“A Short Treatise on Miracles”

By: Muhammad Abuzar

“Knowledge exists potentially in the human soul. Like the seed in the soil, by learning, the
potential becomes actual”
– Imam Al Ghazali

Miracles
Although there’s much dispute among scientists, philosophers, and theologians
regarding the definition of miracles, the most common understanding is provided
by the famous philosopher David Hume. He defined miracles as ‘a violation of the
laws of nature’—in other words, any event that breaks the laws of nature is
deemed a miracle. This definition is prevalent, even echoed in popular dictionaries
like The Oxford Dictionary. But is it really the case? Do miracles truly violate the
laws of nature? What are the laws of nature? What is a law? We shall attempt to
understand these questions, firstly on pure philosophical and scientific grounds,
then we shall see, how theologians answered these inquiries.
Do Miracles violate the laws of nature?
Hume’s famous objection on the miracles was that they’re simply impossible as
they violate the laws of nature. He believed that belief in miracles in general,
arose in primitive, pre-scientific cultures, where people were ignorant of the laws
of nature and so readily accepted miracle stories.
To answer the question, whether the miracles violate the laws of nature or not,
we shall try to understand it through an anology.
Suppose this week I put 10 Rs in the drawer of my desk. The following week, I put
in a further 20 Rs. And then the week after, another 10 Rs note is added, and the
drawer closed and locked. The laws of arithmetic allow me to predict that the next
time I open my drawer, I shall find 40 Rs.
But suppose when I next open the drawer, I find just a single 10 Rs note: what
shall I conclude? That the laws of arithmetic have been broken? Certainly not! I
might more reasonably conclude that some thief has broken not the laws of
arithmetic but the laws of the land and has stolen 30 Rs out of my drawer. One
thing it would be ludicrous to claim is that the existence of laws of arithmetic
make it impossible to believe in the existence of such a thief or the possibility of
his intervention. Quite the reverse is true: it is the normal workings of those laws
that cause us to believe in the existence of the thief and his activity in my house.
What are the laws of nature?
This analogy also reminds us that the scientific use of the word “law” is not the
same as the legal use, where we often think of a law as constraining someone’s
actions. There is no sense in which the laws of arithmetic constrain or pressurize
the thief in our story.
Newton’s law of gravitation tells me that if I drop an apple, it will fall towards the
centre of the earth. But that law does not prevent someone intervening and
catching the apple as it descends. In other words, the law predicts what will
happen, provided there is no change in the conditions under which the
experiment is conducted.
Thus, from the theistic perspective, the laws of nature predict what is bound to
happen if God does not intervene. It is no act of theft, of course, if the Creator
intervenes in his own creation. To argue that the laws of nature make it impossible
for us to believe in the existence of God and the likelihood of his intervention in
the universe is plainly false. It would be like claiming that an understanding of the
laws of the jet engine would make it impossible to believe that the designer of
such an engine could, or would, intervene and remove the fan. Of course he could
intervene. Moreover, his intervention would not destroy those laws. The very
same laws that explained why the engine worked with the fan in place would now
explain why it does not work with the fan removed.
David Hume was, therefore, incorrect to assert that miracles “violate” the laws of
nature.
Theists (specially muslims) do not deny the laws of nature. On the contrary, They
regard the laws of nature as descriptions of those regularities and cause-effect
relationships which have been built into the universe by its creator, and according
to which it normally operates. If we did not know them, we should never
recognise a miracle if we saw one.
Are miracles rationally impossible?
If someone informed a peasant from medieval times that metal could fly and
could carry people to distant lands in a few hours, they would think it impossible.
But what type of impossibility would this be? Is it impossible as a result of the
norms that we observe, or rationally impossible? The correct response would be
that metal flying and carrying people to distant lands is rationally possible, as we
observe with aeroplanes today, but during the medieval period it was impossible
to conceive in terms of the contemporary norms and habitual judgements.
When the Prophet Abraham was cast into the fire, the fire became cool and did
not burn him. This disengagement of burning from fire violates the norm
considered rationally possible but not the convention that such a rare moment in
observable nature could happen. If it were not rare and in contradistinction to the
norm, then it would not be deemed a miracle but the empirical norm.
Prophetic Miracles
The distinction between a prophetic miracle and the common understanding of a
miracle is that a prophetic miracle is only manifested after a challenge by an
unbeliever. Prophetic miracles in Islam must further be verified via the chains of
narration that themselves have a critical method of verification and narrator
accreditation and discreditation, as well as what is known as mutawātir. This
amounts to the mass transmission of an event observed experientially together
with a record of the number of people that experienced such that it would be
rationally impossible for them to concur on a lie. If a miracle is narrated through
mutawātir in the annals of Hadīth, it is accepted due to the impossibility of so
many people from innumerable distinct backgrounds concocting a lie.
David Hume expresses his thoughts on this by saying:
“There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such
unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of
such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such
credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being
detected in any falsehood; and at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner and
in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable.”

Theologians would assert that the prerequisites mentioned by Hume are fulfilled
in Islam and its method of transmission. Narrations are recorded with the names
and biographies of the transmitters, their credibility, memory, veracity, dates of
birth and even travels undertaken for their study. All of these details are recorded
in biographical entries in encyclopaedias and then cross-referenced with one
another to avoid any absences or discrepancies amongst the narrators. Even after
posterity and the recording of historical events, the narrations are cross-
referenced and critiqued textually. This entire process is detailed in the Hadith
literature genre and is one of the great human scientific achievements and
methods of preserving human history.
A common scientific objection
A common atheist scientific objection to religion relates to miracles and the
metaphysical realm. What is meant by metaphysics here is that which is beyond
nature, that which is beyond the material realm and outside the scientific
investigative range, like the existence or presence of angels and demons.
The metaphysical domain, as defined above, is that which is beyond the material
and testable realm and is also beyond the scientific method. While it cannot be
rejected or accepted with absolute certainty by an atheist, for a Muslim,
acceptance of reports relating to the unseen realm is based on the prior
acceptance of the Prophet who related such information of the unseen realm.
Therefore, while the information relating to the unseen realm cannot be
disproven in the material realm or does not contradict rational judgement, then it
lies in a neutral domain and has no corollary with science or the scientific method,
lying as it does beyond its scope. Thus, miracles lie outside the scope of scientific
investigation, therefore, they can’t be verified by the scientific methods.
Conclusion:
A miracle is from the word i’jaz in Arabic, which means to render the challenger
incapable of imitating the miracle, or it renders the taunts of the unbelievers
defunct. Once the miracle has been performed, like raising the dead or increasing
the abundance of food, it no longer exists and is not open to scientific
investigation as it has expired and was a one-off occurrence. Simply put, a miracle
is a violation of the general laws observed by human beings and organised by the
human mind into laws.
Thus, in rational theology there is nothing about a miracle which is unscientific or
irrational in the material world that falls within the judgement of the rationally
permissible in the mind’s eye-and as long as it is not a rational impossibility and is
verified through narrators of the event who witnessed it first-hand following a
strict report verification methodology that is detailed in the Hadith science.
Types of Miracles:
There are basically two types of miracles in Islam. Those, which are attributed to
the Prophets, are called Mu’jizāt and those, which are attributed to the saints, are
called Karāmāt.
Allama Sh’arani in his al-Yawaqit wal-Jawahir (vol: I, p: 165) asserts,
ALLAH blesses his aulia with karamah, it is a type of miracle. A supernatural act is a miracle when
performed by a Prophet and a karamah when performed by a wali.

Prophetic Miracles:
The Qur’an is full of various incidents of different kinds of miracles performed by
various prophets. All the prophets, they have a direct connection to Allah (swt).
They’re granted miracles by him directly. One important thing about miracles is
that, no Prophet or a saint can perform miracles on his own unless it’s willed by
Allāh.
Miracles of the saints:
Can saints, the friends of Allāh, perform miracles too? Well, this question has
been a topic of debate since the very start and is still going on. Majority of the
scholars have always been of the opinion, that yes, they can perform miracles. To
defend this position, I shall give you a deductive argument to prove the possibility
of miracles from the saints.
Deductive Argument
Before I present the argument, I’d like to give a very brief introduction of
Deductive reasoning, which I’ll be using to form the argument.
An example of a piece of deductive reasoning, or a deductive inference, is the
following:
P1: All Frenchmen like red wine
P2: Pierre is a Frenchman
Conclusion: Therefore, Pierre likes red wine

The first two statements are called the premisses of the inference, while the third
statement is called the conclusion. This is a deductive inference because it has the
following property: if the premisses are true, then the concusion must be true
too. In other words, if it’s true that all Frenchman like red wine, and if it’s true that
Pierre is a Frenchman, it follows that Pierre does indeed like red wine. This is
sometimes expressed by saying that the premisses of the inference entail the
conclusion. Of course, the premisses of this inference are almost certainly not true
– there are bound to be Frenchmen who do not like red wine. But that is not the
point. What makes the inference deductive is the existence of an appropriate
relation between premisses and conclusion, namely that if the premisses are true,
the conclusion must be true too. Whether the premisses are actually true is a
different matter, which doesn’t affect the status of the inference as deductive.
Argument to prove the possibility of miracles from the saints:
I’d like to mention one thing that must be kept in mind before going through the
argument and that is, the miracles of Prophets and Saints are not similar. Prophets
are much superior to the saints, as mentioned above, they have a direct link to
God, the access to miracles they have, the saints do not. A Prophet doesn’t need
to obey anyone other than Allah to be gifted with those miracles but the saints
being a part of the ummah of prophets must follow and obey the prophets as well
as God.
Allama Sh’arani in his al-Yawaqit wal-Jawahir (vol: II, p: 103) asserts that,
Karamah is displayed by a wali who is a resolute follower of his Prophet and a distinguished personality
in his community.

Now since we’ve build a ground, let’s have a look at the argument:
P1: Muslims hold firm belief in the miracles of the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an.
P2: Denying the miracles of the prophets results in one leaving Islam.

P3: Miracles performed by prophets are manifestations of God’s divine power.

P4: Likewise, miracles performed by saints are also expressions of God’s divine influence.
P5: If acceptance is granted to the miracles of the Prophets, the miracles of the saints must also
be accepted.
Conclusion: Objecting to the miracles of saints not only questions the veracity of the prophets
miracles but, as established, leads to a rejection of divine intervention and, ultimately, departure
from Islam.

Hence we’ve seen that it is possible to expect the acts of miracles from the saints.
But one thing must be kept in mind and that is, it doesn’t mean that we have to
accept all the people made false stories and miracles attributed to the saints, this
is not an obligation, but to accept the possibility of miracles from the saints does
become an obligation (as we’ve seen in the argument above). So to conclude,
rejecting any miracle based on it’s weak authenticity, it’s everyone’s right but to
reject the possibility of miracles entirely from the saints, it’s wrong and even
considered a major sin by some of the big scholars.
Some narrations of scholars related to the possibility of miracles from the Saints:
According to Faidh al-Bari (vol: IX. P: 198):
The reports of a karamah are so continuous that they cannot be legitimately denied, only the wretched
considers them impossible and indulges in falsification .

Imam Zahbi, in spite of being deeply committed to the opposition of sufis, dwelt
on the subject in the following words in his Kitab al-Alud al-Arsh (p: 56):
Take note that ALLAH, the Most Truthful, has informed us that Queen Bilqis owned a mighty throne. It
was lifted by a subject of Prophet Sulaiman and brought to him in the twinkle of an eye. Hence only an
ignoramus will deny the karamah of the aulia. There can be no bigger karamah than bringing a huge
throne from a distant land, in the twinkle of an eye. It is beyond the domain of intellect, we believe in,
and testify to the karamah of the aulia.

Writes Ibn-e Hajr about Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (Fatawa al-Hadithiah p: 174):
ALLAH’s bounties showered on Shaikh Abdul Qadir are manifested through his gnosis and karamah,
which have reached us through Twatir.

Allama Sh’arani in his Asni al-Matalib 111 Ahadith al-Mukhtalifah al-Maratib (p:
261) lists a maxim of Hadhrat Ali, the final word on the subject:
Only an ass can deny karamah of the wali.
May Allah accept our efforts and give us the true
understanding of his Deen. Ameen!