or by the gush of water from the very container he had blessed, while the water itself remained exactly as it was, undiminished.

Thus the multiple-concurrent hadiths that deal with these kinds of miracles are more numerous than the multiple-concurrent hadiths that treat those other matters which are themselves considered mutawātir. For this reason, the fame of these miraculous events within the Muslim community and among those versed in his biography is greater than the fame of many of those juristic issues. The point here is that the recurrent transmission of his signs, as abundantly reported in hadith, is stronger than the recurrence of many other matters that the ummah—or its scholars and the scholars of hadith—accept as mutawātir.

All of this is in addition to the signs and proofs that are derived from the Qur’an itself. Groups of Muslims have devoted themselves exclusively to those, cataloguing their types and characteristics at length elsewhere, and have shown that the signs in the Qur’an exceed tens of thousands. Added to this is what appears in the scriptures of the People of the Book concerning him.

These three categories stand apart from what is found in the sacred law with which he was sent, apart from the distinctive qualities of his community, and apart from the indications that come from a knowledge of his biography, character, traits, and states. All of this is further distinct from Allah’s support and honour bestowed on those who believe in him, and His punishment and vengeance upon those who disbelieve in him—just as He did with the earlier prophets—for to enumerate the individual instances of the proofs of prophethood