“They are like cattle—indeed, even further astray; it is they who are heedless.” Verses of this tenor are many.

The point here is that Allah has singled out the prophets with virtues, excellences, and noble traits by which He distinguished them from all others. So if someone says that Allah endowed the Prophet with special powers within himself and, by that, intends only to affirm his particular merits and distinctions, he has spoken the truth. If he further says that these distinguishing traits become causes for extraordinary events with which Allah honors them—events that count as miracles and wondrous gifts—or that the very traits themselves are instances where the normal order is suspended for their sake, this too is unobjectionable. Yet several issues still require clarification.

First, one must not imagine that every act that breaks the normal order is produced by such inner powers, for that is certainly false. We do not deny that Allah favored the prophets with virtues through which He suspended the ordinary course, nor do we deny that those virtues can be a cause for additional extraordinary happenings. What is false, however, is the claim that the powers whereby they were preferred over others are what generated everything they brought of divine signs, revelations, and the manifold miracles that defy the norm and occur in the world—in the heavens, on earth, in the air, the clouds, the animal realm, the trees, the mountains, and so on. Among these matters are things for which the powers of the soul can never be a cause: either because the soul is incapable of them or because the objects in question do not admit the influence of souls. Souls, for example, cannot bring the sun to a standstill, split the moon, make the Throne quake, scatter the stars, turn a piece of wood into a mighty serpent, cause a she-camel to emerge from the earth, or raise the dead or animals back to life.