8. Appreciating a miracle

 

Any miracle will challenge the people to reproduce an act like it- in order to prove to them that it is beyond their capability and therefore that it is not humanly possible. Naturally then, those who are proficient or have some skill in the act are going to be the ones who can take up the challenge and prove it or disprove it as a miraculous act. They will therefore be able to appreciate it directly themselves for they have attempted to meet the challenge- and the more of a specialist in that field they are then the more they will be able to appreciate it!

However this does not mean that if you did not directly sense it yourself that you could not appreciate its existence! In this case, again we would study the reality and evaluate whether the challenge had been met.

It is incorrect to say that the miracle is only for those who are specialists, for the miracle is there for anyone to witness. It is only if you think about and study it that you will conclude it is a miracle. This is the same for any miracle which challenges the human being to imitate it- those who are going to likely to meet the challenge and therefore attempt to meet it are those who have refined their skill in that field (a layman for instance may not be able to appreciate the tricks involved in magic: that is why the magicians who saw Musa's miracle knew straight away that his act of turning the staff into a snake was no trick and submitted to God straight away infuriating the pharaoh {AlAraf 115-122}). Following on from this, if the miracle best resembles the known arts of its age, in which there are many specialists in that particular field the miracle would be quickly believed and firmly established as evidence for the messengers claim. So Musa being given the miracle of the staff turning to a snake would have been acknowledged by the magicians prevalent in society; Jesus curing the lepers and making the blind see would have challenged the doctors who were prevalent in their skills of medicine. Likewise, Muhammad bringing a new and unique form of speech would have challenged the many poets prevalent amongst the Arabs who were glorified for their command of the language: thereby acknowledges the existence of a miracle once the challenge is not met amongst the many specialists in society.


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