One who affirms real action for none but Allah will say: “The true muʿjiz is Allah; when the term is applied to anyone else it is only figurative.” Yet the word by itself does not establish that the event is a sign and a proof unless its intended sense is clarified and its conditions are set out. For this reason many scholastic theologians restrict the name muʿjiz to what occurs at the hands of the Prophets alone, whereas, if an extraordinary break of habit is affirmed for the awliyāʾ (saints), they call it a karāmah (honorific marvel).

The early predecessors—among them Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and others—used the word muʿjiz for both types, and with regard to the extraordinary feats of the saints they would say, “These too are muʿjizāt,” for nothing in the wording itself requires that it be confined to the Prophets. What functions specifically as a sign and conclusive proof of a Prophet’s mission, however, must indeed be reserved for him alone.

They would sometimes call the karāmāt “signs” as well, because they point to the Prophethood of the Messenger whom the saint follows; an evidence necessarily entails the reality it signifies, and it is impossible for the evidence to be established while the reality it indicates is absent. In the same way, whatever is termed a “sign” and a “proof”—the decisive evidence and distinguishing mark of Prophethood—cannot belong to anyone other than a Prophet. A fuller discussion of this appears elsewhere.

The point here is that the proofs of the Prophethood of Muḥammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—are many and diverse, as we have shown in other writings, and we have explained that