Ibrahim (Abraham)

11. “Their messengers said (answering) them: ‘We are nothing but mortals like you, but Allah bestows (His) favour on whomever He pleases of His servants; and it is not for us that we bring unto you any authority except by Allah’s permission. And on Allah should the believers rely.”

The Qur’an in this holy verse implies that Allah bestows (His) favours on whomever He pleases and appoints him as His prophet, yet, Allah, the Wise, knows who has the capacity and who is capable of performing such a great responsibility.

“…Allah knows best where to place His apostleship…”1

Incidentally, the disbelievers and the pagans had two claims to make with the prophets:

1- You are a man like all of us.

2- Perform the miracle which we propose for us.

The answer to these two claims has been provided in this verse. We do accept the fact that we are human beings just like you; but Allah granted us this favour and has provided us with revelations. And as for your claim saying that our miracles must be performed according to your request.

This cannot be achieved, for we reserve the right not to perform any miracles without Allah’s permission.

Anyway, performing miracles is not our job, so that we tend to isolate ourselves sitting in a corner and perform extraordinary things with everyone requesting a different miracle as he wishes, thus making perform of extraordinary things into a useless affair, reducing it to a plaything matter. On the contrary, we cannot perform any miracles without the command of Allah.

The verse says:

“Their messengers said (answering) them: ‘We are nothing but mortals like you, but Allah bestows (His) favour on whomever He pleases of His servants; and it is not for us that we bring unto you any authority except by Allah’s permission…”

Moreover, every prophet does perform miraculous works without being requested by the people in order to prove his legitimacy.

Afterwards, in order to provide the pretenders with a decisive answer regarding their various threats, they clarified their position, saying that all faithful individuals must rely on Allah, the same Almighty to Whose Power all powers are insignificant and useless.

The verse says:

“…And on Allah should the believers rely.”