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Miracles And Law Of Nature
What are miracles in islam? Doesn’t it voilate law of nature
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6 Replies
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Miracles And Law Of Nature
updated 4 years, 2 months ago
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6
Replies
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Islam doesn’t redefine the word miracle – it has the same definition in Islam as it can be found in any dictionary.
Sure miracles do violate the laws of nature, but why is that surprising? God doesn’t need to be confined by any laws of nature. In fact, an entity that is confined by any such laws can’t be the Almighty God, can it?
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Then why Allah swt says this
35:43 …You will not find any change in God’s practice. And you will not find any bypass for God’s practice.
33:62 God’s practice with those who have passed away from before, and you will never find any replacement for God’s practice.
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Both of the verses that you have mentioned above are related to the law of Itmam-e-Hujjat. That once a Rasool is sent to a nation and the truth has come out in its last degree, leaving no possible excuse for its addressees to deny except arrogance or any other wordly reasons like status.
Now, the book of God tells us two main points in relation to this particular practice; Neither does God punish the specific nation immediately. He gives them time so that the truth is narrated to them in its ultimate form by the messenger. And secondly, this time is given to them so that their inner is shown by Allah by its manifestation in the crimes they commit in that time be it verbal crimes or other.
The second point is; after this given duration, then God sends his punishment. Where the people who had Iman are saved and the others who denied they are punished and killed.
Now what you’re asking is, if God can change/alter His physical laws easily then why not here? Why does He have the same sunnah for all the previous nations?
The answer is because if you read the Book of God you will see that this is justice and envelopes in itself God’s perfect wisdom. He gives them time so that they can see truth in it ultimate sense and it becomes a Hujjat for them. And after this Hujjat on them, they dont deserve to live. Why? Because if you understand the scheme of God in creating us and this world you will realise that it is only and only to use our aql (intellect) and all other faculties to recognize God and then worship Him alone. So these people then have no reason left to live or stay on this earth hence, they are finished.
Hope this helps brother. Please don’t hesitate to ask a follow up question. InshaAllah the moderators will help you better.
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These verses don’t relate to laws of nature, rather they relate to the dealings of God with His servants and the manner in which He deals with them and are called sunnatullah by the Quran. The Almighty says that these practices are permanent and unalterable. Consequently, for a true comprehension of God, just as knowledge of His attributes is essential, knowledge of His dealings with His creation is also essential:
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The discussion on miracles versus natural laws requires certain principles to be established.
There are 3 basic components to this discussion; one is a miracle, second is natural laws and the third is Practice of God.
The Laws of Nature are designed by God and he is not subject to them as he is outside/ beyond our universe. These laws are OUR limits. Anything beyond these laws are assumed to be miracles, but only in OUR realm. In the beginning of humankind, many things were considered as miracles/witch craft that were later discovered and defined as certain laws/phenomenon of nature. These miracles were then downgraded and more and more miracles lost their position as we made progress. If can we can train dogs to sniff out contraband by pointing a finger or blowing a whistle, if we can train dolphins to echolocate things in deep waters at our command, if we train pigeons to deliver letters and messages across countries then the event of birds dropping pebbles on the attackers of Kaaba will seem to be less of a miracle.
The practice of God is what He consistently does in a particular situation. If He punishes for a certain act, then He consistently punishes for the same act, through all times and nations, without exceptions.
A miracle falls into the category of HIS practice to provide certain powers as proof, to his chosen ones. We have not learned that principle/ability/law as yet, if ever we could, or may be never. When God says Isa did such and such “by his permission” repeatedly, or when Moses uses the staff to part the sea, it is only by his permission. This Divine permission to make things manifest in this world of laws, that defy the current understanding of laws are called miracles. Miracles are also proof that God is not bound by our universe or laws. Miracles serve the purpose of “shock and awe” to grab attention of its audience.
Is curing or controlling or preventing leprosy a miracle today? It would still be a miracle if one did it by merely touching a patient. Is raising the dead a miracle today? It would be a miracle if we did it by touch and not use the defibrillator. Wim Hof and his students can endure an intravenous injection of bacterial endotoxin while others get violently sick. It is a miracle when the phenomenon is not known. It is a biological science when we know that excretion of adrenaline is the reason these outliers can tolerate this poison. They can do this at will, i.e. control autonomic nervous system.
In the end, we can understand the ayahs of the Qur’ān in a certain context within the paragraph they are written.
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All of the above responses are very well articulated and hopefully will help get the point across. One more thing that I would like to concisely touch base on is a general misconception regarding scientific laws. When we refer to the term scientific law, it by definition includes the possibility of being violated. There are enormous debates amongst scientists and science philosophers about the nature of scientific laws that you can look up yourself, but a miracle is very much a possibility even through the lens of science when we realize that laws are only what we have so far been able to derive from our limited observations.
Please also see the screenshot I’m attaching from the following Wikipedia article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law
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