The Fourth Addendum: Part 1

Then that traveller through the world addressed his own intellect saying: “Since I am seeking my Master and Creator by means of the creatures of the cosmos, I ought before all else to visit the most celebrated of all these creatures, the greatest and most accomplished commander among them, according to the testimony even of his enemies, the most renowned ruler, the most exalted in speech and the most brilliant an intellect, who has illuminated fourteen centuries with his excellence and with his Qur’an, Muhammad the Arabian Prophet (May God’s peace and blessings be upon him).” In order thus to visit him and seek from him the answer to his quest, he entered the blessed age of the Prophet in his mind, and saw that age to be one of true felicity, thanks to that being. For through the light he had brought, he had turned the most primitive and illiterate of peoples into the masters and teachers of the world.

He said too to his own intellect, “Before asking him concerning our Creator, we should first learn the value of this extraordinary being, the veracity of his words and the truthfulness of his warnings.” Thus he began investigating, and of the numerous conclusive proofs that he found we will briefly indicate here only nine of the most general ones.

THE FIRST

All excellent qualities and characteristics were to be found in that extraordinary being, according to the testimony even of his enemies. Hundreds of miracles were made manifest at his hands, according to explicit Qur’anic verses or traditions enjoying the status of tawatur.

Examples of these miracles are his splitting of the moon -And the moon split(404) with a single indication of his finger; his casting of a handful of dust into the eyes of his enemies, causing them to flee -It was not your act when you threw, but God’s(405) and his giving his thirsting army to drink from the water that flowed forth from his five fingers like the Spring of Kawthar. Since some of those miracles, numbering more than three hundred, have been set forth with decisive proofs in the remarkable and wondrous work known as The Miracles of Muhammad (the Nineteenth Letter), we leave discussion of the miracles to that book, and permit the traveller to continue speaking:

“A being who in addition to noble characteristics and perfections has all these luminous miracles to demon-strate, must certainly be the most truthful in speech of all men. It is inconceivable that he would stoop to trickery, lies and error, the deeds of the vile.”