Miracles, Signs and Prophecies – Part 4
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The Promised Messiah (as) wrote over 80 books in Arabic, Urdu, and Persian. Excerpts of his collected works have been translated into English and organised by topic.
The Review of Religions is pleased to present these excerpts as part of a monthly feature. Here, the Promised Messiah (as) explains why one cannot truly understand the unity of God without divine revelation.
This is the fourth part of a multi-part series.
Extracts from The Essence of Islam – Vol V. pp. 36-40.
The miracle of a saint is in fact the miracle of the prophet whom he follows. This is something quite obvious and self-evident. When a manifestation depends upon complete submission to a prophet or to a book, and it cannot happen in any other way, it becomes obvious that though the manifestation may have taken place at the hands of the follower of a prophet, it practically emanates from the prophet himself. The secret as to how a prophet’s miracle can be shown through another person is that when someone acts strictly in keeping with the injunctions of his law-bearer, and abstains from everything which he forbids, and faithfully follows the book that he gives him, he then loses his own identity and becomes the total responsibility of his law-bearer. Thus, if the law-bearer leads unerringly on the straight path – like a skilled physician – and brings a holy book which contains remedies for the spiritual maladies of his follower, as well as provisions for his intellectual and practical progress, and the follower for his part accepts those teachings wholeheartedly, without even slightly deviating from them in form or content, then whatever signs and miracles result from such perfect submission will only be through the blessing of the law-bearing prophet. In this way, if an extraordinary phenomenon is manifested through a saint, it will necessarily be the miracle of the prophet whom he follows.
—Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 1, pp. 593-609
I have mentioned time and again that Allah has granted me four kinds of signs, which I have forcefully proclaimed through writings and publications.
The first of these is the sign of the knowledge of Arabic. This sign was given to me at the time when Muhammad Hussain wrote that I did not know anything of Arabic, even though I had never claimed any knowledge of the language. Only those who are conversant with Arabic grammar and diction can realize its difficulties and do justice to its beauty and excellence…The greatest difficulty is when I fail to find the appropriate idiom or expression. But God reveals it to me. It is easier to invent new or artificial diction than to express oneself in truly idiomatic language. Moreover, I have published books with offers of valuable prizes and I have announced that the opponents may seek help from whosoever they please, and may even employ the assistance of native Arabs, but God Almighty has assured me that they will never be able to compete with me, for this sign has been granted to me as a reflection of the miracles of the Holy Qur’an.
The second sign is the acceptance of prayers. During the composition of my books which are in Arabic, I have experienced the fulfilment of a great many of my prayers. I have prayed at every single word, and I declare that there is no one else whose prayers have been accepted as much as mine. Of course, I make an exception of the Holy Prophet (sa), (for it is only because of him and through submission to him that all this has been given to me). I cannot say if the number of prayers that have been accepted are in the thousands or hundreds of thousands. Some of these signs of acceptance are universally acknowledged.
The third sign is that of prophecies, or the disclosure of the unseen. The fact is that at times even fortune-tellers and soothsayers predict things, by way of conjecture, and they partially come true. History tells us that in the time of the Holy Prophet (sa) too there were some soothsayers who would foretell matters relating to the unseen. Satih was one of them. But there is a world of difference between the soothsayer’s conjectural knowledge of the unseen, and the knowledge that is revealed to the messengers of Allah, and to those who receive divine revelations…
The fourth sign is about the profundities and subtleties of the Holy Qur’an. The verities of the Holy Qur’an cannot be disclosed to anyone but to him who is purified.
[1] لَّا يَمَسُّهُ إِلَّا الْمُطَهَّرُونَ
I have repeatedly asked my opponents to write a commentary on a chapter of the Holy Qur’an. I will do the same and then the two may be compared. But no one has dared to take up this challenge.
—Malfuzat, vol. 1, pp. 182-183
These prophecies are such that they will move a righteous person to tears, and yet people persist in claiming that none of them has been fulfilled. They do not seem to realize that even they have to die one day. If the signs that have been shown to them had been shown to the people of Noah, they would not have been drowned; and if the people of Lot had been apprised of them, they would not have been showered with stones.
—I‘jaz-e-Ahmadi, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 19, p. 110
ENDNOTES
1. ‘None shall touch it except those who are purified.’ – The Holy Qur’an, 56:80.
