and rational reflection has likewise shown that the dispatch of one created being to others is neither impossible nor inconceivable; therefore it is wholly reasonable that God Most High should furnish proofs attesting to the truthfulness of a creature who conveys His Law and His religion.
Rational arguments further indicate that the Antichrist (al-Masīḥ al-Dajjāl) is subject to form, configuration, and change from one state to another; and it is certain that such attributes befit only originated, contingent things. Far exalted is the Lord of all beings above resembling anything or having anything resemble Him—“There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing” (Qur’an 42:11).
Section
On the two kinds of miracles
Having established this, know that miracles are of two kinds:
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Those whose reports became famous yet whose occurrence ceased with the death of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace.
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Those whose authenticity and occurrence have been transmitted through recurrent, mass-circulated reports (tawātur) so plentiful and widespread that they yield certain, self-evident knowledge to anyone who hears them.
Among the conditions of tawātur are that the transmitters be a vast, innumerable multitude; that they possess direct, unequivocal knowledge of what they relate; and that their numbers remain equally abundant in every generation—early, middle, and late—so that collusion upon falsehood becomes impossible. Such is the mode in which both the Qur’an and the very existence of the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—have been conveyed. The Community, may Allah be pleased with it, has ceaselessly passed down the Qur’an, each generation receiving it from the one before, until the chain reaches the Prophet himself, whose existence is necessarily known and whose truthfulness is confirmed by miraculous proofs. The Messenger received it from Gabriel, upon him be peace, who received it from his Lord—Mighty and Majestic. Thus the Qur’an was originally transmitted by two infallible messengers, protected from addition or omission, and afterward by people of tawātur whose sheer numbers preclude them from lying about what they transmit and hear. Consequently we possess certain, necessary knowledge of the truthfulness of what they have conveyed concerning the existence of Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—the appearance of the Qur’an at his hands, and his challenge to mankind with it.
A like case in everyday knowledge is one’s certainty about the existence of distant cities—Basra, Syria, Iraq, Khurasan, Medina, Mecca, and the like—based solely on the multitude of manifest, mutawatir reports. Accordingly, the Qur’an is the abiding miracle of our Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—remaining after him until the Day of Resurrection, whereas the miracle of every other prophet ended with his passing or became subject to alteration and change, as happened with the Torah and the Gospel.