At this point we deem it our duty to put in a word of caution.
Events which have been reported in ancient books as "miracles"
need not all be dismissed as the unconscious fabrications of
credulous people. The mind of man may possess powers which are
unsuspected by science. Some present day scientists are not so
sceptical as their predecessors were, A new science, parapsychology,
has sprung up and for the moment seems to be vigorously active, A
few eminent psychologists are working in this field and have already
collected evidence and discovered facts in the face of which
dogmatic scepticism appears to be as absurd as the credulity of the
ancients, Telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience and psycho-kinetic
phenomena are being experimentally studied, All we can say at
present is that the mind may well possess supernormal powers. We
are learning the lesson that intellectual arrogance is an obstacle in
the search for truth. Whatever may be the outcome of the
investigations into the occult, the truly Qur'anic response to the
universe will remain unchanged. The question of miracles may
enlist the interest of the scientist but it has no vital relation to a quest
which has any connection with deen. The Qur'an seeks to awaken in
man the consciousness of his intimate relation to the universe. Its
main emphasis is on reason and knowledge. Its purpose is to help to
build up a free, self-reliant and rational personality, vivified with the
sense of God's working in the universe according to His unalterable
laws. Therefore, miracles, if they mean freaks of nature or any
alteration in the immutable laws of God, can have no place in that
working.
We close this discussion with the following apt quotation from
Iqbal which bears eloquent testimony to his deep insight into and
perceptive appreciation of Islam:
The birth of Islam is the birth of inductive intellect. In Islam prophecy
reaches its perfection in discovering the need of its own abolition. This
involves the keen perception that life cannot forever be kept in leading
strings; that in order to achieve full self-consciousness man must
finally be thrown back on his own resources. The abolition of
priesthood and hereditary kingship in Islam, the constant appeal to
reason and experience in the Qur'an and the emphasis that it lays on
Nature and History as sources of human knowledge, are all different
aspects of the same idea of finality.(4)
Reason and Eiman 121