بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْم

An Easy Refutation of the “Muhammad had no miracles” Claim Using the…Bible

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“…whenever they see a sign, they turn away, saying, ‘Same old magic!’”

– Surah Al-Qamar, 54:2

            A common argument against the prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him) that is spread by many Christian missionaries is the absurd claim that the Qur’an explicitly says that he would and could not perform miracles (spoiler alert: the Qur’an does not say that), and they use this to deny the copious hadith literature that provides numerous examples of miracles. This argument is easy to refute using the Qur’an itself and has indeed been refuted by many Muslims already.[1] In short, the Qur’an says in progressive revelations that miracles would eventually be shown to the skeptics, but it correctly predicted that they would still deny them (see Surah al-Qamar for example). But the purpose of this short article is to refute the Christians using their own biblical standards. What I intend to show is that even IF Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had no performed any miracles by God’s permission, that would NOT disqualify him as a prophet, at least according to biblical standards.

What is a “Prophet” in the Bible?

            The Bible does not stipulate anywhere that a true “prophet” must be able to perform miracles as a sign of his reliability. Numbers 12:6 refers to a person who has “visions” or “dream” in which God “speaks” to him. For sure, a “prophet” could perform some sort of “sign” or “wonder”, but that would not mean anything if that same “prophet” enticed the Israelites to worship other gods.[2] Rather, such a person was only being used by God to “test” the Israelites in their faithfulness to Him.[3] In fact, the only test to determine if a claimant to prophethood was false was that he made a prophecy that did not come true or that he spoke in “the name of other gods”.[4]

Indeed, we can point to numerous examples where genuine “prophets” did not perform miracles in their entire prophetic careers! For example, Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) is not credited with a single miracle in the Bible, unless we count the birth of Isaac (peace be upon him), who also did not perform any miracles. Prophet David (hopefully by now, all Christians have realized that he was a prophet…thanks Godwin!) also performed no miracles. If apologists point to his killing of Goliath, we can say that this was hardly a miracle, but rather, an amazing feat that could have been performed by other people as well.[5]

But okay, some Christians may counter that this is from the “Old Testament”. What about the “New Testament”? Well actually, even the New Testament shows that one could be a prophet and yet not perform a single miracle. We see this in the case of John the Baptist (peace be upon him). He is grouped with the “prophets” in Matthew 11:13 and Luke 16:16, yet according to John 10:41, John performed no “signs”:

“He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained. And many came to him. And they said, ‘John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.’”[6]

So, there we go. A “prophet” did not necessarily have to perform miracles, and there is no biblical basis for rejecting a claimant to prophethood simply on the basis of an absence of such things during his life.[7]

Conclusion

            We can see that the Christian argument against Muhammad (peace be upon him) has been refuted from two sides. Not only did the Qur’an not deny that miracles could occur in the future, but the Christians do not even have biblical support to use such an argument even IF their misquotes of the Qur’an were true. If they were consistent, they would have to deny that John the Baptist was a prophet, but by doing so, they would be against their own scripture. So, take your pick, Christians: your scripture or your egos. You can’t have both!

And Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) knows best!

[1] See here for an excellent video by brother Farid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9ONwevBJbE

[2] Deuteronomy 13:1-5.

[3] Notice that the passage does not attribute false miracles to “Satan”, but rather to God Himself.

[4] Deuteronomy 18:20.

[5] In fact, an alternate account in 2 Samuel 21:19 states that it was a man named Elhanan who killed Goliath.

[6] John 10:40-41.

Thanks to stewjo004 for pointing out this verse.

[7] Nor is there a basis for rejecting a claimant to prophethood based on ethnicity. Jewish tradition accepts that there were non-Israelite prophets, but they deny that the Israelites had to follow these prophets, since they had their own.