A marvellous event not ascribable to human power or the operation of any natural force and therefore attributed to supernatural, esp. divine, agency; esp. an act (e.g. of healing) demonstrating control over nature and serving as evidence that the agent is either divine or divinely favoured.

I think the key idea in the definition of miracle is the inability of human (or other creatures) to bring similar marvellous events. if this is the case, then any marvellous event which man can not perform (although he might be able to explain through whatever since and technology he has) is considered miracle. For example, we can explain earthquakes through friction of giant plates of earth, but it remains miracle for us because we can produce such earth quake. similar argument can consider volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc as miracles. By this kind of argumentation, birds flying in air might not be considered as miracle, because now man invented airplanes which can take hundreds of people in air much faster than birds.

So, every natural events (i.e., Laws of Nature) from rain falling to sun rising to kids growing to fishes swimming, etc all are miracles when compared with man’s lack of power to repeat such events.

However, I guess in our context, this is not what we mean by miracle. If I am right we mean by miracles only those events which does not fall under laws of nature. So, although I consider the sun rising from East a miracle by itself, however, in our context it would be miracle only if sun rises from West.

Now, I would like to give a theistic view on miracles in general and in particular the view of –in my understanding- Islam.

An inherent characteristic of miracles in nature is it’s temporal effect which is bound to particular space and time and the physical sensory organs to capture them. So, the stick of Moses –if true- was miracle only to those few people who witnessed the event through their sensory organs of probably eyes and ears. It is not a miracle for us because –as Hume argued- they are merely based on human testimony and reported by others and we ourselves never experienced it.

I believe God has sent His messengers to a certain locality –for example Moses to the children of Israel - who tried to convince their people to worship God alone through reasoning and logic. these people refused and the messenger warned them, they did not listen, so finally God gave this messenger a power to make change in natural law (Miracle) which no one can deny except those who are arrogant.

The above case has limited effect only to a particular community at particular time in history. So, these were miracles that are bound to time and location? How to generate a miracle that is not bound to location or time. Here comes the divine scriptures as miracles. These are so, because if the content was guaranteed to be above alteration, then the tool to receive (and appreciate) this miracle is intellect and reason not the physical sensory organs like eyes, ears, taste, smell, et. In this way, such book as Koran is considered to be a miracle which is not bound by time or location, and the tool to appreciate it is reason which is a property of any human being.

So, if I were asked “have you ever witnessed a miracle?” I would answer “Yes, every moment. I see miracles in the beautify nature that God created, in birds singing, in flowers in bees in fishes in Sun rising, in Starts twinkling, etc”. But if these miracles are not considered as miracles, then I would consider Koran to be a miracle. I have mentioned earlier some of the miraculous aspects of Koran. Speaking personally –which made it a miracle to me as being the recipient of the miracle are two observation:

First, I memorized the Koran when I was kid. Now that means memorizing a 600 page Arabic text which I used not to understand at that time. Moreover, it is very common in Muslim World that you will find kids below 10 years memorizing this volume by heart. This by itself I consider as Miracle.

Second incidence which I witnessed is the reaction of the recitation of verses of Koran on someone who has been caught by evil spirits. Through recitation the spirits who were inside the victim started to talk when powerful verses were recited and was warned to be burnt by similar powerful verses if they do not leave the victim’s body. These type of report will surely be irritating to the scientific community who does not believe in evil spirits nor in Satan nor in Angels.

Passing through such experience in my personal life, I would not get distracted by Hume’s objections, and I would consider Miracles a proof for the existence of God.

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