Relentless Reasoning

The Invention of the Prophet’s Miracles

How Legends Replaced History

Why Every Miracle Attributed to Muḥammad Appears Centuries Late — and Why That Absence Collapses Islam’s Entire Narrative of Prophetic Authority

Introduction

A Prophet With Miracles — But Only After He Dies

Muslims grow up believing that Muḥammad:

split the moon,
multiplied food,
healed the sick,
produced water from his fingers,
cast shadows that moved people,
performed exorcisms,
controlled animals,
predicted future events,
journeyed to heaven,
spoke to trees,
and had angels fight beside him.

But there is a problem so large that it dismantles the entire foundation of these stories:

**None of Muḥammad’s miracles appear in the Qurʾān.

None appear in 7th-century sources.
None appear in 8th-century sources.
None appear in early non-Muslim records.**

They appear only:

150–250 years after Muḥammad,
in hadith books produced in the Abbasid era,
in an Islam that had already transformed from a political movement into a myth-making theological system.

This is not preservation.

This is creation.

And once you expose how and when these stories emerge,
the entire miracle tradition falls apart.

SECTION 1 — The Qurʾān Explicitly Denies Muḥammad’s Miracles

The Qurʾān mentions miracles everywhere —
for other prophets, not for Muḥammad.

When pagans ask for miracles:

“Why has no sign been sent down upon him?”
(Q 6:37)

The reply is:

“You are only a warner.”
(Q 13:7)

When they ask him to split the sky, produce rivers, or summon angels:

“Say: Glory be to my Lord! Am I anything but a human messenger?”
(Q 17:93)

When they demand visible proof:

“Nothing prevented us from sending signs except that earlier peoples rejected them.”
(Q 17:59)

Translation:
God refused to give Muḥammad miracles.

Muslim exegetes struggle with this,
because it contradicts all later miracle stories.
But the Qurʾān is unambiguous:

Muḥammad performed no miracles.

SECTION 2 — The Qurʾān Refutes Islam’s Most Popular Miracle: The Splitting of the Moon

One of Islam’s most dramatic claims is:

Muḥammad split the moon with his finger.

But:

The Qurʾān never says Muḥammad performed this event.
It describes the moon split as a future eschatological sign, not a past miracle (Q 54:1).
No contemporary civilization recorded a lunar split:

Byzantines,
Persians,
Indians,
Chinese astronomical courts,
Arab chroniclers.

A global astronomical event would have been recorded everywhere.

It was not recorded anywhere.

Hadith invent the story centuries later to retroactively grant Muḥammad miracle status.

SECTION 3 — The Sīrah Contains No Early Miracles

The earliest biography of Muḥammad (Ibn Ishaq, d. 767):

contains no long list of miracles,
includes no moon splitting,
adds only vague “signs,”
focuses on battles and politics, not supernatural feats.

Even Ibn Ishaq’s own teacher, al-Zuhri (d. 741), refused to report miracles because he considered them embellishments.

Muḥammad’s actual earliest memory:

a political leader,
a war organizer,
a tribal negotiator,
a preacher of monotheism,

— not a miracle worker.

The later miracle tradition overwrites the original memory.

SECTION 4 — The Hadith Fabricate Miracles Centuries Later

The explosion of miracles begins with:

Bukhari (d. 870),
Muslim (d. 875),
and later storytellers.

This is 240 years after Muḥammad.

By this time:

Islam was an empire,
theology was systematized,
Sunnah was being codified,
sectarianism was rampant,
caliphs needed divine legitimacy,
scholars elevated Muḥammad to rival Jesus and Moses.

So miracle stories multiplied.

Hadith collections read like medieval folklore:

Trees walk.
Stones speak.
Clouds shade the Prophet.
Angels ride into battles.
Animals complain.
Poisoned legs swell.
Water pours from fingers.

This is not eyewitness history.
This is hagiography — the myth-making phase of a religion.

SECTION 5 — Non-Muslim Sources Knew Muḥammad — But Not as a Miracle Worker

The earliest non-Muslim accounts (630s–690s):

Do describe Muḥammad.
Do acknowledge a leader.
Do record Arab conquests.
Do mention a monotheistic preacher.

But they say nothing about miracles.

Not one miracle.

If Muḥammad split the moon,
why do Syriac chroniclers miss it?

If animals spoke to him,
why do Armenian historians ignore it?

If trees walked toward him,
why does Thomas the Presbyter say nothing?

If angels fought in Badr,
why do Byzantine military historians remain silent?

Because none of it happened.

These are legends created after Islam became an imperial religion.

SECTION 6 — The Miracle Tradition Serves Two Late Purposes

Purpose 1 — To elevate Muḥammad to prophetic status

Because Muḥammad performed no miracles during his life,
the Qurʾān repeatedly defends him against accusations of lacking signs.

Later scholars needed to solve this embarrassment.

Solution: invent miracle stories.

Purpose 2 — To justify 9th-century political and legal structures

Many miracle narratives support:

Sunni authority,
the infallibility of the Prophet,
the necessity of Hadith,
Sharia rulings,
concepts like barakah and intercession,
Abbasid political theology.

When a story justifies later doctrine,
its origin is doctrinal — not historical.

SECTION 7 — The Miracles Contradict Each Other

Massive contradictions appear when you compare miracle reports:

Splitting the moon

Some hadith say it was seen once.
Others say twice.
Others say it was a dream.
Others say it was visible only to pagans.
Others say it was visible to everyone.

Water from fingers

Occurred once.
No, twice.
No, at Hudaybiyyah.
No, at Tabuk.
No, at Khaybar.

Food multiplication

Happened at the trench.
No, during the Hijrah.
No, after the wedding feast.

Night journey (Miʿraj)

Physical.
No, spiritual.
No, dream.
No, bodily and dream.
No, dual nature.
No, multiple ascensions.

Contradictions = fabrication.

Authentic miracles would not produce chaos in memory.
Only invented stories do.

SECTION 8 — The Logic Problem

Every Other Prophet Needed Miracles — Except Muḥammad?

The Qurʾān insists:

Prophets must perform miracles to prove authenticity.
Moses showed signs.
Jesus showed signs.
Salih showed signs.
Hud showed signs.
All prophets came with proofs.

Yet:

Muḥammad comes with none —

until hadith writers fabricate them long after he dies.

Either:

Muḥammad lacked miracles and later scholars invented them,
or
The Qurʾān contradicts itself by exempting Muḥammad from its own prophetic standards.

Both outcomes shatter Islamic theology.

SECTION 9 — What the Historical Method Concludes

Across textual, manuscript, linguistic, and comparative evidence, the conclusion is unavoidable:

Muḥammad’s miracle tradition is a late invention created to compensate for the Qurʾān’s explicit denial of miracles and the silence of early Islamic history.

There is:

no contemporaneous evidence,
no archaeology,
no inscriptions,
no eyewitness writings,
no external corroboration,
no early Muslim documentation.

The miracle tradition does not record history.
It creates it.

Conclusion

The Prophet’s Miracles Were Not Remembered — They Were Manufactured

Part 43 ends with the unavoidable verdict:

If Muḥammad performed miracles, early texts would mention them.
The Qurʾān does not.
Seventh-century sources do not.
Eighth-century sources do not.
Miracles appear only in ninth-century literature created to fill a theological void.

Therefore:

The miracle tradition is fiction, not history.

It exists because Islam needed:

a supernatural prophet,
divine validation,
legal authority,
political legitimacy,
spiritual superiority.

So storytellers supplied what reality lacked.

A religion built on miracles that never happened
cannot claim divine confirmation.