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InSufism,karamat (Arabic:کرامات,romanized: karāmāt, singularArabic:کرامة,romanized: karāma)[1] refers to supernatural wonders performed byMuslim saints. In the technical vocabulary of Islamic religious sciences, the singular formkaramat has a sense similar tocharism, a favor or spiritual gift freely bestowed by God.[2] The marvels ascribed to Muslim saints have included supernatural physical actions, predictions of the future, "interpretation of the secrets of hearts",[2] and walking on water.[3]
The concept is closely related to that ofBarakah (divine blessing) which endows the individual with such abilities.[4] Another characteristic of miraculous powers is that the saint'sprayers are answered immediately. These prayers must never be for material gain, but are requests for helping or punishing others, if seen befitting.[5] The prayers of saints may also grant them power over the fate of angels, as in mystical hagiography, a saint may pray for forgiveness of afallen angel and restore their place in theangelic hierarchy.[6]
A number of terms are used in Islam to refer to the claims of events happening that are not explicable bynatural orscientific laws, subjects where people sometimes invoke thesupernatural.[7] A systematic definition of miracles performed by apostles can be found in the work of theMuslim scholar al-Īd̲j̲ī Mawāḳif, historian A.J. Wensinck states the main purpose of miracle is to prove the sincerity of the apostle and has to satisfy the following conditions:[8]
Taftāzāni lists in hisSharh al-'Aqa'id al-Nasafiyya the following miracles as performed by saints and prophets:[9]
In theQuran the termāyah (/ˈɑːjə/;Arabic:آية; plural:آياتāyāt, literally "sign") refers to signs in the context ofmiracles ofGod's creation and of theprophets and messengers (such asIbrahim/Abraham andIsa/Jesus).[10] In later Islamic sources miracles of the prophets were referred to byMuʿjiza (مُعْجِزَة),[10] literally meaning "that by means of which [the Prophet] confounds, overwhelms, his opponents", while miracles ofsaints are referred to askaramat (charismata)[11] included in thebooks of Manaqib. Karamat was usually used for miraculous performances ofSufi saints often used to convert unbelievers to Islam (considered a work ofdivine generosity rather than "divine power" employed in the miracles of prophets).[10]Kharq al'adad – "a break in God's customary order of things" – was a term used in "theological or philosophical discussions" to refer to miraculous events.[10]
TheSīrah had almost no miracles (dalāʾil al-nubuwwa) in the first records, although there were hundreds of additions made in later periods.[12] Believing in the existence and miracles ofAwliya is presented as a "condition" for orthodox Islam by many prominent Sunni creed writers such asAl-Tahawi andNasafi[13][14] and is accepted in traditional Sunnis and Shi'ism. The possibility of miracles was explained by appeal toOccasionalism andGod'somnipotence as laid out inMedieval Islamic philosophy. Accordingly, natural laws do not exist in itself, but God subsequently creating each moment anew creates the illusion of predictable natural laws which can be ignored by God at any time.[15]
However, this understanding, along with expressions of respect and visits to the graves of saints, are seen as unacceptableheresy by puritanical and revivalist Islamic movements such asSalafism,Wahhabism andIslamic Modernism.[16]
I'jaz al-Quran – literally the inimitability of the Quran – refers to the Quranic claim that no one can hope to imitate its (the Quran's) perfection,[10] this quality being considered the primary miracle of the Quran and proof ofMuhammad'sprophethood. In recent decades, the termI'jaz has also come to refer to the belief that the Quran contains "scientific miracles", i.e. prophecies of scientific discoveries.[17]
Historically, a "belief in the miracles of saints (karāmāt al-awliyāʾ, literally 'marvels of the friends [of God]')" has been a part of SufiSunni Islam.[18] This is evident from the fact that an acceptance of the miracles wrought bysaints is taken for granted by many of the major authors of theIslamic Golden Age (ca. 700–1400),[19] as well as by many prominent late-medieval scholars.[19] According to orthodox Sunni doctrine, all miracles performed by saints are done by the leave ofGod,[19] and usually involve a "breaking of the natural order of things" (khāriq li’l-ʿāda)," or represent, in other words, "an extraordinary happening which breaks the 'divine custom' (sunnat Allāh) which is the normal course of events."[2] Traditionally, Sunni Islam has also strictly emphasized that the miracles of a saint, no matter how extraordinary they may be, are never in any way the "sign of a prophetic mission," and this has been stressed in order to safeguard the Islamic doctrine of Muhammad being theSeal of the Prophets.[2]
Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr, who lived in the second half of the twelfth century, can be seen as an example of Sufi-conversation and miracle performance of his time.[20] In his twenties, it is said he had a vision, while he was sleeping, ordering him to pray. Thereupon he woke up and began to learn and practise all Islamic rituals and teachings, until he eventually reached the state offanāʾ. During his spiritual journey, at the time he enteredZabīd, he began to experience divine gifts and gathered a multitude of followers around him. A group of people once challenged one of his disciples, whereupon al-Khayr's student, with aid of his tachers influence, began to walk on water.[21]
The doctrine of thekarāmāt al-awliyāʾ, which became enshrined as anorthodox and required belief in many of the most prominent Sunni creeds of the classical era, such as thecreeds ofal-Tahawi (ca. 900) andAbu Hafs Umar an-Nasafi (ca. 1000), emerged from the two basic Islamic doctrinal sources of theQuran and thehadith.[2] As the Quran referred to the miracles of non-prophetic saintly people likeKhidr (18:65–82), thedisciples of Jesus (5:111–115), and theSeven Sleepers (18:7–26), amongst many others, many prominent early scholars deduced that a group of venerable people must exist who occupy a rank below theprophets and messengers but who are nevertheless capable of performing miracles.[19]
The references in the corpus ofhadith literature tobona fide miracle-working saints like the pre-Islamic Jurayj̲, seemingly an Arabic form of the GreekGrēgorios,[22][23][24][25] only lent further credence to this early understanding of the miracles of the saints.[19] The fourteenth-centuryHanbali scholaribn Taymiyya (d. 1328), despite his well-known objections toziyara (visiting ofsaints' graves), nevertheless stated:
The miracles of saints are absolutely true and correct, by the acceptance of all Muslim scholars. And the Qur'an has pointed to it in different places, and the sayings of the Prophet have mentioned it, and whoever denies the miraculous power of saints are only people who are innovators and their followers.[26]
As one contemporary scholar has expressed it, practically all of the major scholars of the classical and medieval eras believed that "the lives of saints and their miracles were incontestable."[27]
In the modern world, this doctrine of the miracles of saints has been challenged by certain movements within the branches ofSalafism,Wahhabism, andIslamic modernism, as certain followers of some of these movements have come to view the very idea of Muslim saints "as being both un-Islamic and backwards ... rather than the integral part of Islam which they were for over a millennium."[28] Islamic modernists, in particular, have tended to dismiss traditional conceptions as "superstitious" rather than authentically Islamic.[2] Despite the presence, however, of these opposing streams of thought, the classical doctrine continues to thrive in many parts of the Islamic world today, playing a vital role in the daily piety of vast portions of Muslim countries likePakistan,Bangladesh,Egypt,Turkey,Senegal,South Africa,Iraq,Iran,Algeria,Tunisia,Indonesia,Malaysia, andMorocco,[2] as well as in countries with substantive Islamic populations like India, China, Russia, and theBalkans.[19]
In theMalay Peninsula and surrounding cultural regions,keramat means any special tomb of any religious person venerated, including Buddhists and Taoists.[29]
The Qur'an does not overtly describe Muhammad performing miracles, according to historian Denis Gril, and the supreme miracle of Muhammad is finallyidentified with the Qur'an itself.[31] At least one scholar (Sunni Modernist scholarMuhammad Asad) states that Muhammad performed no miracles other than to bring the Quran to humanity,[32] and other scholars, such as Cyril Glasse andMarcia Hermansen, downplay the miracles of Muhammad, stating "they play no role in Islamic theology",[33] or "play less of an evidentiary role than in some other religions".[34]
However, Muslim tradition (hadith) credits Muhammad with several supernatural events.[35] For example, many Muslim commentators and some western scholars have interpreted the sura 54 (Al-Qamar)[36] to refer to Muhammadsplitting the Moon in view of the Quraysh when they had begun to persecute his followers.[31][37] This tradition has inspired manyMuslim poets.[38]
The Quran describes Muhammad asummi (Q7:157),[39] which is traditionally interpreted as "unlettered,"[40][41] and the ability of such a person to produce the Quran is taken as miraculous[41] and as a sign of the genuineness of his prophethood. For example, according toFakhr al-Din al-Razi, if Muhammad had mastered writing and reading he possibly would have been suspected of having studied the books of the ancestors. Some scholars such asWatt prefer the second meaning.[42][43]
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According to Denis Gril, Islam teaches that miracles – i.e. a supernatural interventions in the life of human beings – are present in theQur'an "in a threefold sense: insacred history, in connection with Muhammad himself and in relation to revelation."[31] By contrast,Ali Dashti (d. 1982) writes that "there has been much debate [...] on the question whether the Qur'an is miraculous in respect of its eloquence or of its subject-matter, or of both. In general the Muslim scholars consider it to be miraculous in both respects."[44]
According toAl-Ghazali the termayah is used to refer to miracles—cosmic phenomena for example areayat takwiniyyah—particularly miracles of creation.[45] But it is also used to mean "evidence," "sign", "Quranic verse", (religious obligations areayat taklifiyyah). As such, the Qur'an itself is also a miracle.[45] The verses are believed to be the divine speech inhuman language presented by Muhammad as his chief miracle,[31] and a "sign" (ayah) of God and of Muhammad's prophethood.[35]
The termQuran code (also known as Code 19) refers to the claim that the Quranic text contains a hidden mathematically complex code. Advocates think that the code represents amathematical proof of thedivine authorship of the Quran and they also think that it can be used to identifyorthographic errors within the Quranic text. Proponents of the Quran code claim that the Quran code is based onstatistical procedures.
In the United States, at the end of the 20th century, the EgyptianQuranist Muslim biochemistRashad Khalifa developed a theological doctrine that influenced Quranists in many other countries. With the help of computers, he carried out a numerical analysis of the Quran, which according to him clearly proved that it is of divine origin.[46] The number 19, which is mentioned in chapter 74 of the Quran as being "one of the greatest miracles" played the fundamental role,[47] which according to Khalifa can be found everywhere in the structure of the Quran, and the fact that a Quranist discovered such a big miracle proved the Quranist approach.[48] Khalifa also cited Quran's chapter 74, verse 30: "Over it is nineteen".[49][50] The movement popularized the phrase: "The Quran, the whole Quran, and nothing but the Quran."[51] Some objected to these beliefs and, in 1990, Khalifa was assassinated by someone associated with theSalafi jihadi groupJamaat ul-Fuqra.[52]
While connections between scientific ideas and the Qu'ran can be found in the works ofIbn Sina, Fakhr al-Razi, andAbu Hamid al-Ghazali, modern "scientific exegesis" of the Qur'an[54] began in the 1970s and 80s as a genre of popular literature known asijaz (miracle). Often called "scientific miracles in the Qur'an", the widespread and well-funded[55]ijaz movement argues that the Qur'an contains numerous "scientific facts" written down centuries before their discovery by science and thus demonstrating the divinity of the Qur'an.[56][57][58]
As explained by cultural criticZiauddin Sardar, while the claims of theijaz movement require "considerable mental gymnastics and distortions to find scientific facts or theories in these verses", funding to the tune of "millions" from Saudi Arabia has succeeded in creating a "global craze in Muslim societies"; its claims can be found in many Muslim bookstores, websites, and on television programs of Islamic preachers.[59] Proponents including Naeem Al-Mohassi,Maurice Bucaille, Rafiei Mohammadi, Mostarhameh, Makarem Shirazi, and Rezaei Isfahani[citation needed] claim that the Qur'an contains prophetic descriptions of, as Sardar states, "everything, from relativity, quantum mechanics, Big Bang theory, black holes and pulsars, genetics, embryology, modern geology, thermodynamics, even the laser and hydrogen fuel cells".[59]
Aside from critics from outside the religion, mainstream Islamic scholars have also objected to certain interpretations of theijaz movement.[60][61][62][63] For example,Zafar Ishaq Ansari argues from the perspective of Islam that while the Quran is the source of guidance in right faith (iman) and righteous action (alladhina amanu wa amilu l-salihat), the idea that it contained "all knowledge, including scientific" knowledge is not a mainstream view among Muslim scholarship.[54]
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