The Quran

203

وَإِذا لَم تَأتِهِم بِآيَةٍ قالوا لَولَا اجتَبَيتَها ۚ قُل إِنَّما أَتَّبِعُ ما يوحىٰ إِلَيَّ مِن رَبّي ۚ هٰذا بَصائِرُ مِن رَبِّكُم وَهُدًى وَرَحمَةٌ لِقَومٍ يُؤمِنونَ

Muhammad Asad

And yet, when thou [O Prophet] dost not produce any miracle for them, some [people] say, "Why dost thou not seek to obtain it [from God]?'"¹ Say: "I only follow whatever is being revealed to me by my Sustainer: this [revelation] is a means of insight from your Sustainer, and a guidance and grace unto people who will believe.

Sc., "if thou art really His apostle" (cf. 6 :37 and 109, and the corresponding notes). Some of the commentators assume that the term ayah - translated by me as "miracle" - denotes here a verbal "message" which would answer the objections of those who did not believe in the Prophet. Since, however, the continuous revelation of the Qur'an was full of such messages, the demand of the unbelievers must have related to some particular manifestation or "proof" of his divinely- inspired mission: namely, to a concrete miracle which would establish the truth of his claim in a supposedly "objective" manner. In its wider implication, the above verse relates to the primitive mentality of all who regard miracles, and not the message itself, as the only valid "proof" of prophethood.