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146chapter threeThe miracle that MuÈammad (ß) performed occurred on a different,more abstract level. His miracle was the qur"§n itself. No extratextualmiracle was required to prove that his message came from God. Thismiracle, the text’s ambiguous quality, shows three characteristics:1. MuÈammad’s (ß) prophethood, embodied in al-qur"§n and saba#al-math§nÊ, is the result of a rational deduction based on empiricalperception of objective reality. It is inscribed in ambiguous waysinside the textual features of the prophetical verses. As time progresses,the rational deductions of the text mix with the ever moresophisticated empirical perception of reality and produce what isdefined as ‘unmediated apprehension’ ( al-ta"wÊl al-mub§shir). AsAllah says: ‘We shall show them Our signs in every region of theearth and in themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this isthe truth ( al-Èaqq). Is it not enough that your Lord witnesses everything?’[Fußßilat 41:53]. 302. The qur"§n of MuÈammad’s prophethood possesses the quality ofboth expressing the entirety of knowledge and allowing a partialunderstanding of it. It is a truly textual miracle that no humanauthor could ever have produced. It implies, however, that nohuman interpreter can ever reflect the total knowledge of the qur"§nin his exegesis. Every interpretation reflects, instead, the standardsof thinking of the time when the exegesis was written. If we wantto see the paradigms of the seventh century, we only need to readIbn #Abb§s’s commentary. If we want to know the paradigms ofthinking in the fourteenth century, Ibn KathÊr’s tafsÊr will tell us.Their understanding of the text was partial, relative, and contextrelated, whereas the text’s knowledge is absolute, total, and transhistorical.This synthesis is the real ‘miracle’ of the qur"§n.3. The qur"§n combines the perfect style of literary poetry with theaccuracy and precision of the best scientific writing. The beauty ofits poetic expressions, its melodic rhythm and its rhetoric symbolismis not compromised by its scientific reflections and discursive,objective exposition of scientific laws. In a way, it combines all thepoetic masterpieces by Shakespeare, Pushkin, and al-MutanabbÊ 3130‘For every prophecy is a limit of time, and soon shall you know it’ ( Al-An#§m6:67). ‘Nay, they charge with falsehood that whose knowledge cannot compass, evenbefore the interpretation thereof has reached them… (Yånus 10:39).31Abå al-•ayyib AÈmad b. \ussayn al-MutanabbÊ (915–965), Arab poet, consideredone of the greatest authors of the classical Arabic qaßÊda poetry. He was killedwhile on a trip near Baghdad.