MIRACLES OR SIGNS OF GOD
Phenomena in Nature
THE SIGNS that the prophets of God demonstrated to their people are commonly known as miracles. But this is not a true Islamic understanding. The Quran and Hadith (record of the Prophet’s sayings and deeds) refer to these prophetic examples not as miracles, but as signs. Calling such instances as miracles presents them as prophetic phenomena, whereas referring to them as signs shows them to be natural phenomena.
Moses was a prophet of God. He was born in ancient Egypt in the 16th century BC. The Egyptian ruler of the time, Ramesses II, challenged him in a contest where, on the demand of the ruler, the Prophet Moses demonstrated a sign. When he threw his wooden staff to the ground, it instantly turned into a slithering serpent. This event was witnessed by many people, some of whom were so affected that they immediately accepted the divine message of Prophet Moses.
In the order of nature, the act of conversion is universal and allpervading. It is a proof of the existence of God and of His power. What is meant by conversion in the universe is actually Divine intervention.
This incident was not just a lesson for the contemporaries of the Prophet Moses. In reality, it was an eye-opening sign for the whole of humankind. Moses had demonstrated to people a universal and common law of God.
This is the law of conversion. With the help of God, Prophet Moses had shown that a piece of wood could be changed into the shape of a serpent in the same way that everything in nature is being converted from one form into another. The event that Prophet Moses demonstrated to the people was in reality this law of conversion: an act of changing something from one form to another. There are several references to this natural law of conversion in the Quran. The Quran says that in this world ‘nothing’ is being converted into ‘something’ (52: 35). In the same way, it is mentioned that a nonexistence is converted into an existence (76: 1).
The time of Prophet Moses and the Pharaoh, Ramesses II, was the pre-scientific era, when such signs could only be shown to people with the special intervention of God. With the advent of modern science, it has become possible that such natural phenomena can be explained through human intelligence. This scientific revolution that was to come had been predicted in the Quran (41: 53).
There are countless and diverse things in the universe. Study shows that all these things are a result of conversion, that is, a change from one form to another form. In Prophet Moses’ time, a thing that was not a serpent was changed into a serpent; matter was changed into a different form of matter. This is the same phenomenon that transpires with everything else in this universe. Here, solid is being converted into liquid, liquid to solid, gases into liquids and vice versa, and gases into other gases. Energy is being converted into matter; matter is being converted into energy. In the same way, a tree grows out of a seed, a fruit comes forth from a flower, a chick emerges from an egg, and a butterfly is metamorphosed from a chrysalis. Change or conversion is a law of nature.
In the order of nature, this act of conversion is universal and allpervading. It is a proof of the existence of God and of His power. What is meant by conversion in the universe is actually intervention. Things that come into existence by conversion prove an intervention. When the act of intervention is proved, then the existence of the intervener is also proved. God is only the other name of this Intervener.
"Whoever persists in being patient, God will make him patient. Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience." (Sahih Bukhari)