speculative theology and religious learning have failed to distinguish the extraordinary signs granted to prophets and the righteous from those possessed by Satan’s allies—sorcerers, soothsayers, unbelievers among the polytheists and the People of the Book, and adherents of innovation and misguidance among those who have entered Islam. They have treated extraordinary phenomena as a single category, saying:

“Any of them can constitute a prophetic miracle if accompanied by a claim to prophethood, its presentation as proof, and a challenge to produce its like. If an unbeliever or sorcerer who is not a prophet claims prophethood, Allah must deprive him of whatever such powers he possessed and appoint someone to match his feat. Were one of these people to challenge a prophet, Allah would render that challenger incapable.”

Thus, in their view, the defining feature of prophetic miracles is simply that those to whom the prophet is sent cannot produce anything like the extraordinary things he brings forth. They say, “People’s inability to match them is itself a departure from the customary course of events.” This, then, is what constitutes prophetic miracles according to them.

In this they resembled their Muʿtazilite predecessors, who said that prophetic miracles were departures from the customary course of events. The latter, however, denied the miracles granted to the righteous and denied that sorcery and soothsaying were anything more than sleight of hand and trickery. They did not know that devils assist in such things.

The former affirmed the miracles granted to the righteous, but then claimed that Muslims had unanimously agreed that such phenomena occur only through a righteous man or a prophet. They said, “If they appear at a man’s hands, then, by virtue of this consensus, he is righteous.” Yet these very people have themselves stated that sorcerers can produce their like. They thus contradicted themselves on this matter, as has been explained at length elsewhere.