Muhammads Miracles: Difference between revisions

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

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:

See Also

• Muhammad's Revelations - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Muhammad's Revelations