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WHAT
SHOULD WE 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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