SAY: IF THE WHOLE
(HOLY QURAN 17:88)
WHAT IS A MIRACLE?
I think it is necessary that we have a clear picture of what we mean by a miracle. Here are some definitions:- "An act beyond human power, an impossibility."
It is logical that greater the impossibility, greater the miracle. For example, should a person expire before our very eyes and is certified dead by a qualified medical man, yet later on a mystic or a saint commands the corpse to 'arise!" and to everybody's astonishment the person gets up and walks away; we would label that as a miracle. But if the resurrection of the dead took place after the corpse had been in the mortuary for three days, then we would acclaim this as a greater miracle. And if the dead was made to arise from the grave, decades or centuries after the body had decomposed and rotted away, then in that case we would label it the greatest miracle of them all!
It has been a common trait of mankind since time immemorial that whenever a Guide from God appeared to redirect their steps into the Will and Plan of God; they demanded supernatural proofs from these men of God, instead of accepting the Message on its merit. Matthew 12:38-39 (Holy Bible)
Though on face of it, Jesus (pbuh) refuses to pamper the Jews here, in actual fact, he did perform many miracles as we learn from the Gospel narratives.
Some six hundred years after the birth of Jesus Christ (pbuh), Muhammad (pbuh) the Messenger of God was born at Makkah in Arabia. When he proclaimed his Mission at the age of forty, his fellow countrymen, the MUSHRIKS
(4) of Makkah made an identical request for Miracles, as had the Jews, from their promised Messiah. Text book style, it was as if the Arabs had taken a leaf from the Christian records. History has a habit of repeating itself!
AND THEY SAY: (HOLY QUR'AN 29:50)
SIGNS! WHAT SIGNS?
"MIRACLES? CRIES HE, WHAT MIRACLES WOULD YOU HAVE? ARE NOT YOU YOUR-SELVES THERE? GOD MAD YOU, 'SHAPED YOU OUT OF A LITTLE CLAY.' YE WERE SMALL ONCE; A FEW YEARS AGO YE WERE NOT AT AL. YE HAVE BEAUTY, STRENGTH, THOUGHTS, 'YE HAVE COMPASSION ON ONE ANOTHER.' OLD AGE COMES-ON YOU, AND GRAY HAIRS; YOUR STRENGTH FADES INTO FEEBLENESS: YE SINK DOWN, AND AGAIN ARE NOT. 'YE HAVE COMPASSION ON ONE ANOTHER," THIS STRUCK ME MUCH MIGHT HAVE MADE YOU HAVING NO COMPASSION ON ONE ANOTHER, -HOW HAD IT BEEN THEN! THIS IS A GREAT DIRECT THOUGHT, A GLANCE AT FIRST-HAND INTO THE VERY FACT OF THINGS..." "On Heroes hero-worship and the
By Thomas Carlyle "THIS STRUCK ME MUCH"
This, that - "Ye have compassion on one another," impressed Thomas Carlyle most from his perusal of an English translation. I persume, the verse that motivated this sentiment is: (HOLY QUR'AN 30:21)
(3) By another sign he gave you wives from among yourselves,
That ye might LIVE IN JOY WITH THEM, and planted love and kindness into your hearts.
Surely there are signs in this for thinking men. (Emphasis added) - Translation by N . J. Dawood
Carlyle is very charitable to his fellow countrymen. The motives of George Sale who pioneered an English Translation of the Holy Qur'an, were suspect. He makes no secret of his antagonism to the Holy Book of Islam. In his preface to his translation in 1734 he made it known that it was his avowed intention to expose the man Mohammad and his forgery. He records:
What Signs? They mean some special kinds of signs or miracles such as their own foolish minds dictate. Everything is possible for God, but God is not going to humour the follies of men or listen to their false demands. He has sent His Messenger to explain His Signs clearly, and to warn them of the consequences of rejections. Is that not enough? The trend of their demand is generally as follows:
SAY (O MUHAMMAD): (HOLY QUR'AN 29:50)
In the following AAYAAH (7) (verse) the Holy Prophet is made to point to the Holy Qur'an itself as an answer to their hypocritical demand for some special kind of "Sign" or "Miracle" for which their foolish, pagan mentality craved. For indeed all miracles are "signs"' and it is their disbelief, their scepticism, their lack of faith which motivates their request for a sign. They are asked to "Look at the Qur'an" And again, "Look at the Qur'an!"
IS IT NOT ENOUGH FOR THEM
TWO PROOFS
As proof of the Divine authorship and the miraculous nature of the Holy Qur'an, two arguments are advanced by the Almighty Himself: AND THOU (O MUHUMMED) WAS NOT (HOLY QUR'AN 29:48)
1. The Author of the Qur'an is reasoning with us, that had Muhummed (pbuh) been a learned man, and had he been able to read or write, then in that case the babblers in the market places might have had some justification to doubt his claim that the Holy Qur'an is God's Word. In the event of Muhummed (pbuh) being a literate person, the accusation of his enemies that he had probably copied his Book (Al-Qur'an) from the writings of the Jews and the Christians, or that perhaps he had been studying Aristotle and Plato, or that he must have browsed through the "Torat," the "Zabur" and the "Injeel"
(11) and had rehashed it all in a beautiful language, might have carried some weight. Then, "THE TALKERS OF VANITIES" might have had a point. But even this flimsy pretence has been denied to the unbeliever and the cynic: a point hardly big enough to hang a fly upon!
(12)
DO THEY NOT CONSIDER (HOLY QUR'AN 4:82)
CONSISTENCY?
It is inconceivable that any human author would remain consistent in his teachings and his preachings for a period of over two decades. From the age of forty, when Muhammad (pbuh) received his first call from heaven to the age sixty-three when he breathed his last, for twenty three years the holy Prophet practised and preached Islam. In those twenty three years, he passed through the most conflicting vicissitudes of life. Any man, during the course of such a mission, would be forced by circumstances to make "honourable" compromises, and cannot help contradicting himself. No man can ever write the same always, as the message of the Holy Qur'an is: CONSISTENT WITH ITSELF, throughout! Or is it that the unbelievers' objections are merely argumentative, refractory, against their own better light and judgment?
Again and again when miracles are demanded from the Prophet of God by the cynical and frivolous few, he is made to point to the QUR'AN - messages from High - as "The miracle." THE MIRACLE OF MIRACLES! And men of wisdom, people with literary and spiritual insight, who were honest enough to themselves, recognised and accepted Al-Qur'an as a genuine miracle. Says the Holy Qur'an:
NAY, HERE ARE
SIGNS SELF-EVIDENT (HOLY QUR'AN 29:49)
The Miracle of Miracles
OF MANKIND AND JINNS (1)
WERE TO GATHER TOGETHER
TO PRODUCE
THE LIKE OF THIS QUR'AN,
THEY COULD NOT PRODUCE
THE LIKE THEREOF,
EVEN IF THEY BACKED UP
EACH OTHER WITH
HELP AND SUPPORT. (2)
A COMMON TRAIT
For example, when Jesus Christ (pbuh) began to preach to his people - "The Children of Israel" - to mend their ways and to refrain from mere legalistic formalism and imbibe the true spirit of the Laws and Commandments of God, his "people" demanded Miracles from him to prove his bona fides, 1 as recorded in the Christian Scriptures:
Then certain of the scribes and the Pharisees answered, saying Master, we would have a SIGN (Miracle) from thee.
But he answered and said unto them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a SIGN (Miracle) and there shall no SIGN (Miracle) be given to it, but the SIGN (Miracle) of the Prophet Jonas:
(3) (Emphasis added)
The holy Bible is full of supernatural events accredited to the Prophets from their Lord. In reality all those "signs" and "wonders" and "miracles" were acts of god, but since those miracles were worked through His human agents, we describe them as the Miracles of Prophets, i.e. Moses or Jesus (peace be upon them) by whose hands they were performed.
QUIRK CONTINUES
WHY ARE NOT SIGNS (5)
SENT DOWN TO HIM
FROM HIS LORD?
Heroic in History,"
The first example is from the translation by A.Yusuf Ali, a Muslim. The Second is by a Christian priest the Rev. Rodwell and the last example is by an Iraqi Jew, N.J.Dawood.
Unfortunately Thomas Carlyle had no access to any one of these because none of them had seen the light of day in his time. The only one available to him in 1840 was as he said on page 85 of his book under reference-
"WE ALSO CAN READ THE KORAN (6) ; OUR TRANSLATION OF IT, BY SALE, IS KNOWN TO BE A VERY FAIR ONE." (Emphasis added)
TAINT IS IN THE MOTIVE
"WHO CAN APPREHEND ANY DANGER FROM SO MANIFEST A FORGERY?... THE PROTESTANTS ALONE ARE ABLE TO ATTACK THE KORAN WITH SUCCESS; AND FOR THEM, I TRUST, PROVIDENCE HAS RESERVED THE GLORY OF ITS OVERTHROW." George Sale
And he set to work with his prejudiced translation. You will be able to judge how "fair" and scholarly George Sale was from the very verse which "Struck" (Carlyle) "much!" Compare it with the three examples already given by a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew:
And of his signs another is,
that he had created for you, out of yourselves, wives that YE MAY COHABIT WITH THEM and hath put love and compassion between you.(Emphasis added)
I do not think that George Sale was "a male chauvinist pig" of his day to describe our mates, wives or spouses as sexual objects. he was only keeping to his promise, which Carlyle overlooked. The Arabic word which he (Sale) perverted is "li-tas-kunoo" which means to find peace, consolation, composure or tranquillity; and not "cohabit" meaning "To live together in a sexual relationship when not legally married." (The Reader's Digest Universal Dictionary.)
Every word of the Qur'anic text is meticulously chosen, chiselled and placed by the All-Wise Himself. They carry God's "fingerprint", and are the Signs of God, And yet, the spiritually jaundiced...
ASK FOR A SIGN
In specific terms they asked that he - Muhammad (pbuh)- 'Put a ladder up to heaven and bring down a book from God in their very sight' - "THEN WE WOULD BELIEVE," they said. Or "Ye see the mountain yonder, turn it into gold' - "THEN WE WOULD BELIEVE." or 'Make streams to gush out in the desert' - THEN WE WOULD BELIEVE."
Now listen to the soft, sweet reasoning of Muhammad (pbuh) against the unreasonable and sceptical demands of the MUSHRIKS - "Do I say to you, verily I am an angel? Do I say to you, verily in my hands are the treasures of God? Only, what is revealed to me do I follow."
Listen further to the most dignified reply he is commanded by his Lord to give the Unbelievers.
'THE SIGNS (MIRACLES) ARE INDEED
WITH ALLAH:
AND MOST CERTAINLY I AM ONLY A
CLEAR WARNER!'
THAT WE (8) HAVE SENT DOWN TO THEE
(O MUHUMMED!) THE BOOK (AL-QUR'AN)
WHICH IS REHEARSED TO THEM?
VERILY, IN IT (THIS PERSPICUOUS BOOK)
IS A MERCY AND REMINDER
TO THOSE WHO BELIEVE. (9)
"ONE OTHER CIRCUMSTANCE WE MUST NOT FORGET: THAT HE HAD NO SCHOOL LEARNING; OF THE THING WE CALL SCHOOL-LEARNING NONE AT ALL."
Moreover the Divine Author (God Almighty) Himself testifies to the verdict of Mohammed's (pbuh) claim that he could never have composed the contents of the Holy Qur'an; he could not have been it's author;
(ABLE) TO RECITE A BOOK
BEFORE THIS (BOOK CAME),
NOR ART THOU (ABLE) TO TRANSCRIBE IT
WITH THEY RIGHT HAND:
IN THAT CASE, INDEED, WOULD THE
TALKERS OF VANITIES HAVE DOUBTED (10)
THE QUR'AN (WITH CARE)?
HAD IT BEEN FROM
OTHER THAN GOD
THEY WOULD
SURELY HAVE FOUND
THEREIN MUCH DISCREPANCY (13)
Furthermore, the Holy Qur'an contains or mentions many matters relating to the nature of the universe which were unknown to man before but which subsequently through evolution and discoveries of Science have fully confirmed - a field where an untutored mind would have most certainly lost in wild and contradictory speculations!
SELF-EVIDENT PROOF
IN THE HEARTS
OF THOSE ENDOWED
WITH KNOWLEDGE: (14)
AND NONE BUT
THE UNJUST REJECT
OUR SIGNS. (15)
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