they hold no special power that sets it apart from the nose, just as bread possesses no distinctive power over drink, nor water over vinegar; rather, according to them, God simply creates satiety and quenching in their presence, not through them. Such a claim is weak and conflicts with both revelation and sound reason. God the Exalted says:
“[Consider] the water that Allah sent down from the sky; with it He revived the earth after its death” (Qur’an 2:164),
“Then We sent down water therewith, and thereby We brought forth every kind of fruit” (Qur’an 6:99),
“And He sent down for you water from the sky, and with it We caused gardens of splendid beauty to grow” (Qur’an 27:60).
Verses of this kind are plentiful in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, as has been detailed elsewhere.

The point here is that the existence of souls—or of other created entities—in which God has placed forces and natures that bring about certain effects is denied by neither the Sacred Law nor sound intellect. What is utterly false, however, is the allegation that the miracles of our Prophet, or of any other prophet, belong to this category; that is a grievous slander. Those who advance this view thought they could account for some extraordinary occurrences by natural causes, and so they did. Their uninformed followers then assumed the explanation applied universally and generalized it. As for their more sophisticated adherents, they deny any wonder that, in their view, lies outside the natural order—such as the case of certain people who remain for lengthy periods without food or drink. Indeed, there are groups who can go a month or two without eating, and Ibn Sīnā began to say in his al-Ishārāt: “If it reaches you that …”