Muhammad's Miracles
| This article or section is being renovated. Lead = 1 / 4
Structure = 2 / 4
Content = 2 / 4
Language = 2 / 4
References = 2 / 4
|
This article analyzes the Islamic belief that Muhammad was able to perform miracles.
Introduction
While some suggest Muhammad's only miracle was the revelation of the Qur'an, the so-called "Moon splitting miracle" and "Night Journey" and other lesser-known miracles are widely held to be orthodox Islamic beliefs, and find reference in the Qur'an and heavy endorsement in the hadith literature. Some of these miracles alleged to occur in Muhammad's life also appear to adaptations of miracle stories from earlier faiths.
The hadith record that Muhammad denied being able to perform miracles, and an analysis of the Qur'an clearly shows that he had maintained this denial when confronted by critics. And thus, according to imam Bukhari's criteria, the narrations which claim miracles on Muhammad's behalf should be discarded.
It appears more clearly then why Muhammad emphasized the Qur'an as his miracle, for he, it seems, did not think himself in possession of other miracles. Moreover, while miracles may serve as proof for those who witness them, they must come to mean little to others. Moreover, one may add, it is indeed quite difficult to maintain the Qur'an is miraculous, given its textual history and claims of dubious reliability, but this is only of secondary relevance to this article, which looks at what the Islamic scriptures say about the prophet's ability to do miracles whatsoever.
Miracles
Moon Splitting Miracle
And if they see a miracle they turn aside and say: Transient magic.
And they call (it) a lie, and follow their low desires; and every affair has its appointed term.Syed Abu-Ala' Maududi
Water Creation Miracle
Multiplied Bread Miracle
Analysis
Bukhari's criteria
When dealing with sahih hadith narrations, in the Islamic context, the burden of proof is always on the person who claims a certain narration is not authentic to provide the evidence for why they consider it to be not authentic.
Imam Bukhari came up with three criteria which he used to determine whether or not a narration was sahih or not. His third criteria is regarding mat'n (text), i.e. the text/content of a narration must not be in contradiction with the Qur'an. The only exception to this rule is the narrations regarded by scholars to be Qudsi (narrations which contain non-Qur'anic words from Allah).
Hadith Evidence
When challenged by skeptics, the hadith record that Muhammad denied being able to perform any miracles. He admitted that although other prophets before him were given the power of performing miracles, his only miracle was the Qur'an:
Qur'anic Evidence
Reaffirming the previous hadith, in the following verse Muhammad is acknowledging that other prophets before him came with miracles or clear signs but still people rejected them, highlighting the futility of miracles as the proof of his revelation:
The unbelievers asked Muhammad to perform a miracle so that they too could believe. All they received in response was,
And he would reply:
According to the Qur'an, people doubted Muhammad due to seeing nothing extraordinary or miraculous in him:
Muhammad maintained that he was just an ordinary man, not an angel, meaning people should not expect miracles from him:
Muhammad was accused of being a "possessed by demons" - a suspicion Muhammad, at one point shared - and other times of being a "mad man". One wonders if such accusations would be made against someone conducting miracles.
Miracles continued to be requested:
To this, Muhammad responded:
The Quraishites continued asking for a sign or a miracle to believe, however Muhammad repeated that he was only a warner:
Many other verses host the same theme: people asking for miracles, and Muhammad replies “I am just a man, just like you, only a warner”.
This verse seems to suggest that miracles would prove futile and that, as such, they were not provided to Muhammad:
If the hadith describing Muhammad's miracles are to be considered authentic, what might these verses possibly be referring to? In fact, one would imagine that Qur'an would rather emphasize such miracles, had they occurred, rather `than implying their non-occurrence.
The following verses seems to suggest that miracles are an insufficient grounds for prophet-hood, since magicians can achieve what resembles miracles:
Modern Historian Views of Quran Verse 54:1
Many modern academics view the moon splitting verse in the Qur'an simply as a natural astronomical phenomena that may have occurred during the time of Mohammed; which he believed was a sign the hour was imminent, a common belief in antiquity that appears in Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writings in the centuries preceding Islam (and during early Islam),[1] which later commentators and biographers writing hagiographic material exaggerated to be a miraculous literal splitting. Uri Rubin and Rudi Paret for example suggest it was a partial lunar eclipse,[2] while David Cook notes it may have been a comet.[3]
...In the spirit of this awareness, the reality of the ‘drawing near hour’ is affirmed in v. 1. This happens for the first time through an empirically observed natural phenomenon: a ‘moon splitting,’ perhaps a lunar eclipse, if one wishes to follow Rubin (2010) with the interpretation of the word in the sense of a poetic-pictorial dressing of the well-known phenomenon. The listeners are familiar with such changes in the celestial bodies from the eschatological predictions clothed in so-called idhā series (see the text type SKMS, 188ff.). Thus a change in the moon in Q 75:8 stands in the context of an eschatological scene. The short sentence Q 75:7–13 rhymes with the same schema 3Car as Q 54, it is obviously evoked here. In Q 75 the ‘disappearance’ of the moon is followed by the prediction of a merging of the sun and moon and finally the projection of the last day... ...A phenomenon known from apocalyptic literature as a sign of the end of the world, which had already been part of the proclamation, is explained as being present in the now: the change in a celestial body has now actually occurred; so the “hour” is near. However, this upgrading of the natural phenomenon was met with ridicule from the opponents...
..As Bell (1939: 544ff.) and Paret (KKK, 495) have already emphasized, v. 1 is about a natural event that may have actually taken place at the time of the Meccan proclamation. The interpretation of iqtarabat (and inshaqqat) as “Perfectum propheticum,” as an indication of a future event, which older translators advocate (cf. Blachère 1949: 140ff.), is anachronistic, obviously owing its origins to Islamic tradition. It occurs because the “sign” of the splitting of the moon, which according to a hadith of Ibn Masʿūd was observed by Masʿūd himself and therefore had early relevance in the biography of the prophet, could no longer function as an eschatological sign that had already occurred, as the associated announcement of the imminent end of the world had not come true. It was now understood by some as a mere prediction of an apparition, by others as a sign actually wrought by the prophet himself, a confirming miracle (see Andrae 1918: 55–57; Schimmel 1985: 69–71; and especially Rubin 2010; for the discussions of the theologians who, like al-Naẓẓām [d. 844/845], had to deal with the nonfulfillment of the prediction of the end of the world, see van Ess 1992: 415ff. and 1995: 167ff.).See Also
- Muhammad's Revelations - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Muhammad's Revelations
- ↑ For examples of this in Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrianism literature in the centuries preceding Islam, see Shoemaker, Stephen J. The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Chapters 1 - 4 For Muslim's similar beliefs in early Islam, see Chapters 5 and 6.
- ↑ Muhammad’s message in Mecca: warnings, signs, and miracles [The case of the splitting of the moon (Q 54:1-2)]. Uri Rubin in Jonathan E. Brockopp, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Muhammad (Cambridge, 2010), 39-60. Noting Rudi Paret's opinion in footnote 9 pp. 44.
- ↑ Shoemaker, Stephen J.. The Death of a Prophet (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion) (p. 161). University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.. Kindle Edition.