An-Nawawi : The Mir­a­cles of Muhammad

Pre­am­ble

The Prophet^(P) left a sig­nif­i­cant imprint on his­to­ry, both through his teach­ings as encap­su­lat­ed in the Qur’an and through a series of mirac­u­lous events and pre­dic­tions attrib­uted to him. It is real­ly hillar­i­ous to see the Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary web­sites or those peo­ple who have an axe to grind against Islam ask­ing Mus­lims about the mir­a­cles of the Prophet Muham­mad^(P). They believe that the Prophet^(P) did not per­form any mir­a­cles. Pre­dictably, their assump­tions are wrong. We will allow the great Imam An-Nawawi to com­ment on Prophet’s^(P) known miracles.

The Prophet Muham­mad’s Miracles

The Mes­sen­ger of Allah^(P) pos­sess­es many man­i­fest mir­a­cles and signs demon­strat­ing [his verac­i­ty], reach­ing thou­sands and they are well known.

From amongst them was the Qur’an the man­i­fest and clear mir­a­cle and bril­liant proof, false­hood can­not approach it from before it or behind it. It is a rev­e­la­tion from One Who is All-Wise and Praise­wor­thy. It inca­pac­i­tat­ed the most elo­quent of peo­ple in the most elo­quent of times to pro­duce a sin­gle chap­ter that would be com­pa­ra­ble to it, even if the whole of cre­ation were to gath­er for that pur­pose. Allah the Exalt­ed, says :

“Say : If the whole of mankind and the jinn gath­ered in order to pro­duce the like of this Qur’an, they could not pro­duce the like of it, even if they assist­ed each oth­er.“¹

It chal­lenged them to this despite their large num­bers, their elo­quence and their severe enmi­ty, and it chal­lenges them to this day.

As for the oth­er mir­a­cles, it is not pos­si­ble to enu­mer­ate them all due to their huge num­ber and renew­ing and increas­ing nature. How­ev­er, I will men­tion some examples :

The split­ting of the moon, water flow­ing from between his fin­gers, increas­ing the quan­ti­ty of food and water, the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of the food, the palm tree yearn­ing for him, stones greet­ing him, the talk­ing of the poi­soned leg [of roast­ed sheep], trees walk­ing towards him, two trees that were far apart com­ing togeth­er and then part­ing again, the bar­ren [and there­fore dry] sheep giv­ing milk, his return­ing the eye of Qatadah ibn an-Nu’­man to its place with his hand after it had slipped out, his spit­ting light­ly into the eye of Ali when it had become inflamed and its being cured almost imme­di­ate­ly, his wip­ing the leg of ​‘Abdul­lah ibn ​‘Atiq where­upon he was imme­di­ate­ly cured.

His^(P) inform­ing of the places of death of the Day of Badr say­ing, ​“this is the place of such poly­the­ists on the and-such a per­son”. His inform­ing of his killing Ubayy bin Kha­laf, that a group of his nation would tra­verse an ocean and ​‘Umm Haram would be amongst them and this occurred. That all that was drawn togeth­er for him of the ends of the earth and dis­played to him would be opened for his nation, that the trea­sures of the Chos­roes would be spent by his nation in the Way of Allah, the Mighty and Mag­nif­i­cent. That he feared for his nation that they would be tempt­ed by the wealth and allure­ment of this world and that the trea­sures of the Per­sians and Romans would be ours and that Suraqah ibn Malik would wear the trousers of Chosroes.

He^(P) informed us that Hasan bin ​‘Ali would rec­on­cile between two large war­ring par­ties of the Mus­lims, that Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas would live such that nations would ben­e­fit by him and oth­ers would be harmed. That an-Najashi had died on this par­tic­u­lar day while he was in Ethiopia and that al-Aswad al-Ansi had been killed on this par­tic­u­lar day while he was in Yemen.

That the Mus­lims would fight the Turks who were described as hav­ing small eyes, wide faces and small, chis­elled noses and that Yemen, Syr­ia and Iraq would be con­quered by the Muslims.

He^(P) informed us that the Mus­lims would com­prise three armies, an army in Syr­ia, and army in Yemen and an army in Iraq. That they would con­quer Egypt, a land whose [unit of land mea­sure­ment] was the Qirat, that they should deal with their peo­ple well for they have pro­tec­tion [being Copts] and ties of kin­ship². That Aways al-Qarni would come to you from the aux­il­iaries of Yemen, he would be afflict­ed with lep­rosy and it would be healed except for the space of a dirham and he indeed arrived dur­ing the rule of ​‘Umar.

He^(P) informed us that a group of his nation would always be upon the truth and that mankind would become many in num­ber and that the Ansar would dimin­ish in num­ber and that the Ansar would not be giv­en their due [with regards to dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth and lead­er­ship]. That mankind would keep on ask­ing ques­tions until they would say, ​“Allah cre­at­ed the cre­ation…“³

He^(P) informed us that Ruway­fi’ ibn Thabit would live a long life, that Ammar bin Yasir would be killed by the trans­gress­ing group, that this nations shall divide into sects and that they would fight each other.

He^(P) informed us that a fire would emanate from the land of Hijaz and the likes of this. All of this occurred exact­ly as he^(P) said it would.

He^(P) said to Thababin Qays, ​“You will live being praised… and you will die as a mar­tyr”, and he lived being praised and was mar­tyred at al-Yamamah. He^(P) said regard­ing ​‘Uth­man : ​“He would be afflict­ed by a severe tri­al.“⁴

He^(P) said about a per­son amongst the Mus­lims who had just fought a severe fight that ​“He would be from amongst the denizens of the Fire”, and lat­er he com­mit­ted sui­cide. Wabisah ibn Ma’bad came to him in order to ask him^(P) about right­eous­ness and sin upon which he^(P) asked, ​“Have you come to ask about right­eous­ness and sin?”

He^(P) said to ​‘Ali, az-Zubayr and al-Miq­dad : ​“Go to the gar­den of Khakh⁵ for indeed there is Dha’i­nah⁶ who has a book with her”. They found her there but she ini­tial­ly denied hav­ing the book and then took it out from with­in her braids.

He^(P) said to Abu Hurayrah when Satan had stolen some dates, ​“Indeed he shall return” and he did. He said to his wives, ​“The most pro­lif­ic of you in giv­ing char­i­ty will be the quick­est of you to join me” and it was so.⁷

He^(P) said to ​‘Abdul­lah bin Salam ​“You will remain upon Islam until you die”.

He^(P) sup­pli­cat­ed for Anas that his wealth and sons increase and that he should live a long life and it was so. He lived for more than one hun­dred years and not one of the Ansar was rich­er than he and one hun­dred and twen­ty of his chil­dren had already been buried before the arrival of al-Haj­jaj [to Bas­rah. This is detailed fur­ther in Sahih al-Bukhari and oth­ers.⁸

He^(P) sup­pli­cat­ed that Islam be strength­ened through ​‘Umar ibn al-Khat­tab or Abu Jahl, and Allah strength­ened it through ​‘Umar^(R). He sup­pli­cat­ed against Suraqah ibn Malik and the feet of his horse sank into the earth and he was thrown off, he called out ask­ing for safe con­duct and was grant­ed it, then he asked the Prophet^(P) to make a sup­pli­ca­tion for him.

He^(P) sup­pli­cat­ed that Allah remove feel­ing the bit­ter cold and heat from ​‘Ali and so nev­er did he feel cold or hot. He sup­pli­cat­ed for Hud­hay­fah, the night that he sent him to spy on the Con­fed­er­ates, that he not feel the cold and he did not until he had returned. He sup­pli­cat­ed for Ibn ​‘Abbas that Allah grant him under­stand­ing of the reli­gion and it was so. He sup­pli­cat­ed against ​‘Utbah ibn Abi Lahab, that Allah cause a dog from amongst his dogs to over­come him and he was killed by a lion at az-Zar­qa’⁹

He^(P) sup­pli­cat­ed for the descent of rain when they asked him to at the time of drought. There was not a sin­gle cloud in the sky, and then when he had sup­pli­cat­ed, the clouds gath­ered like moun­tains and it rained until the next Fri­day. It rained so much that they had to come back and ask him to sup­pli­cate and stop the rain, so he sup­pli­cat­ed and the rain stopped and they walked out into the glar­ing sun.

He^(P) sup­pli­cat­ed for Abu Tal­hah and his wife, Umm Sulaym, that he blessed them in the night they had spent togeth­er and she became preg­nant and gave birth to ​‘Abdul­lah. He had nine chil­dren and all of them were scholars.

He^(P) sup­pli­cat­ed for the moth­er of Abu Hurayrah(R) that she be guid­ed and Abu Hurayrah left to find her per­form­ing the rit­u­al bath because she had accept­ed Islam. He sup­pli­cat­ed for ​‘Umm Qays bint Muhsin, the sis­ter of ​‘Ukkashah, that she live a long life and we do not know of anoth­er woman who lived as long as she did.¹⁰

On the Day of Hunayn he threw a hand­ful of dirt at the dis­be­liev­ers and said, ​“May the faces be dis­fig­ured”, and Allah the Exalt­ed, van­quished them, fill­ing their eyes with dirt. He once went out to one hun­dred of the Quraysh who were wait­ing to do some­thing hor­ri­ble to him and he put dirt on their head and went on his way with­out their see­ing him.

Sum­ma­ry and Conclusion

The mir­a­cles attrib­uted to the Prophet Muham­mad^(P) are numer­ous, diverse, and rich in sig­nif­i­cance. Whether it was the split­ting of the moon, the flow of water from his fin­gers, or his prophe­cies that came to pass, these mir­a­cles are con­sid­ered by Mus­lims as signs of his divin­i­ty and proof of his mis­sion. The Qur’an itself stands as a unique and unpar­al­leled mir­a­cle, chal­leng­ing all of human­i­ty to pro­duce some­thing like it. More­over, these mir­a­cles not only serve as com­pelling evi­dence for those who lived dur­ing the time of the Prophet^(P) but con­tin­ue to inspire mil­lions of Mus­lims today. Over­all, the life and mir­a­cles of the Prophet Muham­mad^(P) have left an indeli­ble mark on human his­to­ry, pro­vid­ing a pro­found spir­i­tu­al lega­cy that con­tin­ues to guide peo­ple towards under­stand­ing, faith, and right­eous action.

1. Qur’an, 17:88[↩]
2. through Hajar (the wife of Prophet Abra­ham^(P))[↩]
3. Refer­ring to the hadith, ​“the peo­ple would con­tin­ue ask­ing until they say, ​‘this is Allah Who cre­at­ed every­thing but who cre­at­ed Allah?’ ” (al-Bukhari and Mus­lim)[↩]
4. The mean­ing of severe tri­al is his being impris­oned in his house and his being killed by the trans­gres­sors.[↩]
5. The gar­den of Khakh is a place falling between Makkah and Mad­i­nah. Refer to al-Bukhari, no. 3983 and Mus­lim, no. 2494 and Tafsir Ibn Kathir [4/​344][↩]
6. Dha’i­nah is the woman with whom Hasib al-Balta‘ah(R) sent a let­ter to the peo­ple of Makkah in order to inform them of the plans of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah to fight them. It was con­cern­ing this that the first vers­es of Surah al-Mum­tahi­nah were revealed.[↩]
7. Zayn­abint Jahsy(R) was the most pro­lif­ic of them in giv­ing char­i­ty and was the first to die. Refer to Mus­lim, no. 2452[↩]
8. Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 1982[↩]
9. This is how it is in all of the print­ed edi­tions ; per­haps the author means ​‘Utay­bah bin Abi Lahab for this descrip­tion fits him. As for ​‘Utbah, he accept­ed Islam in the year of the Con­quest of Makkah.[↩]
10. This was report­ed by al-Nasa’i in the chap­ter con­cern­ing wash­ing the deceased.[↩]