to prove your mission you must bring God and the angels here to us.

to prove your mission you must bring God and the angels here to us." (25:24) In another verse, their foolish objections and expectations along the same lines are analyzed as follows: "They said: 'We will not believe in you unless you make a spring gush forth for us from the ground, or have a garden of date trees and vines with water flowing through it, or cause the sky to fall in on our heads, or make God and His angels appear in front of us, or have a house covered with gold, or ascend into the sky.

But we will not believe in your ascending into the sky unless you bring for us a book we can read.' Say: 'Glory be unto my Lord!

Am I anything more than a human being, sent by God with a mission?'” (17:90-93) It is evident from these verses that the objectors were demanding from the Messenger of God that, in order to prove his prophethood and his special relationship with the origin of all existence, he should perform miracles such as causing a spring to gush out of the ground or possessing an orchard overflowing with fruit or a palace of gold, these being the marks of aristocratic opulence in that age.

It was possible for those demands to be fulfilled, for certain individuals possessed one or all of the things mentioned; however, they were not Prophets. The possession of material resources can never be a criterion for prophethood and the ability to perform miracles; such things can never be accepted from anyone as a proof of Prophethood. This shows how short-sighted and banal they were in their thinking; they imagined illusory power, wealth, and abundance, to constitute criteria for leadership.

Another demand of these tricksters, who were interested in nothing more than enjoying the same kind of entertainment that the deeds of an ascetic might have provided, was the immediate descent of Divine punishment, bringing human life to an end. But the ultimate aim of the miracle is something quite different: to guide the human beings and make them aware, to nurture their capacities and to liberate them from attachments.

It is for this reason that as a result of his accepting the truth, the human being begins to act within a new system of thought. As for the demand that God and the angels should descend, considering the fact that God is not a body and is not limited with respect to time and space, He cannot have a material or relative manifestation. To imagine the contrary is the result of childish and illogical thinking.