# Possible And Provable: The Prophet’s ﷺ Miracles **Author:** Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy **Series:** Proofs of Prophethood **Published:** 2022-02-26 **YouTube:** https://youtu.be/sUOiWOjLEQs **URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/possible-and-provable-miracles-the-prophets-miracles **Topics:** Faith, Prophets ## Description Prophet Muhammad ﷺ performed many miracles in his lifetime. How do we know if these miracles actually occurred at the time of the Prophet ﷺ? All of his miracles were reported extensively in the hadith corpus, heavily authenticated chains of narrations passed down meticulously and documented in the... ## Transcript **[0:00]** For the majority of people who believe that God is the creator of the universe and remains a willful agent in the world, God's ability to perform miracles or to enable others to perform them is easy to accept. **[0:15]** After all, if God created the laws of nature, it logically follows that he is not bound by the system of laws that he himself designed. And so he can also, if he so chooses, bring about occurrences outside of that system, **[0:31]** like miracles. Miracles are only problematic for atheists who believe in no God or deists who posit a non-intervening God. These are the only people that dismiss miracles as the remnants of the naive pre-modern mind **[0:52]** as Spinoza and Hume tried to argue centuries ago. Of course, just because miracles are logically possible does not mean that every last historical claim about a miracle occurring should just be accepted blindly. **[1:07]** No, there must be compelling evidence. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But are we open to evidence? As many people say nowadays, only seeing is believing. I cannot believe in something unless I've seen it myself. **[1:25]** But do we actually operate consistently according to that principle? Do we only use and trust maps that we have charted ourselves? Do we use this principle in that way with scientific facts? I refuse to accept them unless I've performed the experiment myself. **[1:44]** Rational people accept that testimony and its traceability and its corroboration, they mount together sufficient evidence that an event or a fact is certainly true, or at least likely true. This brings us to the science of hadith, a unique and sophisticated discipline in the **[2:04]** Islamic scholarly tradition that is comprised of 7 sub-disciplines, all engineered to filter for us what can and cannot be traced authentically back to the Prophet Muhammad. **[2:19]** As a result of this objective and meticulous process, only a tiny fraction of what is reported about the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, passes through all of the filters and the rigorous authentication process to be classified as an authentic hadith. **[2:38]** But the scholars of this discipline did not even stop there. They further subdivided and classified authentic traditions, authentic hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, into mutawatir, which are abundantly concurring, **[2:54]** or ahad, which are solitary reports. Mutawatir reports are those narrated to us by many narrators in every layer of their chain of transmission, which would make it inconceivable that all of this cross-referencing **[3:11]** would give us a mistaken report, and it would make it inconceivable that all of these different disconnected people colluded on a forgery. Ahad reports, when they are authentic, that means they've been transmitted to us reliably **[3:27]** just without reaching the benchmark, the criteria, of a mutawatir report. For this reason, the majority of hadith scholars believe that this category, the ahad, offer us preponderance, meaning greater likelihood, as opposed to certain positive knowledge which **[3:45]** the mutawatir offer. So how does this relate to miracles? Miracles occurring at the hand of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, by Allah's leave and consent, is a mutawatir concept. This means that the sheer multitude of reports about the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings **[4:05]** be upon him, performing miracles, make it irrelevant whether or not one specific incident, one specific miraculous event, has been verified or not. Even if some of these specific accounts of miracles are not independently mutawatir, **[4:22]** this can never mount to overturning the fact that he performed miracles and this is widespread common knowledge to all those who were around him and for generations to come. A good analogy to a mutawatir concept is the occurrence of World War I. **[4:39]** The sheer multitude of reports we receive 100 years later after World War I make World War I occurring uncontestable, even if some of the specific incidents reported to us about **[4:54]** World War I come from unsubstantiated pathways of knowledge. Rejecting a mutawatir concept would be tantamount to a person refusing to believe that the Mayan and Inca and Aztec civilizations ever existed unless they first invent their own time machine **[5:14]** and travel back in time to verify it themselves. And until that happens, this person would be willing to accept and entertain the possibility that these major historical civilizations existing in the first place could simply be **[5:30]** some trans-historical conspiracy similar to what the flat earth society posits today. Islam therefore requires with stringent conditions a demonstrable chain of transmission before attributing any statement or any action like a miracle to the Prophet Muhammad. **[5:51]** It's important to recognize how different this is from the accounts of miracles that exist in other faith traditions. They usually, if not always, lack a chain of transmission to begin with and are predicated entirely on faith. **[6:07]** With that bedrock and foundation in place, the next episode will cover accounts of some of the specific miracles of the Prophet Muhammad that were independently mutawatir. In other words, it will restrict itself to the most undisputable examples of specific **[6:28]** events Allah allowed to unfold on his blessed hands. ## Other Episodes in "Proofs of Prophethood" - [A Mighty Book: The Inimitable Qur'an](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/a-mighty-book-the-inimitable-quran.md) - [Knowledge Of The Lost Past : The Inimitable Qur'an](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/knowledge-of-the-lost-past-the-inimitable-quran.md) - [Muhammad ﷺ or Shakespeare? : The Inimitable Qur'an](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/muhammad-or-shakespeare-the-inimitable-quran.md) - [A Linguistic Wonder: The Inimitable Qur'an](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/a-linguistic-wonder-the-inimitable-quran.md) - [Behold God's Power: The Prophet’s ﷺ Miracles](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/behold-gods-power-the-prophets-miracles.md) - [Signs of The End Times: The Prophet’s ﷺ Prophecies](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/signs-of-the-end-times-the-prophets-prophecies.md) - [His Companions' Deaths: The Prophet’s ﷺ Prophecies](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/his-companions-deaths-the-prophets-prophecies.md) - [Flawless Accounts of The Future: The Prophet’s ﷺ Prophecies](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/flawless-accounts-of-the-future-the-prophets-prophecies.md) - [A Shoreless Ocean: The Prophet’s ﷺ Prophecies](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/a-shoreless-ocean-the-prophets-prophecies.md) - [Prohibiting Intoxicants: The Prophet’s ﷺ Message](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/prohibiting-intoxicants-the-prophets-message.md) - [Wise & Merciful Prohibitions: The Prophet’s ﷺ Message](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/wise-merciful-prohibitions-the-prophets-message.md) - [The Ritual Fast: The Prophet’s ﷺ Message](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-ritual-fast-the-prophets-message.md) - [The Islamic Prayer: The Prophet’s ﷺ Message](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-message-the-islamic-prayer.md) - [Moral & Intellectual Greatness: The Prophet’s ﷺ Message](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-message-moral-intellectual-greatness.md) - [Molding a Modern Generation: The Prophet’s ﷺ Accomplishments](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-accomplishments-molding-a-modern-generation.md) - [Revolutionizing Human Rights: The Prophet’s ﷺ Accomplishments](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-accomplishments-revolutionizing-human-rights.md) - [Restoring the Unity of God: The Prophet’s ﷺ Accomplishments](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-accomplishments-restoring-the-unity-of-god.md) - [A Love Larger Than Life: The Prophet’s ﷺ Accomplishments](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-accomplishments-a-love-larger-than-life.md) - [Preface: The Prophet’s ﷺ Accomplishments](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-accomplishments-preface.md) - [His Optimism: The Prophet’s ﷺ Character](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-character-his-optimism.md) - [His Bravery: The Prophet’s ﷺ Character](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-character-his-bravery.md) - [His Mercy: The Prophet’s ﷺ Character](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-character-his-mercy.md) - [His Simplicity: The Prophet’s ﷺ Character](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-character-his-simplicity.md) - [His Honesty: The Prophet’s ﷺ Character](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophets-character-his-honesty.md) - [The Fruits of His ﷺ Prophethood](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-fruits-of-his-prophethood.md) - [Biblical Prophecies](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/biblical-prophecies.md) - [The Darkest Century](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-darkest-century.md) - [The Multitude of Proofs of Prophethood](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-multitude-of-proofs-of-prophethood.md) - [Do We Still Need Prophets?](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/do-we-still-need-prophets-proofs-of-prophethood.md) - [The Physical Miracles of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ- Infographic](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-physical-miracles-of-prophet-muhammad-infographic.md) - [The Prophecies of Muhammad ﷺ](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophecies-of-muhammad-infographic.md) - [A Miraculous Revelation](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/a-miraculous-revelation-infographic.md) - [The Accomplishments of the Prophet Muhammad](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-accomplishments-of-the-prophet-muhammad-infographic.md) - [The Inimitable Qur’an - The Revelation to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: The Proofs of Prophethood Series](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-inimitable-quran-the-revelation-to-prophet-muhammad.md) - [The Message of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-message-of-prophet-muhammad-infographic.md) - [The Character of Prophet Muhammad (Infographic)](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-character-of-prophet-muhammad-infographic.md) - [Laying the Groundwork for the Coming of Prophet Muhammad](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/laying-the-groundwork-for-the-coming-of-prophet-muhammad-infographic.md) - [The Physical Miracles of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: Proofs of Prophethood Series](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-physical-miracles-of-prophet-muhammad.md) - [The Prophecies of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: Proofs of Prophethood Series](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-prophecies-of-prophet-muhammad.md) - [The Accomplishments of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: The Proofs Of Prophethood Series](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-accomplishments-of-prophet-muhammad.md) - [The Message of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: The Proofs of Prophethood Series](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-message-of-prophet-muhammad.md) - [The Character of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: How His Noble Qualities and Personality Are Proof of His Prophethood](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/the-character-of-prophet-muhammad-how-his-noble-qualities-and-personality-are-proof-of-his-prophethood.md) - [An Ethical and Historical Necessity: The Proofs of Prophethood Series](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/proofs-of-prophethood/an-ethical-and-historical-necessity-the-proofs-of-prophethood-series.md)