19. PROPHET MUHAMMAD’S MIRACLES

Like other prophets before, Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) was also endowed with miracles. The miracles of Prophet Moses (p.b.u.h.) were turning his stick into a serpent and splitting the sea; the miracles of Prophet Jesus (‘Isā, p.b.u.h.) were speaking in his cradle defending his mother’s honour, healing the sick and the blind, bringing a dead person back to life, and many others.
These are among Prophet Muhammad’s miracles: when he was nursed by H...alīmah in the desert, he used to play and tend sheep with H...alīmah’s son Abdulllah. One day two men wearing white dress came and took him away, opened his breast and cleaned his heart. Abdullah ran home and told his mother what had happened. H...alīmah worried about Muhammad, so she brought him back to his mother in Mecca. At that time, he was four years old. These two people in white dress were angels. This kind of heart cleaning operation by angels occurred only to the Prophet, although the appearance of angels as human beings occurred also to Prophet Abraham (Ibrāhīm, p.b.u.h.), Maryam (Mary, Prophet Jesus’ mother), and later Gabriel appeared to the Prophet and his companions as a handsome man resembling Duh.yat al-Kalbī.
On the 27th of Ramadan, the Prophet received the first revelation at Mt. H...irā’. The revelation continued for 23 years. He was ordered by Allah to call people to Islam. In the beginning, he called people secretly for three years. Then, when he called them openly, the people of Mecca were against him. In the seventh year of his mission, they boycotted him, the Muslims, and the Banī Hāshim clan for assisting him. They wrote the ban on a piece of parchment and put it in the Ka‘bah. The Prophet, the Muslims and the Banī Hāshim clan took refuge to the mountain near Mecca where they lived in a very poor condition. After three years, Allah informed the Prophet that the parchment had been destroyed by termites except the word بِاسْمِكَ اللَّهُمَّ (“In Your Name, O Lord!”). The Prophet told this to his uncle Abū T.ālib who told the people. They opened the Ka‘bah and found what Abū T.ālib had told them was true. So, they stopped the boycott.
When Sūrat al-Masad (Qur’ān, chapter 111) was revealed to the Prophet and was heard by Abū Lahab’s wife, Ummu Jamīl, she was very angry. The surah runs as follows:
تَبَّتْ يَدَا أَبِي لَهَبٍ وَتَبَّ. مَا أَغْنَى عَنْهُ مَالُهُ
وَمَا كَسَبَ. سَيَصْلَى نَارًا ذَاتَ لَهَبٍ. وَامْرَأَتُهُ حَمَّالَةَ
الْحَطَبِ. فِي جِيدِهَا حَبْلٌ مِنْ مَسَدٍ.
(المسد:۱-٥)
“Perish the hands of the Father of Flame! Perish he! No profit
to him from all his wealth, and all his gains! Burnt soon
will he be in a fire of blazing flame! His wife shall carry
the (crackling) wood—as fuel—A twisted rope of
palm-leaf fibre round her (own) neck!” 84
Abū Lahab (“Father of Flame”) was the nickname of the Prophet’s uncle for his fiery hot temper and ruddy complexion. His wife, Ummu Jamīl was also cruel to the Prophet. She used to carry a bundle of thorn tied with ropes of twisted palm-leaf fibre and scattered them at night in the paths where he used to take to injure him. After hearing the revelation concerning her and her husband she went to the Ka‘bah and took a piece of stone to throw at the Prophet. Abū Bakr was there. Although the Prophet was near her she did not throw the stone at him. Later he told Abū Bakr that Allah had made him invisible to her.
When Allah ordered the Prophet and the Muslims to immigrate to Madinah, the Prophet, Abū Bakr and Ali were the last to leave. The Meccans did not want Madinah to become a centre of Islamic call that would compete for the position of Mecca. They sent their young men, each representing a clan, to kill the Prophet, so that all clans would be responsible for the assassination. The Prophet’s clan would not be able to retaliate against them. They surrounded the Prophet’s house to kill him while he was asleep. But Allah informed him about this scheme. So he asked his cousin Ali to sleep on his bed and cover himself with the Prophet’s green garment. In the dark the Prophet came out of the house citing Surat Yāsīn (Qur’ān, chapter 36) until he reached
وَجَعَلْنَا مِنْ بَيْنِ أَيْدِيهِمْ سَدًّا وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ سَدًّا فَأَغْشَيْنَاهُمْ فَهُمْ لَا يُبْصِرُونَ.
(يس: ٩)
“And We have put a bar in front of them and a bar behind
them, and further, We have covered them up;
so that they cannot see.”85
those those young men who intended to kill him felt drowsy. The Prophet even put dust on their heads to humiliate their scheme. In the morning they found Ali instead of the Prophet.
The Prophet and Abū Bakr hid at Thawr Cave for three days. The searchers did not enter the cave because they found a spider web covering its entrance and a dove and its nest with its chicks at the entrance. In the cave a scorpion stung Abu Bakr’s foot, and the Prophet, by Allah’s permission, cured him with his saliva and by massaging it with his hands.
After failing to assassinate the Prophet, the Meccans announced a reward of one hundred camels to anyone who could find him. Surāqah found him, but when he approached, his horse stopped suddenly and threw him down. He became a Muslim and the Prophet told him: “What do you think if you wore the armlet (bracelet) of Chosroes, the Emperor of Persia?’ This happened later, after the conquest of Persia.
Miracles also took place in the battles of Badr and Uh.ud as well as prior to the battle of the Trench. In the battle of Badr Allah sent angels to assist the Muslims who were small in number. In the battle of Uh.ud the Prophet cured the eye of Qatādah b. al-Nu‘mān. Prior to the battle of the Trench, the Prophet and the Muslims worked in the daytime digging a trench as suggested by Salmān and went home in the evening. One evening Jābir b. Abdullah approached the Prophet and invited him for supper, for he had slaughtered a small sheep. The Prophet not only accepted the invitation but also invited those who were digging the trench. Jabir did not know what to do. The food was brought to the Prophet. He said the basmalah, namely,
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيْم
“In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful”
and ate with a group of people. Then they went out and another group came in and ate, until all of them had their supper and there was enough food for everyone.
While digging the trench, Salmān was not able to break a hard rock with his axe. The Prophet who was near him took the axe and broke the rock with three strokes, each with a strange sparkle. When Salmān asked what these three strokes and strange sparkles mean, he said that the first one was the prediction that Allah would make for him the conquest of Yemen, the second for the conquest of Syria and North Africa (Morocco), while the third for the conquest of the East. All these actually happened during the reign of the four rightly guided caliphs, Abū Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmān and ‘Alī (may Allah be pleased with them).

Footnotes:
84. Qur’ān, al-Masad [111]:1-5
85. Qur’ān, Yāsīn [36]:9