Muhammad the Prophet of Mercy

6. Turn Mount As-Safa into
gold for us
to believe you!

The disbelievers shut their ears
against all guidance and hinged their belief in the Prophet r
on a material miracle. Ibn ‘Abbas t
narrated:

The chiefs of Quraish
said to the Prophet r, “O Muhammad! If you will not accept any of the offers we made
you, surely you know that none of the people have a smaller town, scarcer
water, or harder living than us. Ask your Lord Who sent you with that message
to move these mountains that narrowed our living away from us and to stretch
out our town and cause rivers like those of Syria and Iraq to gush
forth within it for us. And to resurrect our dead forefathers – and let Qusai
bin Kilab be one of them, for he was a truthful sheikh – to ask them about what
you say if it is true or false. If they affirm what you say and you fulfill
what we have asked of you, we shall believe you and acknowledge your status in
the Sight of Allah, and that He has sent you as a Messenger, as you say.”

He r
said, “Not with this I am
sent to you. I have brought you the Message from Allah with which He has sent
me. I have conveyed the Message with which I am sent to you. If you accept it,
there will be goodness for you in the life of this world and the hereafter. But
if you return it to me rejected, I shall show patience with the Decree of Allah
(Exalted be He) until Allah judges between me and you.”

They said, “If
you do not fulfill this for us, then seek for yourself. Ask your Lord to send
an angel with you who affirms what you say, and answers us back on your behalf.
Ask Him to make for you gardens, palaces, and rivers of gold and silver so you
will be in no need of what we see you wanting; for you go to the markets and
seek a livelihood as we do. We can thus acknowledge your superiority and rank
in the Sight of your Lord, if you are a Messenger as you claim.”

He r
said, “I will not do
this. I am not the one who asks this from his Lord. I am not sent to you with
this. Allah has sent me as a giver of glad tidings and a warner. If you accept
what I have come to you with, there will be goodness for you in the life of
this world and the hereafter. But if you return it to me rejected, I shall show
patience with the Decree of Allah (Exalted be He) until Allah judges between me
and you.”1

The only thing that would convince the Arabs of Makkah to
believe was to see a miracle that instantly turned land into sea or a desert
into gardens. This alone could persuade them:

(And
they say, “We will not believe you until you break open a spring from the
ground for us. Or (until) you have a garden of date palms and grapes and make
rivers gush forth within them in force and abundance. Or you make the heavens
fall upon us in fragments as you have claimed, or you bring Allah and the
angels before (us) face to face. Or you have a house of gold or you ascend into
the sky. And (even then), we will not believe in your ascension until you bring
down to us a book we may read.” Say, “Exalted is my Lord! Am I anything but a
human messenger?”)2

Nothing of what they demanded was hard or difficult for Divine
Power. (If We willed, We could send down to them from the
heaven a sign for which their necks would remain humbled.)3

But Divine Wisdom insisted on elevating the human mind, which
they cheapened. This Supreme Power has not given mankind a mind capable of
miracles – when cared for and paid attention to – to have this gift wasted and
instead fulfill the wishes of some ignorant people who stultified themselves
and their minds, and refused to listen to reason and instinct while asking for
material miracles in order to believe their Prophet.4

Miracles that supported past Messages did not prevent denial of
and disbelief in them; therefore, there is no use in sending more. (And
nothing stops Us from sending signs but that the people of old denied them.)5

Most of the past nations, in spite of the miraculous signs sent
to them, did not respond to the truth or to the Call of the Messengers, not
because of insufficient evidence but, rather, because of obstinacy and
impudence. Thus, torment came down upon them all, as dictated by the Law of
Allah that never changes regarding the destruction of those who deny the signs.6 Allah U says: (Not
one of the towns, of those that We destroyed, believed before them (though We
sent them signs).)7

This is because when obduracy goes as far as inhibiting people
from belief, even when they see a material, visible miracle it leaves them
without any excuse or hope of reform. Thus, torment is justified against them.

Time and again signs were sent, time and again people denied
them, and time and again the deniers were destroyed; so why would these people
believe because of a miracle sent to them, when they were no better than those
destroyed?8 Allah U then poses the
self-evident question:

(Will they then believe?)9

Therefore, a different course had to be pursued with humanity
in the Last Message, a course that would compel people to respect the human mind
for their own good and, more importantly, for the good of future generations.

Allah gratified humanity in its childhood with all kinds of
dazzling miracles until it became strong and mentally mature. He left it to use
its mental gifts to recognize right from wrong, either for people to destroy
themselves through disbelief in spite of clear evidence or rescue themselves
through faith upon clear evidence.10

That is what led to the decision that the greatest and lasting
miracle of Prophet Muhammad r be the Ever-Glorious
Qur’an. That is the challenge serving as evidence on which the Messenger r
relied in his Call. (Is it not sufficient for them that We have sent
down to you the Book (the Qur’an) which is recited to them? Verily, herein is
mercy and a reminder (or an admonition) for a people who believe.)11

Miracles of past Prophets were something other than the Message
they preached. The healing gift of ‘Isa (Jesus r) was separate from the
Gospel, and the stick of Musa (Moses r) was separate from the
Torah. Allah U
willed that the miracle supporting the Last Message be inseparable from its
essence. Thus, the truths of the Message and the proofs of its truthfulness are
in one Book.

The Noble Qur’an – with the laws of moral, social, and
political justice it contains and the ethics, virtues, and rectitude it
implants – is the very Message of Islam and its miracle.

The Noble Qur’an testifying to the prophethood of Muhammad r
is not like the turning of Musa’s stick into a snake or ‘Isa bringing the dead
to life, giving sight to those born blind, and healing the leper.

Even though these acts only happened at the hands of prophets,
and the populace responded to them, they are irrelative to the mission of a
prophet or the aims of Revelation and Divine Law. As for the Noble Qur’an,
it attests to prophethood and the truth of Islam the same as healing attests to
medicine.12
Thus, the human instinct naturally responds to the Divine Words, finding in
them guidance and healing.

Islam refuses to pressure the mind or the will to believe. It
builds belief on absolute mental freedom and does not resort to miracles that
compel the power of mind to instill certainty.

Rather, Islam draws the mind to the wondrous signs of creation
and the moral values that the Messages contain, and urges it to use its
faculties to accept or reject belief.

The Noble Qur’an directly addresses the mind, unchaining it
from the fetters that have restrained it and restoring to it its natural
position.13

It opens the eyes and hearts of people so that they may
contemplate the endless wonders of creation in the heavens, on the earth, and
in themselves, all testifying to the One Almighty, All-Powerful God, and to the
truthfulness of the Message of God’s Oneness:

(Verily,
in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night
and day, and the ships which sail through the sea with that which benefits
mankind, and the water (rain) which Allah sends down from the sky and makes the
earth alive therewith after its death, and the moving (living) creatures of all
kinds that He has scattered therein, and in the veering of winds and clouds
which are held between the sky and the earth, are indeed Ayat (proofs,
evidence, signs) for people who use reason.)14

Certainly, these wondrous spectacles, when reflected upon with
open eyes and a conscious heart as the Noble Qur’an urges, will cause a shiver
to run through the body from the Mightiness of Allah’s Power.

In each of them lies the miracle that inspires hearts and
guides souls towards their Maker. True faith is formed by contemplating the
signs in the universe after freeing the mind from the dullness of familiarity
and inattention, and starting to watch the universe with new feelings,
inquisitive looks, and a heart receptive to faith, walking the earth as a
pioneer who has first landed on it, where every flash attracts the eyes, every
sound draws the ears, and every move interests the senses, where the whole
being is amazed by the successive marvels meeting the eyes, heart, and
emotions… that is the miraculous work of the Noble Qur’an on souls15:

(Do they not look at the camels, how they are created? And at the heaven,
how it is raised? And at the mountains, how they are rooted and fixed firm? And
at the earth, how it is spread out?)16

(Do they not see the birds above them, spreading out their wings and
folding them in? None upholds them except the Most Merciful (Allah). Verily, He
is the All-Seer of everything.)17

(Have they not looked at
the heaven above them, how We have made it and adorned it, and there are no
rifts in it? And the earth We have spread it out, and set thereon mountains
standing firm, and have produced therein every kind of lovely growth (plants).
)18

(Say: “Behold all that is in the heavens and the earth,” but neither
signs nor warners benefit those who believe not.)19

(See you not that Allah
has subjected for you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the
earth, and has completed and perfected His Graces upon you, (both) apparent and
hidden?)20

(Have they not seen how We drive water (rain clouds) to barren land, and
therewith bring forth crops providing food for their cattle and themselves?
Will they not then see?)21

(Have they not traveled through the land, and have they hearts wherewith
to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not the eyes that grow
blind, but it is the hearts that are in the breasts that grow blind.)22

(It is Allah Who has subjected to you the sea, that ships may sail
through it by His Command, and that you may seek of His Bounty, and that you
may be thankful, and has subjected to you all that is in the heavens and all
that is in the earth. It is all as a favor and kindness from Him. Verily, in it
are signs for a people who give thought.)23

That is the living miracle of the
Prophet of Islam r. As long as humans respect their minds,
the value of this miracle shall persist. It shall
persist as long as the mind remains the most precious commodity in life and as
long as people use it to judge matters and guide humanity to the horizons of
success and perfection.24