Third Sign: The evidences for the universality of Muhammad’s (pbuh) messengership.

THIRD SIGN

The miracles of the Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) were extremely varied. Since his messengership was universal, he was distinguished by miracles that related to almost all species of creation. Just as the supreme lieutenant of a renowned ruler, arriving withmany gifts in a city where various peoples live, will be welcomed by a representative of each people, who acclaims him and bids him welcome in his own language; so too when the supreme Lieutenant of the Monarch of Pre-Eternity and Post-Eternity honoured the universe by coming as an envoy to the inhabitants of the earth, and brought with him the light of truth and spiritual gifts sent by the Creator of the universe, which were connected to the truths of the whole universe, each species of creation - from water, rocks, trees, animals and human beings to the moon, the sun and the stars- each welcomed him and acclaimed his prophethood, each in its own language, and each bearing one of his miracles.

Now it would require a voluminous work to mention all his miracles. As punctilious, investigating scholars have written many volumes concerning the proofs of his prophethood, here we will briefly point out only the general categories into which fall the miracles that are definite and accepted as accurate reports.

The evidences of the prophethood of Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace) fall into two main categories:

T h e   F i r s t is called irhasat and includes the paranormal events that happened at the time of his birth, or before his prophetic mission.

T h e   S e c o n d group pertains to all the remaining evidences of his prophethood, and contains two subdivisions:

The first are those wonders that were manifested after his departure from this world in order to confirm his prophethood, and the second, those that he exhibited during the era of his prophethood. The latter has also two parts:

The first, the evidences of his prophethood that became manifest in his own personality, his inner and outer being, his moral conduct and perfections, and the second, the miracles manifested in the outer world. The last part again has two branches:

One, those concerning the Qur’an and spirituality, and the other, those relating to materiality and the universe. This last branch is again divided into two categories:

The first involves the paranormal happenings that occurred during his mission either to break the stubbornness of the unbelievers, or to augment the faith of the believers. This category has twenty different sorts, such as the splitting of the moon, the flowing of water from his fingers, the satisfying of large numbers with a little food, and the speaking of trees, rocks and animals. Each of these sorts has also many instances, and thus has, in meaning, the strength of confirmation by consensus. As for the second category, this includes events lying in the future that occurred as he had predicted upon Allah’s instructions. Now, starting from the last category, we will summarize a list of them.¹

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1. Unfortunately, I could not write as I had intended. Without choice, I wrote as my heart dictated, and I could not completely conform to the order of this classification.