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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.
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