Every Prophet is given a miracle - a sign. The miracle of the Prophet of Islam is the Qur'an. The prophethood of Muhammad, on whom be peace, was to be valid until the Last Day. It was imperative, therefore, that his miracle also be one which would last for all time. The Qur'an was, therefore, assigned to the Prophet as his everlasting miracle.

The Prophet's opponents demanded miracles, such as those performed by previous prophets, but the Qur'an stated clearly that such miracles would not be forthcoming. (17:59) The Qur'an even had this to say to the Prophet:

If you find their aversion hard to bear (and would like to show them a miracle), seek if you can a burrow in the earth or ladder to the sky by which you may bring them a sign. Had God pleased, He would have given them guidance, one and all. Do not be ignorant then. (6:35)

Instead, the revealed Book of God was made into the Prophet's miracle:

They ask: 'Why has no sign been given him by his Lord?' Say: 'Signs are in the hands of God. My mission is only to give plain warning.' Is it not enough for them that We have revealed to you the Book which is recited to them? Surely in this there is a blessing and an admonition to true believers. (Qur'an, 29:50-51)

There are many different aspects of the Qur'an's miraculous nature. Here we are going to concentrate on just three:

1. The language of the Qur'an - Arabic - has, unlike other international languages, remained a living form of communication over the ages.

2. The Qur'an is unique among divine scriptures in that its text has remained intact in the original form.

3. The Qur'an challenged its doubters to produce a book like it. No one has been able to take up this challenge, and produce anything comparable to the Book of God.

The languages in which all the ancient scriptures were revealed have been locked in the archives of history. The only exception is Arabic, the language of the Qur'an, which is still current in the world today. Millions of people still speak and write the language in which the Qur'an was revealed nearly 1500 years ago. This provides stunning proof of the miraculous nature of the Qur'an, for there is no other book in history which has been able to make such an impact on its language; no other book has moulded a whole language according to its own style, and maintained it in that form over the centuries.

Take the Injil, known as the New Testament, of which the oldest existing copy is in Greek and not Aramaic, the language which Jesus is thought to have spoken. That means that we possess only a translated account of what the Prophet Jesus said and did; and that too, in ancient Greek, which is considerably different from the modern language. By the end of the 19th century the Greek language had changed so much that the meaning of at least 550 words in the New Testament - about 12% of the entire text - was not known. At that time a German expert, Adolf Deissman, discovered some ancient scrolls in Egypt. From them it emerged that biblical Greek was in fact a colloquial version of classical Greek. This language was spoken in Palestine during the first century AD. Deissman was able to attach meanings to some of the unknown words, but there are another fifty words whose meanings are still unknown. (The Gospels and the Jesus of History, by Xavier Leon-Dufour S.J.)

Ernest Renan (1823 - 1894) carried out extensive research on Semitic languages. He wrote a book on their vocabularies, in which he had this to say about the Arabic language:

"The Arabic language is the most astonishing event of human history. Unknown during the classical period, it suddenly emerged as a complete language. After this, it did not undergo any noticeable changes, so one cannot define for it an early or a late stage. It is just the same today as it was when it first appeared."

In acknowledging this 'astonishing event of human history' Renan, a French orientalist, is in fact acknowledging the miraculous nature of the Qur'an. It was the Qur'an's phenomenal literary style which preserved the Arabic language from alteration, such as other languages have undergone. The Christian Jurgi Zaydan (1861-1914) is one of the scholars to have recognized this fact. In a book on Arabic literature he writes:

"No religious book has had such an impact on the language in which it was written as the Qur'an has had on Arabic literature."

World languages have changed so much throughout the ages that no expert in any modern language is able to understand its ancient form without the aid of a dictionary. There have been two main causes of language alteration - upheavals in the social order of a nation and the development of a language's literature. Over the centuries these factors have been at work in Arabic, just as in other languages. The difference is that they have not been able to change the structure of the Arabic language. The Arabic that is spoken today is the same as that which was current in Mecca when the Qur'an was revealed. Homer's Iliad (850 BC), Tulsi Das' Ramayan (1623 AD), and the dramas of Shakespeare (1564-1616), are considered literary masterpieces of their respective languages. They have been read and, in the case of the Ramayan and Shakespeare's plays, performed continuously from the time of their compilation until the present day. But neither their literary worth nor their form has been able to prevent the languages in which they were written from being altered. The Greek of Homer, the Sanskrit of Tulsi Das and even the English of Shakespeare, are now classical rather than modern languages. The Qur'an is the only book to have moulded a language and maintained it in that same form over the ages. There have been various intellectual and political unheavals in Arab countries, but the Arabic language has remained as it was when the Qur'an was revealed. No change in the Arab social order has been able to alter in any way the Arabic tongue. This fact is a clear indication that the Qur'an came from a supernatural source. One does not have to look any further than the history of the last 1500 years to see the miraculous nature of the Book revealed to the Prophet Mohammad. Go through the following sections to understand how.

1. Social Upheavals
2. Literary Advancement