Quran Garden

Session 382

Chapter 3

Verse 49

He will send him as a messenger to the Children of Israel: "I have come to you with a sign from your Lord: I will create the shape of a bird for you out of clay, then breathe into it and, with God's permission, it will become a real bird; I will cure the blind and the albino, and bring the dead back to life with God's permission; I will tell you what you eat and what you store up in your houses. There truly is a sign for you in this if you are believers."

(Chapter 3: Verse 49)

A messenger necessarily requires a miracle because anyone can claim, "I am a messenger from God," but such a bold claim cannot go unsupported.  For a messenger to stand a chance, he must bring a miracle from God that proves the authenticity of his message.

A miracle is a wondrous thing that disturbs the laws of the universe.  When people contradict the messenger, they must face the question, "How do you explain the messenger's miracle that goes against everything we know?"  The miracle puts deniers in a tough spot.  They cannot explain it using human laws and cannot find anyone else who can do anything like it.

But for a miracle to be effective, it is necessary to be of the type in which the messenger's nation excels.  Otherwise, people would simply say, "This is something we have not learned, and once we learn it, we can do the same."  Say, for example, that you want to challenge someone to prove your superiority; to do so, you must challenge them in something they excel at.  You cannot challenge a weak, disabled person in weightlifting because that would prove nothing: you must challenge a weightlifter.  It is for this reason that the Almighty sent messengers armed with miracles suitable for their nation.  God sent Moses, peace be upon him, to a people that excelled in magic and engineering.  Who would appreciate the splitting of the sea more than the engineers who built the pyramids?  Likewise, when the top magicians, who knew all the trade secrets of magic, saw a wooden stick turn into a live python, they immediately believed in God.  They understood, more than anyone else, that Moses did not perform magic but a miracle.  God says:

Throw down what is in your right hand, and it will swallow what they have conjured. What they have conjured is only a magician's trick, and the magician does not fare well wherever he may show up.  And so it happened, and the magicians threw themselves down in prostration. They proclaimed, "We have come to believe in the Lord of Aaron and Moses!" (20:69-70)

And in another chapter:

"Moses, what is that in your right hand?"  "It is my staff," he said, "I lean on it, restrain my sheep with it, I also have other uses for it."  God said, "Throw it down, Moses."  He threw it down and, lo and behold, it became a slithering snake! "Pick it up," He said, "and have no fear; We shall revert it to its former state." (20:17-20)

When Moses, peace be upon him, saw his wooden staff turn into a snake, he feared it.   This fear separates his miracle from magic.  How? We answer that when a magician makes a stick appear to the people as a snake, he –the magician– still sees it as a stick.  Had the magician seen it turn into a real snake, he would have feared it just like the audience.  Moses, peace be upon him, feared because his staff truly changed into a living snake.

This brings us back to the verse.  The Israelites at the time of Prophet Jesus were famous for advanced medical treatments; hence he was granted miracles in the same field.  Let's look at these miracles in ascending order.

First is the healing of the sick.  The Quran says on the tongue of Jesus, "I will cure the blind and the albino."  Why did Jesus mention these two diseases? Because they were incurable illnesses at the time and are still so up to this day.  By "blind" the verse is specifically referring to people blind since birth.  Albinism is a genetic disorder that causes the skin, hair, and eyes to have little or no color.

Some people have tried to downplay this miracle by claiming that Jesus, peace be upon him, was simply ahead of his time.  In other words, modern medicine can cure some types of blindness by corneal implants or laser treatment, so what is the big deal? We answer that God's miracles will remain miracles until the Last Hour.

For example, today's ophthalmologists treat blindness with elaborate transplants.  Jesus, son of Mary, used to cure the same disease with a prayer.  No matter how much science advances, it will never cure diseases with a word.  We can only treat patients through the chemistry of medicine and the physics of surgery. 

The second miracle challenged the Israelites at a much higher level.  Our beloved Jesus would "bring the dead back to life with God's permission." Doctors can treat the body, cure some ailments, and may even prolong life, but no one can bring back the dead.  

Take note that, in the verse under study, the phrase "with God's permission" was mentioned after some miracles and omitted after others.  More specifically, the miracles of curing the sick, raising the dead, and creating birds were all followed by the phrase "with God's permission," while the miracle of knowing what people stored in their homes did not, and that is significant. 

We understand that Allah granted Jesus two types of miracles.  The first were miracles inherent to the prophet, so he could perform them at will, such as knowing what people ate and what they hid in their homes.  The second were miracles, such as resurrecting the dead and breathing life into objects, that were not inherent to Jesus; rather, they required God's direct permission every single time.  For example, Jesus could not raise every dead person at will; instead he, peace be upon him, raised the dead in a very limited scope.  The purpose of such a miracle was to prove the authenticity of his message.  It is said that the person would come back to life just to say a few words and then die again. 

Before we study the highest miracle, that of creation, in detail, let's look into the miracle which was inherent to Prophet Jesus (that is, which he could repeatedly perform at will).  He said, "I will tell you what you eat and what you store up in your houses." This miracle is different from the others because it is personal.  How, you may ask? We answer that curing the sick or raising the dead was done publically because it affected the entire community.  When people see a blind man regain vision, they appreciate the power of God.

On the other hand, what people eat and store in their homes is only known to them.  This private knowledge is usually shared with one or two members of the family.  Allah granted our beloved Jesus the ability to inform each person of what they ate and the treasures they stored in their homes.  Thus, he would touch them at a personal level that others could not appreciate.