this prophet is truthful while that pretender is a liar, on the strength of those very signs, even before they behold any event that departs from the normal order.

Some theologians object, saying: “Anything that is not a breach of custom is not peculiar to a prophet, so it provides no proof.”
The answer is: the expression “breach of custom” is vague. The mere appearance of a claim to prophethood—whether true or false—is itself not ordinary; it has occurred only in a handful of individuals in all of human history and is far rarer than foretelling the unseen. Reports about the unseen are more common than claims to prophethood, for every prophet informs about the unseen, whereas not everyone who does so is a prophet.

Those who raise this objection—most, or at least many of them—go on to say that the conjunction of (1) the claim to prophethood, (2) the challenge, and (3) the miracle is what is unique to a prophet. Otherwise, they maintain, whatever counted as a miracle for a prophet could likewise appear at the hands of a saint (walī) or a sorcerer, the only difference being the prophet’s open challenge and the absence of any successful counter-challenge.

Some of them deny that a breach of the natural order can occur at the hands of anyone but a prophet. Others distinguish between the saint and the sorcerer only by the saint’s righteousness and the sorcerer’s wickedness. Still others apply this same criterion of distinction even to the prophet himself—particularly the Hellenistic philosophers, who are among the most ignorant