Auron ka hai Payaam aur, mera Payaam aur hai, / Ishq key dardmand ka tarz-e-kalaam aur hai! (Iqbal)
Other prophets of God, Allah bless them all, performed miracles too. Many of these miracles are mentioned in the Bible. The Qur’an also documents many of them. At the same time the Qur’an talks about some miracles about some of these prophets, God bless them, that are not found in the Bible.
As for the truth or validity of miracles performed by other prophets in earlier times, there are two ways to go about determining it:
One, we must have unimpeachable historical proof of what those miracle were and when and how they occurred. But sadly we have none of that available to us. What we have at our disposal in most cases is bits and pieces of hearsay testimony and speculation by all kinds of sources of questionable authenticity.
Two, we must have direct and clear-cut validation and confirmation of these miracles by the Qur’an, which is the direct and unimpeachable word of God on earth and in our hands. That is why God Almighty declared the Qur’an to be the official guardian and validator of the books that he gave to other prophets.
As a result, when solid historical proof is not available about what exactly these miracles were that were performed by other prophets, God bless them, and we have no reliable information as to when they happened and how, and where and under what circumstances they happened, then all we can do is suspend judgment about them.
And wait for some additional evidence or proof to come along.
In many cases, such additional confirmatory testimony is provided by the Qur’an, which makes those miracles by other prophets true and acceptable. That is because with regard to many things the Bible is a document of dubious validity. In many instances, its accounts are fragmentary, changeable, unreliable and contradictory.
Here then are some of the miracles of other prophets of God, may God bless them, in earlier times, reported in the Bible and validated by the Qur’an:
Moses, Allah bless him, parted the sea, allowing his followers to escape and causing Pharaoh and his hordes to drown.
Jesus, Allah bless him, among other things, raised the dead and cured the incurably ill.
Noah, Allah bless him, built the ark and escaped while the entire nation of his enemies, the enemies of God, drowned right before his eyes.
How do we know these miracles are true? We believe them to be true because not only did the Bible report them but mainly because the Qur’an came out clearly in their support and declared them to be true.
MUHAMMAD’S MIRACLES
Did Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, perform any miracles of his own – like many of the other major prophets from earlier times, God bless them all?
Yes, he did. Of course he did. Absolutely, positively he did. And below I list a few of them.
What we need to understand about miracles is that every miracle every prophet of God performed was a most momentous event in and of itself. It was unlike anything anyone had seen or known before. And it was unlike anything that anyone else could produce or perform or rival or match.
That is why it is called a miracle.
In Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, it is called Mu’jizah, which means something that no one but a prophet of God was capable of performing. For anyone else, it was impossible to emulate or duplicate.
Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, performed so many miracles on a daily basis that a full count of them is difficult if not impossible. The long and short of the story of his miracles is that every breath of his was a miracle; every moment of his existence on earth was a miracle; every word he uttered was a miracle; every teaching he imparted was a miracle; and every single Aayat of the book, Qur’an, he brought from God Almighty was a miracle.
So, his whole life was an ongoing miracle comprised of millions of individual miracles.
At the same time, there were certain specific aspects of his life that anyone could see were clearly out of the ordinary. Here are a few of the countless miracles performed by Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam:
On a cloudless night with a full moon swimming in the sky the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, pointed his finger at the moon and, impossible as it sounds, the moon split into two halves.
In a single night, he went from Makkah to Jerusalem and from there to the seven heavens and returned safely and none the worse from that impossible-sounding journey.
By all accounts, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, was an Ummiy, which means someone who could neither read nor write. And yet the Qur’an that came out of his noble mouth remains to this day a miracle of meaning, words, reading and writing.
Those who were smitten by the miraculous power of the Qur’an included not just the human masters of language, both prose and poetry, of his day, and subsequent generations, but also large numbers of Jinn – a fiery creation of God that parallels humans in freedom of choice and personal accountability.
When all propaganda, lies and persecution failed to contain the spread of Islam, the movers and shakers of Makkah had his house surrounded by battle-tested warriors, handpicked from every clan, to have him killed with one coordinated blow of their blood-thirsty swords. As the night advanced, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, threw a handful of dust in the direction of his would-be assassins and walked right past them without anyone being able to see him.
When the enemies of Islam formed an alliance and invaded and laid siege to Madinah in large numbers, out of nowhere a powerful sandstorm swept their encampments away making them all disperse and return to their homes in panic and disarray.
When Muslims were facing some of their most serious hardships and privations, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, comforted them by predicting that before too long they will inherit the lands and wealth of Persia and the Roman Empire. Of course this promise came true.
When he first moved to Madinah, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, used to lean on a tree trunk to deliver his Jum’ah Khutbah or speech. Later on, when a proper Mimbar – a three-step wooden device on which a speaker could stand – was made he left his usual tree trunk and climbed the newly installed Mimbar to give his speech. All of a sudden, the tree trunk began to cry and sob like a child and wouldn’t stop till Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, got off the Mimbar and comforted it by placing his hand on it.
Trees came running to him when he called them.
Trees and hills saluted him when he approached them.
Animals complained to him when they were abused.
He cured the ill and gave sight to the blind.
Miracles like these performed by Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, are countless and manifold. Call them what you will: big or small, minor or major. But what is most clear is that each instance was a full-fledged miracle in its own right.
At the same time, in the midst of this wealth of miracles there was one that stood out. And that miracle, among so many others, that have survived is alive and well to this day – resplendent as ever in its full original glory.
And that miracle is the Qur’an.
If you wish to call the Qur’an the greatest miracle of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, by all means go ahead and do so, but know that every other miracle that he performed was also the greatest miracle of its kind that anyone had ever heard of or seen with their own eyes.
[Write to the author at Drsyedpasha@aol.com. Also visit www.IslamicSolutions.Com and Listen to Pasha Hour International.]