1. When Muslims conquered Egypt in the month of ‘Bauna’,1 a non-Arab
month, natives came to Amr Aas and said:
“O chief, this river Nile follows the same practice all the time.”
He asked: “What practice?”
They replied: When thirteen nights pass from this month, we go to a virgin, who lives with her parents and convince her father and dress her in nice garments
and throw her into the river.”
Amr said: “This is not Islamic and Islam destroys all past practices [and
does not continue customs of Ignorance].”
So, they waited for three months: Bauna, Abeeb and Misri2 and Nile did not
flow, neither less nor more. So they wrote to Umar bin Khattab and he replied:
“What you did was right. Indeed, Islam has destroyed ancient practices.”
And wrote to Amr: “I have placed a small chit in this letter and when you receive
it, drop that chit into the Nile.”
When Umar’s letter arrived, it was written in that chit:
“From the slave of Allah, Umar, the chief of believers. So to say: If so far
you have flowed on your own, do not flow. If the One and Powerful Lord made
you flow, we petition the One and Powerful Lord to make you flow.”
It is mentioned in the words of Waqidi that the letter was:
“If you are a creature and not master of benefit and harm and you flow on
your own, then dry up; and we have no need for you. But if you flow by the
power of Almighty Allah, then flow, as you have flowed so far. And peace.”
Then they dropped that letter into the Nile before the day of crucifixion and
people of Egypt were prepared to leave the country and migrate somewhere else
as all their means in that country depended on the Nile. When they dropped the
chit, the night passed and the following day, then Almighty Allah caused Nile to
flow and removed that ancient practice from people of Egypt to this day.
2. Raazi has mentioned in his Tafseer that:
There was an earthquake in Medina. Umar cracked his lash on the earth and
said: Be still by the permission of God. So it fell still and after that there has
never occurred earthquake in Medina.
3. It is mentioned in Tafseer Razi that:
Fire started in some houses of Medina, Umar wrote on a piece of cloth: O
fire, go out by permission of Allah. They threw that piece in the fire and it went
out immediately.
4. Sakatwari has mentioned in Mahazaratul Awail that:
The first earthquake, which occurred in Islam was in the 20th year of Hijra
and during Umar’s Caliphate. So Umar hit his spear at the earth and said: “O
earth, remain still, do I not dispense justice upon you?”
So the earthquake stopped, and this was one of his miracle acts. Thus, four
miracle acts regarding the four elements of nature were seen from him: He
exercised control on the earth, and displayed his power over water in the story of
the Nile river; and showed his authority on the air in the incident of expedition to
the mountain (Sariyatul Jabal) and his control on the element of fire was seen in
the story of a villager, who failed to change his name that was connected to the
fire, like Shahab, Qabas, Saqib, as is mentioned in Tabsiratul Adilla and Dalailun
Nubuwwah.3
Allamah Amini says: As for the report of Nile river, its sole narrator is
Abdullah bin Salih Misri, who was an excessive liar and fabricator.
Ahmad bin Hanbal has written that:4 “In the beginning, he was disciplined,
but be became corrupt in the last part of his life.”
Nasai has written that: “He is not trustworthy.”5
As for the tradition of earthquake, which Raazi has mentioned, in the events
of the period of Umar neither in form of report narrated through chains of
narrators nor without narrators and no expert historian has mentioned it, and
Hafiz scholars have not narrated it that we may study its chains of narrators and
he said:
After that earthquake never occurred in Medina, it is a miracle, which
history negates, as after that earthquake occurred a few times: There was a strong
earthquake in Hijaz in 515 A.H., due to which Rukne Yamani toppled and some
of it was damaged and a part of Masjid Nabawi was also destroyed as Ibne Kathir
has mentioned in his Tarikh.6
In the year 654 A.H., an earthquake occurred in Medina during the night and
it continued for a few days and nights; and its story is long and it is mentioned in
Tarikh Ibne Kathir.7