The Miracles of Islam
Are there miracles of other religions? If so, how do they differ from the miracles of the Bible? These are valid questions.
First, let’s put forward some principles that we’ll find in every counterfeit miracle:
1. They deny the God of the Bible and proclaim a false belief.
2. They glorify a creature or a created thing, not God.
• Because of this they are always self-serving.
• True miracles glorify God or his messengers.
Let’s start by looking at the miracles of Islam:
1. The Quran. The Quran is Islam’s holiest book. The Quran attributes one and only miracle to Muhammad. That is the writing of the Quran itself (Sura 29:49-52). Yet Muhammad, when challenged to do a miracle to authenticate his claim of being Allah’s prophet, says he cannot, that he’s nothing but a human messenger (Sura 17:90-93).
According to the Quran, God’s final revelation was the creation of the Quran. We are to believe this because Muhammad, who created the Quran, says it is so. This is the definition of circular reasoning. And since Muhammad created the Quran in secret, while isolated in a cave, the entire affair is suspect.
2. Islam and the Hadith. The Hadith is a collection of the sayings and works of Muhammad. The Hadith flatly contradicts the Quran, stating that Muhammad performed two miracles:
• Sahih Bukhari 4.783: “The prophet used to deliver his sermons while standing beside a trunk of a date-palm. When he had the pulpit made, he used it instead. The trunk started crying and the prophet went to it, rubbing his hand over it to stop its crying.”
• Sahih Bukhari 5.208: “That the Meccan people asked Allah’s Apostle to show them a miracle. So he showed them the moon split into two halves between which they say is the Hiram Mountain.”
The problem with the first miracle is that it’s extraordinarily trivial. Its purpose, if there is one, seems to be consolation for a sad tree. How does this glorify God or its messenger? Where in human experience do we find plants with emotions?
The problems with the second are obvious. The moon, having once been “split”, now seems to have been joined back together.
Both of these “miracles” display a mythological character we never see in the Bible. This too is typical of false religions.
3. We also note that the God of the Bible and the god of the Quran are not the same. We cannot go into the details here, but those who have studied Islam and the Bible all come to this conclusion.
Next time let’s return to the Bible and look at how Jesus brought a dead woman back to life.