therefore, He may sometimes
annul any of these laws or change the ordinary flux of events and create an ‘extraordinary’
occurrence at the hands of a Prophet, either to provide a proof for his Prophethood
or to show that He is is able to do whatever He wills at whatever time He desires.
We call such an occurrence a ‘miracle’. The original word in Islamic
literature translated as miracle is mu‘jiza, which literally means something
which makes others unable to produce a like of it. If God creates such an occurrence
at the hands of a saint, not a Prophet, then it is called karama, meaning, literally,
an ‘extraordinary favor’. These favors constitute another proof for
the Prophethood of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, and the truth of Islam.
Examples of the predictions of some saints
There are innumerable karama God has created at the hands of Muslims. One kind of
these consists in foretelling future events. For example, although having died almost
half a century before the establishment of the Ottoman State, Muhyi al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi
wrote in his Shajarat al-Nu‘maniyya about the Ottomans and predicted the conquest
of Damascus and Egypt by them. He also wrote that Murad IV would March upon Baghdad
and conquer it after a siege of 41 days, and that Sultan ‘Abd al-‘Aziz
would be killed by cutting the veins of his wrists. Again, he writes in his work
mentioned: ‘When “S” enters “SH”, the burial-place
of Muhyi al-Din will be discovered.’ Using symbols in his predictions, by
‘S’ he means ‘Selim’, and by ‘SH’, Sham (Damascus).
Like his other predictions, this one also came true when the Ottoman Sultan Selim
I conquered Damascus, he had Ibn al-‘Arabi’s burial-place discovered
and ordered a tomb to be built on it.
As another example, Mushtaq Dada from Bitlis, an eastern province of Turkey, predicted
seventy-one years before in verse that after many wars and convulsions Ankara would
be the capital city of Turkey. Interestingly enough, Mushtaq Dada gives the name
of the one who would change the capital city from Istanbul to Ankara. When you combine
the initial letters of the lines of Mushtaq Dada’s piece of verse, you will
read the name Kamal.
All of the Prophets were favored with miracle-working
God Almighty favored all His Prophets with miracle-working. However, since all the
previous Prophets were sent to a certain people and their Prophethood was restricted
to a certain time and people, the miracles they worked pertained to the arts or
crafts widespread in the time of each. For example, since at the time of Moses,
upon him be peace, sorcery enjoyed great prestige in Egypt, God Almighty favored
Moses with a ‘staff’ which would change into a snake which swallowed
all the products of sorcerers. Likewise, at the time of Jesus, upon him be peace,
the healing arts enjoyed great prestige and most of the miracles Jesus worked pertained
to healing.
The miracles of the noble Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, are very diverse.
Since his Messengership is universal, he was distinguished by miracles that are
connected with nearly all species of creation. When the aide-de-camp of a glorified
ruler enters a city, bearing diverse gifts, a representative from each of the different
peoples of that city welcomes him cheerfully, each in his own language. In the same
way, when the supreme Messenger of the Eternal Sovereign honored the universe as
an envoy to the human inhabitants of the earth, bringing from the Creator the light
of truth and spiritual gifts that are related to the truths of the whole universe,
he was welcomed as the Prophet by each species-from mineral elements to plants,
animals and human beings, and from moon and sun to stars-in its own language and
bearing one of his miracles. It would require many volumes to mention all his miracles.
The majority of the Prophet’s miracles, numbering about one thousand, were
related, first, by a group of Companions and then by numerous reliable narrators
and authorities, and were recorded in authentic books of Tradition. As for the rest
of them, although they were related each by one or two Companions, they must also
be indisputable, as they later acquired unanimity by being accepted as truth by
reliable authorities and narrated by more than one chain of transmission. In addition,
most of those miracles occurred in the presence of great gatherings, either during
a military campaign or a wedding ceremony or on similar occasions like a feast,
and one or two of those present related the miracle and the others confirmed him
by keeping silent. Therefore, the miracles recorded in authentic books of Tradition
are indisputable and it is impossible to deny or reject them.
Every word, act and state of the noble Prophet, upon him
be peace and blessings, bears witness to his Prophethood and his faithfulness, but
not all of them need necessarily be miraculous
Every word, act and state of the noble Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings,
bears witness to his Prophethood and his faithfulness, but not all of them need
necessarily be miraculous. For the Almighty sent him in the form of a human being
so that he could be a guide and leader to human beings in all their individual and
collective affairs, through which they can attain happiness in both worlds, and
so that he could disclose to human beings the wonders of God’s art and the
works of His Power, each of which is, in fact, a miracle although it appears to
us ordinary and familiar. If he had been extraordinary in all his acts, then he
could not have been a guide to human beings and instructed them through his words,
acts and attitudes. He was, however, provided with some extraordinary phenomena
to prove his Prophethood to obstinate unbelievers and so he occasionally worked
miracles. But his miracles never occurred in such an obvious fashion as would have
obliged people to believe as it were against their free will. For, in accordance
with the test and trial that man is to undergo in the world, the way to truth must
be shown to him without depriving him of using his free will. If the miracles had
occurred in so apparent a way as to compel people to believe, without allowing them
to use their own power of choice, then intelligence would have been left with no
choice and there would have remained no meaning in testing man in this life and
in his being the noblest of creation endowed with a free will and intellect.