Christianity Realms Miraculous: Islam

I A N R I C H A RD N ET T ON
ISLAM,
CHRISTIANITY
AND THE R E A L M S
OF THE
MIRACULOUS
A C OMPARATIVE EX PL O R AT IO N
E D I N B U R G H S T U D I E S I N C L A S S I C A L I S L A M I C H I S T O R Y A N D C U LT U R E
Islam, Christianity and the
Realms of the Miraculous
Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture
Series Editor: Carole Hillenbrand
A particular feature of medieval Islamic civilisation was its wide horizons. In this
respect it differed profoundly from medieval Europe, which from the point of view
of geography, ethnicity and population was much smaller and narrower in its scope
and in its mindset. The Muslims fell heir not only to the Graeco-Roman world
of the Mediterranean, but also to that of the ancient Near East, to the empires
of Assyria, Babylon and the Persians – and beyond that, they were in frequent
contact with India and China to the east and with black Africa to the south. This
intellectual openness can be sensed in many interrelated fields of Muslim thought:
philosophy and theology, medicine and pharmacology, algebra and geometry,
astronomy and astrology, geography and the literature of marvels, ethnology and
sociology. It also impacted powerfully on trade and on the networks that made it
possible. Books in this series reflect this openness and cover a wide range of topics,
periods and geographical areas.
Titles in the series include:
Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine
Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev
The Medieval Western Maghrib: Cities, Patronage and Power
Amira K. Bennison
Keeping the Peace in Premodern Islam: Diplomacy under the Mamluk Sultanate, 1250–1517
Malika Dekkiche
Queens, Concubines and Eunuchs in Medieval Islam
Taef El-Azhari
The Kharijites in Early Islamic Historical Tradition: Heroes and Villains
Hannah-Lena Hagemann
Medieval Damascus: Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library – The Ashrafīya Library
Catalogue
Konrad Hirschler
Book Culture in Late Medieval Syria: The Ibn ‘Abd al-Hadi Library of Damascus
Konrad Hirschler
The Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt, 1173–1325
Nathan Hofer
Defining Anthropomorphism: The Challenge of Islamic Traditionalism
Livnat Holtzman
Making Mongol History
Stefan Kamola
Lyrics of Life: Sa‘di on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the Self
Fatemeh Keshavarz
A History of the True Balsam of Matarea
Marcus Milwright
Ruling from a Red Canopy: Political Authority in the Medieval Islamic World, from Anatolia to
South Asia
Colin P. Mitchell
Islam, Christianity and the Realms of the Miraculous: A Comparative Exploration
Ian Richard Netton
Conquered Populations in Early Islam: Non-Arabs, Slaves and the Sons of Slave Mothers
Elizabeth Urban
edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/escihc
Islam, Christianity and the
Realms of the Miraculous
A Comparative Exploration
Ian Richard Netton

This volume is for Sue, Deborah, Jonathan, Alex and Thea with much love.
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish
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© Ian Richard Netton, 2019
Edinburgh University Press Ltd

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The right of Ian Richard Netton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and
Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
Foreword vii
Abbreviations xi
1 Miracles and Religion 1

1.1 Definitions 1
1.2 The Medieval Mindset: Milieu, Continuity and Contrasts 6
1.3 Narratology 25
2 Food 27
2.1 A Proto-miracle: Manna from the Desert 27
2.2 The Feeding of the Five Thousand: Christianity 31
2.3 Jesus, the Test and the Table: Islam 41
2.4 The Narrative Arena 46
3 Water 50
3.1 A Proto-miracle: Water from the Rock 50
3.2 Lourdes, Shrines and Healing 54
3.3 Zamzam, Shrines and Healing 71
4 Blood 86
4.1 Proto-miracles: Blood and its Contrastive Christian and
Islamic Domains 86
4.2 Bolsena 1263: Host > Blood 91
4.3 The Writing in the Blood: Sufi Blood and Hallajian Passion 105
vi | i sla m, chri sti a ni ty a nd th e mir a cul o us
5 Wood and Stone 120

5.1 A Proto-miracle: the Ark of Gilgamesh and Noah 120
5.2 Ark of the Covenant: the Virgin in the House 130
5.3 The Angels of the Ka‘ba 142
6 Cosmology 158
6.1 Proto-miracles: the Standing of the Sun and the Moon 158
6.2 The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima 160
6.3 The Splitting of the Moon in the Qur’an 171
7 Envoi 184
Notes 187
Bibliography 247
Index 282
f oreword | vii
Foreword
The subject of miracles has seized both popular and scholarly imaginations
from early times to the present. The year 2017 provided added interest with a
major, and much-praised, exhibition and a major workshop. The exhibition,
entitled Madonnas and Miracles, was held at the Fitzwilliam Museum in
Cambridge from 7 March to 4 June 2017.1 In the words of the catalogue, the
exhibition ‘reveal[ed] the significance of the home as a site of religious experi-
ence in the period. From visionary “living saints”, who conversed with the
divine in their chambers, to ordinary laypeople who prayed the rosary before
bed, to those who read heterodox books by the hearth, men, women and
children practised religion in the home in a variety of ways.’2 As the exhibi-
tion showed, the Italian Renaissance was in love with all things miraculous.3
On 23 May 2017 SOAS, University of London, held an excellent,
thought-provoking, workshop entitled Seeing is Believing: Miracles in
Islamic Thought. This well-attended workshop was sponsored by the British
Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) and hosted by the Department
of the Near and Middle East, SOAS. Its two conveners were Dr Ayman
Shihadeh and Dr Harith Bin Ramli. The workshop’s subjects ranged far and
wide from a consideration of what God can actually do through a discus-
sion of the evidence for Prophetic miracles to an analysis of prophecy in
Messianic times.4
This present volume of mine is the third in a comparative Islamic–
Christian trilogy which seeks to present and explore various major aspects
of these two world religions in dynamic contrast. The first volume focused
on tradition; the second concerned itself with the mystical arena.5 This third
volume completes the trilogy by an examination of the field of miracles in the
Islamic and Christian traditions.
vii
viii | i slam, chri sti ani ty an d th e mir a cul o us
Bernard Lonergan’s seminal work Method in Theology6 may today appear

somewhat dated. Nonetheless, it was valuable, and remains valuable, in that it
presented a new and coherent series of taxonomies whereby the diverse fields
of Christian theology might be inspected and rigorously interrogated. It did,
however, focus primarily on method as its title implies. Lonergan stressed
this methodological orientation when, referring to miracles, he wrote: ‘The
possibility and occurrence of miracles are topics, not for the methodologist,
but for the theologian.’ He thereby excuses himself from a full theological
investigation of miracles in this work.7
This present volume of mine, as will become apparent in a reading of the
text, also deploys a structural method, a narratological sieve, through which
to analyse and compare the miraculous phenomena and narratives of which it
treats. Thus, each chapter has a particular, and carefully structured, analytical
‘shape’ as follows:
• outline of the miracle event: Proto-miracle/Christian miracle/Islamic

miracle
• critiques and attitudes towards the miraculous events:
1. disbelief and scepticism
2. caution
3. belief
4. memory and memorialisation:
a. the theme of a memory of a ‘divine presence’ in the world
b. the theme of a memory of wholeness
c. the motif of water or other rituals
d. the metatheme of faith and doubt
e. the metatheme of Church/Islamic authority
• the narrative arena
In terms of narrative theory, chosen aspects of which will shortly be elaborated

in the main text, this volume will interrogate the miraculous phenomena and
narratives with which it deals from the following perspectives:
• universality
• multifacetedness
f oreword | ix
• similarities and differences in content

• themes and metathemes (> abstract topoi) and motifs and metamotifs
(> concrete topoi)
• repetition
• types and antitypes
• intertextuality
• the protagonist
• attitudes to the miracle
• significance of the miracle
• the narratological catalyst8
However, this volume is much more than just a dissertation on narratological

method. It deploys that method to disclose the intertexts between the Islamic
and Christian domains of the miraculous, and to disclose the theological grounds
on which those miraculous narratives rest. Its primary focus is the literary and
theological narration of the miracle, emphasising similarities and differences in
motifs and themes, metamotifs and metathemes, all of which are grounded in
Islamic and Christian theologies, whether those be popular, scholarly or both.
The academic perspective of this work is thus narratological, anthropo-
logical and phenomenological. The narrations of miracles are presented as if
they actually occurred, whether or not they did so in historical reality. There
is no ‘faith perspective’ nor orientation. Furthermore, the miraculous narra-
tives treated in this volume may be said to form an intertext with each other
and possibly, but not necessarily, with other ‘miraculous events’ outside the
phenomena treated here. In this way our volume seeks to avoid essentialism.
In addition, the survey of what I characterise as the ‘proto-miracles’ which
introduce each chapter are not intended necessarily to be the first of their kind,
nor to reflect events not described in this volume; they are simply designed to
be intertextual ‘introductions’ to the principal phenomena under discusssion.
I have made various visits to places of pilgrimage and shrine, Islamic and
Christian, both in Europe and in the Middle East, with a view to gaining a
deeper understanding of why people associate certain miraculous events (espe-
cially healing events) with certain shrines, and why people of both the Islamic
and Christian traditions perform the rite of pilgrimage to such shrines.
On the Christian side the miraculous phenomena surveyed in this volume
x | i sla m, chri sti a ni ty a nd th e mir a cul o us
are drawn from the Roman Catholic tradition which, despite present-day
cautions and caveats, is generally more disposed to accept the possibility of
miracles. This not to deny, of course, that there may be a wide disparity of
attitudes towards the possibility and reality of miracles within the Catholic
community itself. As Maya Mayblin reminds us:
Although consciously self-cultivating Catholics . . . do exist, it is also

fairly axiomatic that Catholicism as a marker of identity is not always
and everywhere primarily about ‘belief’ or even practice over belief . . .
Catholicism is open to identifications that index aspects of personhood
beyond religious belief: kinship, territoriality, ethnicity, belonging; identi-
fications that remain variously distanced, critical and uncertain with regard
to Catholicism’s key propositional content.9
Of course, the same kind of wide diversities are easily apparent in the Islamic
tradition/s as well. Thus the caveats and cautious approaches of both Christianity
and Islam, often in ‘official mode’, will be noted throughout this volume. The
Catholic tradition with regard to miracles contrasts mightily, of course, with
the Protestant attitude, epitomised in the writings of the famous German
theologian Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) who sought to ‘demythologise the
New Testament’,10 thereby denying the possibility of Christ’s miracles.11
This volume of mine makes no such claims nor, conversely, any ‘faith
statements’ either . It is solely concerned with the narrative of miracles, and an
analysis of those miracles, from a phenomenological perspective together with
an examination of how such narratives have become enbedded in popular,
and sometimes official, aspects of Islamic and Christian theology and culture.
I must record here my warm appreciation and thanks to Professor Carole
Hillenbrand for accepting this volume into her splendid series. I am very
grateful too for the excellent work of my copy-editor, Lel Gillingwater.
Finally, once again, I am deeply indebted to the patience and forbearance
of my family, in particular my wife Sue, as I laboured to produce this book.
Thank you. This work is dedicated to them.
Ian Richard Netton
Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies
University of Exeter
April 2018
Abbreviations
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

CCC Catechism of the Catholic Church
COED Concise Oxford English Dictionary, eds Soanes and Stevenson
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
Dictionnaire
Dictionnaire des ‘apparitions’ de la Vierge Marie, eds
Laurentin and Sbalchiero
EAL Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, eds Meisami and Starkey
EI
2
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, eds Gibb et al.
EICR Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilisation and Religion, ed. Netton
EQ Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān, ed. McAuliffe
NJB New Jerusalem Bible, ed. Wansbrough
NJBC New Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds Brown, Fitzmyer and
Murphy
PB Pynson Ballad
Q. Qur’ān
RENT Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, eds Herman,
Jahn and Ryan
SEI Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, eds Gibb and Kramers
Yusuf Ali Qur’ān, trans. Yusuf Ali
xi
Other books by Ian Richard Netton
Across the Mediterranean Frontiers (ed. with D. A. Agius)

The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East (ed. with Richard Stoneman
and Kyle Erickson)
Allāh Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy,
Theology and Cosmology
The Arab Diaspora: Voices of an Anguished Scream (ed. with Z. S. Salhi)
Arabia and the Gulf: From Traditional Society to Modern States (ed.)
Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilisation and Religion (ed.)
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: Epistles 43–45: On Companionship and Belief
(ed. and trans. with Samer Traboulsi and Toby Mayer)
Al-Fārābī and His School
Golden Roads: Migration, Pilgrimage and Travel in Medieval and Modern
Islam (ed.)
Islam, Christianity and the Mystic Journey: A Comparative Exploration
Islam, Christianity and Tradition: A Comparative Exploration
Islamic and Middle Eastern Geographers and Travellers (4 vols) (ed.)
Islamic Philosophy and Theology (4 vols) (ed.)
Middle East Materials in United Kingdom and Irish Libraries: A Directory (ed.)
Middle East Sources (ed.)
Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity
(Ikhwān al-Íafā’)
Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land and Voyage (ed.)
A Popular Dictionary of Islam
Seek Knowledge: Thought and Travel in the House of Islam
Studies in Honour of Clifford Edmund Bosworth: Volume One: Hunter of the
East: Arabic and Semitic Studies (ed.)
Sufi Ritual: The Parallel Universe
Text and Trauma: An East–West Primer
mi racles a nd reli g i o n | 1
1
Miracles and Religion
1.1 Definitions
M iracles are problematic! Global communications and religious diversity

have made them more so.1 At the heart of the problem are the twin
topoi of definition and the reality and possibility, or otherwise, of miracles.
As noted in the Foreword, this volume does not attempt to engage with the
latter problem. It will, however, survey some of the multifarious definitions,
and attempts at definitions, of the word ‘miracle’. The brief survey which
follows is by no means intended to be all-embracing and to cover all possible
definitions. It aims only to provide a flavour of a complex field.
So what is a miracle? Definitions are diverse and it is clear that ‘there is no
one standard religious way of understanding the concept of miracle’.2
This is true even for theists. David Basinger summarises the problem
neatly:
Some assume that God directly manipulates the natural order at the time
the event occurs. Others assume that God predetermines that nature will
bring about the event. Still others assume that God makes us aware of fully
natural events as signs of the divine presence and care for us.3
Robert A. Larmer defines a miracle as, inter alia, ‘an event that has religious
significance in the sense that it can reasonably be viewed as furthering God’s
purposes’.4 For Larmer, miracles do not violate natural laws;5 ‘events plausi-
bly viewed as miracles can constitute evidence for the existence of a theistic
God.’6
In late antiquity St Augustine of Hippo (c. 354–430) provided the
following definition:
1
2 | i sla m, chri sti a ni ty a nd th e mir a cul o us
Sed contra naturam non incongrue dicimus aliquid deum facere, quod facit
contra id, quod novimus in natura, hanc enim etiam appelamus naturam,
cognitum nobis cursum solitumque naturae, contra quem deus cum aliquid
facit, magnalia vel mirabilia nominantur.
But it is not wrong for us to say that God does contrary to nature what he
does contrary to what we know of nature. For we also call nature the usual
course of nature known to us, and, when God does something contrary to
it, these actions are called marvellous and miraculous.7
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COED) defines the word thus: ‘(1) an
extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific
laws, attributed to a divine agency.> a remarkable and very welcome occur-
rence. (2) an amazing product or achievement, or an outstanding example of
something: a miracle of design’.8 The Dictionary traces the etymology to the
Latin miraculum, ‘object of wonder’, from mirari ‘to wonder’, from mirus
‘wonderful’.9
Immediately, from these definitions, we see that miracles may inhabit a
semantic world of wonder and divinity.
A more consciously rational definition is supplied by Michel Chodkiewicz
with particular reference to that great Sufi and mystical shaykh of Islam, Ibn
al-ʿArabi (1165–1240):
For Ibn ʿArabi as for most Muslim theologians, natural laws are simply
statistical regularities, which man interprets in terms of the chain of cause
and effect, but which cannot bind the Almighty. A miracle contravenes, not
the nature of things, but our idea of them.10
Right at the other end of the spectrum, Richard Dawkins, with his well-
known scepticism, mocks the idea, articulated by Richard Swinburne, that
‘God is not limited by the laws of nature; he makes them and he can change
or suspend them – if he chooses’.11 Dawkins clearly enjoys ‘David Hume’s
pithy test for a miracle’ which he quotes with relish: ‘No testimony is suf-
ficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its
falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to
establish.’12
However, the Jesuit methodologist scholar, Bernard Lonergan, com-
ments that ‘Hume’s argument did not really prove that no miracles had ever
occurred. Its real thrust was that the historian cannot deal intelligently with
the past when the past is permitted to be unintelligible to him.’13
Daniel C. Dennett shares Dawkins’ scepticism about the reality or pos-
sibility of miracles in the normally understood sense of the word. He says:
‘The only way to take the hypothesis of miracles seriously is to eliminate the
non-miraculous alternatives.’14
For at least one modern Christian theologian, John Macquarrie, modern
science cannot countenance or even tolerate the traditional Christian belief
in the miracle of the physical resurrection of Jesus:
The way of understanding miracles that appeals to breaks in the natural

order and to supernatural intervention belongs to the mythological outlook
and cannot commend itself in a post-mythological climate of thought . . .
The traditional conception of miracle is irreconcilable with our modern
understanding of both science and history.15
Other New Testament scholars have shared in a tradition of scepticism

about the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus, whether or not they have
specifically denied it. Markus Vinzent, for example, in an unusual and
startling book, Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making
of the New Testament, is at pains to stress that the traditional doctrine of
the resurrection ‘in the first two centuries . . . was soon of little theological
importance and influence to the wider Church, except for Paul’.16 Vinzent
suggests that Christianity owes its present emphasis on the doctrine of the
resurrection of Jesus to the second century ad teacher Marcion of Sinope.17
Riposte and counter-argument have not been slow in coming. Referring
to Dawkins’ quotation of David Hume (1711–76) which we have just cited,
Thomas Crean notes:
This assertion, as it stands, is quite true. But our author, like Hume, takes
it to be equivalent to a second, very different statement: that miracles are
so unlikely to occur that it is always more reasonable to suppose that those
who report them are either in error or telling a lie, rather than telling the
truth. This second statement, purely and simply begs the question. How,
precisely do we know in advance the unlikelihood of a miracle’s occurring?18
It will be immediately evident from the above that a belief in the possibility
and reality of miracles is a subset of belief, or not, in the possibility and
reality of the existence of God, a subject on which there is a voluminous and
increasing body of literature.19 Now, it is not the intention of this book to
enter this particular debate, although it should be stressed here, right at the
beginning, that there is a need to emphasise the obvious difference between
definition and belief.
As far as belief is concerned, this volume adopts a neutral, phenom-
enological stance. As for definition, we will not espouse any of the above
single definitions. However, for the purposes of discussion, a miracle will
be defined as an event, or series of events, which participate in many, if
not all, of five senses as perceived by an external observer: (1) a sense that the
event is attributable to divine intervention and that the Divine is an actor
in that event;20 (2) a sense of wonder;21 (3) a related sense of the sacred and
the numinous; (4) a sense of mystery;22 (5) a sense that a miracle is a sign.23
No comment nor judgement will be made as to the actual or ontological
reality of what is sensed or perceived. The phenomena will be presented and
discussed phenomenologically. It is true that the reader may sometimes be
aware, with Plato, that all may not be as it seems and that sensory percep-
tion may not always yield actual truth or demonstrable reality in a scientific
manner.24
In the words of Brian P. McLaughlin: ‘The ever present logical possibility
of illusion makes beliefs acquired by perception fallible: there is no absolute
guarantee that they are true. But that does not prevent them from sometimes
counting as knowledge – albeit fallible knowledge.’25
All these caveats and parameters will apply, of course, whether we are
considering the miracles of the Christian tradition or the ʿajā’ib (marvels,
wonders),26 karāmāt (miracle by a saint)27 and muʿjizāt (prophetic miracles)28
in the Islamic arena of spirituality. Denis Gril in The Encyclopaedia of the
Qur’ān defines a miracle as ‘supernatural intervention in the life of human
beings’.29 He goes on: ‘When defined as such, miracles are present in the
Qur’ān in a threefold sense: in sacred history, in connection with Muªammad
himself and in relation to revelation.’30
Many scholars of the Islamic tradition have been keen to stress the fun-
damental differences between the muʿjizāt and the karāmāt. The Victorian
scholar and lexicographer, Edward William Lane (1801–76),31 for example,

stressed in his famous Lexicon that a muʿjiza was ‘a miracle performed by
a prophet; distinguished from karāma, which signifies one performed by a
saint, or righteous man, not claiming to be a prophet’.32
L. Gardet is quite specific:
The word comes to denote the ‘marvels’ wrought by the ‘friends of God’,
awliyā’ (sing. walī), which God grants to them to bring about. These mar-
vels most usually consist of miraculous happenings in the corporeal world,
or else of predictions of the future, or else of interpretation of the secrets
of hearts etc. The notion of karāma differs from that of muʿdjiza . . . Each
includes a ‘breaking of the natural order of things’ (khārik· li ’l-ʿāda).33
Gardet stresses the public nature of a muʿjiza: it is prefaced with a proclama-

tion by a prophet intent on demonstrating his superior miraculous powers.
By contrast, ‘the karāma is a simple personal favour. It should be kept secret
and is in no way the sign of a prophetic mission.’34 Gardet warns that ‘there
is a risk of ambiguity if one translates both terms by “miracle” (of a prophet,
of a saint)’35 and suggests that, if one keeps the translation of muʿjiza as
‘miracle of a prophet’, then a better translation of karāma would be ‘marvel
of a saint’.36
Here too, in the Arabic and Islamic arena, the senses might deceive.
Elsewhere, I have drawn attention to the possible credulity of that great
Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battuta (1304–68/9 or 1377), who roamed the
Islamic world and beyond between 1325 and 1354:
The antics of a juggler in Khansā (Hang-Chow) made him feel physically ill:
he claimed to have seen the juggler climb a rope after one of his apprentices
and then, out of sight, dismember the boy and cast the limbs down to
his audience. The act ended with the juggler putting the pieces of the
dismembered corpse together and kicking the body into life again. It was
left for a neighbouring qā∂ī to tell Ibn Ba††ū†a: ‘By God, there was no
climbing or coming down or cutting up of limbs at all; the whole thing is
just hocus-pocus.’37
But while the medieval Muʿtazilis rejected the possibility of karāmāt, Gardet
shows that they were accepted by most Ashʿarites, all Sufis and the Shiʿa,
although there was also an awareness of the possibility of outright fraud and
deception.38
It is clear from all this then that, while the Christian tradition does not
make a semantic distinction between the miracles of prophets and those of
saints, in the Christian and Islamic spheres of miracles we enter a world of
spirituality imbued with the five senses which we have outlined above, those
of divine intervention, wonder, the sacred and the numinous, mystery and
semiotics. However, it is a fluid world where there is also a very possible
danger of self-deception, illusion and outright fraud.
1.2 The Medieval Mindset: Milieu, Continuity and Contrasts
In the medieval world, Christian and Islamic, there was not only religious
belief but a will both to believe religiously and, when necessary, to suspend
rational belief. Religion imbued the very core of each individual’s everyday
life and what the fourteenth century might have characterised as a modicum
of religiosity would be regarded in the twenty-first as a deep piety.39 There
was daily Mass attendance,40 frequent pilgrimage,41 and no apparent dif-
ficulty in accepting the two42 or three43 heads of John the Baptist. Medieval
Christianity was often a melange of cynicism, faith and superstition.44 The
sale of indulgences was widespread.45 Thus we find a milieu which was ripe
for a general belief in the possibility and reality of miracles.
Illness and misfortune were regarded as the result of divine wrath though
disease could be a test whereby the soul underwent a divine purification.46
With the plague of 1348, God was seen to have abandoned humanity.47
Misfortune in the political sphere might be interpreted as God’s punish-
ment. The defeat of rulers such as Otto II of Germany in 982 in Italy
was interpreted by contemporary chroniclers as ‘divine punishment for the
incorporation of the see of Merseburg within Magdeburg’.48 The Church
was powerful and, accruing more power, resented interference. The cult
of saints and the rising popularity of the rite of pilgrimage to these saints’
shrines gave the Church even more power, wealth and jealously guarded
privilege.49
Now the remedy for many of the illnesses, plagues, misfortunes and other
evils which befell both noble, cleric and peasant lay in religion or, to be more
precise, in the Church, which was the authoritative custodian and interpreter
of religion. And in the custodyship of the Church were diverse relics which
were held to be the potential or actual source of countless miraculous cures.50
Jacques Le Goff puts it succinctly thus: in an age of huge material and
political insecurity, people
took refuge in the sole security of religion. There was security here below,
thanks to the miracle. This might save the workman when he was the victim
of an accident at work, like the masons who fell off the scaffolding and were
supported miraculously by a saint in their fall or were resuscitated by a saint
on the ground. Millers or peasants trapped by the millwheel might be saved
from death by miraculous intervention.51
The saints were thus worth cultivating because of their ability to work a
miracle at the intercession of a devout supplicant. Peter Brown notes that
from the late antique period onwards the cult of saints became an integral
and accepted part of the fabric of Christianity itself.52 Such problems as
illness and lack of fertility required the intervention of the saints whom
one ‘bribed’ by leaving a present at their tombs or the endowment of eccle-
siastical buildings.53 The shrine of St Thomas à Becket (c. 1120–70) at
Canterbury was but one of the more famous of the numerous shrines where
intercession in the hope of a cure might be made. And it was a shrine which
was ‘comprehensive in range’ in the number of miraculous cures achieved.54
In one miracle story associated with the shrine of St Thomas, a bird went
beyond mere mimicry of the human voice and was perceived actually to pray
at the tomb of the saint.55
The saints whose miraculous intercession was craved were not always
quiet in their tombs. Towards the end of the eleventh century a hagiographer
named Goscelin of St Bertin related that the dead body of St Mildred seemed
to conceive a particular dislike of any who fell asleep beside her tomb in the
Canterbury Abbey of St Augustine: the corpse is alleged to have risen up and
hit a sleeping custodian as well as a pilgrim whom sleep had overtaken while
he was praying before her tomb.56
Of course, stories of the miraculous, apocryphal or not, go back to,
and reflect, the earliest days of the Christian tradition. In the gloriously
illustrated fifteenth-century Book of Hours, produced by the Master of Mary
of Burgundy, we find portrayed, for example, miracles connected with the
Flight into Egypt by Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus. Thus, a newly sown
crop of corn springs up and becomes ripe as the Holy Family passes. Their
passing by also precipitates the self-destruction of wayside idols.57 In another
text the infant Jesus commands dragons, lions and panthers.58
However, it was the Middle Ages which saw the fullest flowering of what
might be termed ‘a cult of miracles’. Belief in miracles, as we have seen, was
shaped and fostered by the veneration of saints and the consequent reverence
for, and veneration of, their relics.59 The proximity of relics lent immediacy
and presence to the numinous. As Peter Brown neatly puts it in his magiste-
rial volume The Cult of the Saints: ‘A sense of the mercy of God lies at the root
of the discovery, translation and installation of relics.’60 He continues: ‘In the
healing of the possessed [at the shrines of late antiquity], the praesentia of the
saint was held to be registered with unfailing accuracy, and their ideal power,
their potentia, shown most fully and in the most reassuring manner.’61
Of all the saints in the Middle Ages, the Virgin Mary was one of the
most popular, if not the most popular of all. She was regarded as a mighty
miracle worker and her numerous, miracle-working shrines were the foci of
major pilgrimages throughout that period, shrines that might contain relics
allegedly associated with her life on earth.62 Such relics as those collected at
her major medieval pilgrimage shrine at Walsingham are excellent examples
of this kind of relic collection whose presence enhanced the reputation of the
shrine and drew pilgrims from far and wide.
1.2.1 Christian
Scholars have wondered about the degrees of naivety which might inhabit
the medieval mindset when it came to any consideration of the miracu-
lous.63 However, it is, perhaps, appropriate not to apply contemporary
scholarly standards and modes of evidence. We are reminded ‘that medieval
miracle tales operated within a particular conceptual framework’.64 Jonathan
Sumption’s words are useful here:
If the majority of educated men . . . accepted the evidence for miracles, it
was not because they were unduly credulous or irrational, still less because
they cared nothing for the truth. It was rather because in assessing the
evidence they applied criteria very different from those of David Hume.65
Deirdre Jackson concludes:
Sumption’s statement still holds true today. When people flock to see weep-
ing statues of the Virgin Mary, or claim to have experienced a healing cure
at Lourdes, they do not judge these phenomena on the basis of scientific
principles, but by a different set of standards, shaped by faith, hope, desire
and devotion.66
Thus, when we look back from the vantage point of the twenty-first century
and attempt to assess continuity from, and contrasts with, the Middle Ages,
we can identify four distinct attitudes which have developed towards the idea
of miracles: (1) disbelief and scepticism; (2) caution; (3) belief; (4) memory
and memorialisation. We shall survey each of these attitudes here briefly,
focusing on the Christian tradition.
Disbelief in, or scepticism about, the possibility of miracles flourished in
antiquity. Lucian of Samosta (b. c. 120), for example, held that anyone who
claimed to be able to work miracles was a charlatan.67 Origen (c. 185–254)
chose to disparage pagan miracles while vaunting the reality and real merits
of those performed by Jesus even though he with his followers was accused
of sorcery.68
St Augustine of Hippo (c. 354–430) held a similar view:
The miracles that are reported to be worked in their temples are by no

means worthy to be compared with those that are worked through the relics
of our martyrs . . . Their acts were performed by demons (fecerunt autem illa
daemones) . . . Our miracles, on the other hand, are performed by martyrs
– or rather by God (vel potius Deus).69
Later, Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) held that, since God was immutable, so too
‘the natural order’ should similarly be regarded as immutable since it was ‘a
necessary expression’ of the Divine.70
André Vauchez stresses that in all this there might be an element of
authority and control, especially with the principal custodians of sacred
knowledge, the episcopacy,71 whose jealous role regarding the custody and
interpretation of sacred texts might be compared to that of the ʿulamā’ in
the Islamic Middle Ages.72 Vauchez draws attention to the way in which the
perceived laxity in the Church in the era preceding the Carolingian age was
replaced by increasing episcopal discipline over the Church.73 New relics were
now subject to the overview of the bishops whose permission was required for
the veneration of such relics and it was decreed that only episcopal assemblies,
or a prince, might permit the movement of the bodies of saints from one
venue to another.74
From earliest times miracles could be confused, or at least, identified,
with magic.75 The goal and result might be the same but the former might be
more dramatic in their accomplishment than the latter, whose primary focus
was healing76 and a naked exhibition of the sublime power of God himself.77
In his seminal work, Religion and the Decline of Magic,78 Sir Keith Thomas
surveys a gamut of magic, myth and miracle. The quest for ultimate salvation
and eternity did not preclude a recourse to the supernatural as a cure for the
terrestrial illnesses and evils of everyday life, a supernatural which was often as
much imbued on a popular level with the magical as it was with the officially
religious.79
Thomas observes that the best way to show pagans that the medieval
Church was the only custodian of true doctrine was to work miracles and
thereby demonstrate divine approval for that which was taught from the
pulpit to the masses.80 The view was propagated as late as the seventeenth
century that miracles were not contrary to nature.81 It was believed that the
king’s touch had healing powers and the power of healing touch was claimed
by lesser mortals than royalty as well.82
However, what was believed in the public or popular arena was not
always held privately. Thomas tells us of a private remark by King James
I (r. 1603–25) himself to the effect that, ‘since miracles had ceased, the
whole ritual must be superstitious’.83 Generally speaking, however, Thomas
stresses that there was little ‘explicit scepticism’ and that any doubts about, or
disbelief in, the efficacy or operation of the miracle of the king’s touch would
have been resticted to the educated clases and those of an anti-monarchical
persuasion.84
It would be for the intellectual ferment resulting from the Renaissance,
the rise of science and technology in the eighteenth century and man’s
increasing ability to control the environment in which he lived,85 as Thomas
vividly demonstrates towards the end of the second volume of his magisterial
work, to dissolve decisively the common reliance on magical practices and
mi racles a nd reli g i on | 11
the overarching belief in miracles. Control was the goal and with the rise of
the sciences, greater environmental undertakings were achieved and thus a
greater control over the lived environment.86
However, the process was gradual and the flight to scepticism, and even-
tually outright disbelief, with regard to magic and miracles did not take place
overnight. Just as the move to Protestant liturgy and thought in Reformation
England was a more gradual process than was hitherto thought – a theme
brilliantly illustrated in Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars87 – so too
was the gradual rejection of that comfortable medieval world of miracle and
magic. But it must be stressed that this pattern was not inevitable88 nor
universal89 nor, in the words of Jane Shaw ‘did it necessarily point in a tele-
ological way towards ever-increasing scepticism’.90 We may conclude from
her and others’ remarks that for many years, and into the Enlightenment,
scepticism, doubt and belief remained ineluctably entwined.
By the nineteenth century we find an even greater tendency towards
outright disbelief and scepticism with regard to the reality and possibility
of miracles. This is vividly illustrated in a passage which occurs early on in
Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. An orthodox priest is asked to
comment upon a story which has appeared in some volume of Lives of the
Saints to the effect that a miracle worker is tortured and beheaded. He stands
up after the execution, picks up his head and walks with it in his hands, kiss-
ing the head. The priest replies that the story is not true.91
In the novel Karamazov raises the story because he believes that its
extraordinary – indeed, unbelievable – nature has been instrumental in
making him lose his faith.92 Here we have a miracle story, related at second-
hand by a Mr Miusov over a dinner table, which precipitates not just scepti-
cism but outright disbelief, rejection and loss of faith.
In the field of New Testament Studies the views of the German theolo-
gian Rudolf Bultmann have become famous. Anthony C. Thiselton observes:
‘Bultmann’s approach to New Testament interpretation both embraces
historical–critical methods and simultaneously presupposes their inadequacy
for the Christian faith.’93 Bultmann observed in a well-known essay:
The miracles of the New Testament have ceased to be miraculous, and to

defend their historicity by recourse to nervous disorders or hypnotic effects
only serves to underline the fact . . . It is impossible to use electric light and
the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discover-
ies, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits
and miracles. We may think that we can manage it in our own lives, but
to expect others to do so is to make the Christian faith unintelligible and
unacceptable to the modern world.94
Hume’s scepticism about the possibility of miracles has continued to pervade

the mindsets of many, even in the Vatican, in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.95 This is evidenced, for example, in the sometime disparagement
and suspicion of the miraculous stigmata of the Capuchin friar, St Pio of
Pietrelcina (1887–1968), popularly known as Padre Pio.96 Sergio Luzzatto
notes:
Saints exist mainly to perform miracles. The story of Padre Pio cannot
escape being, among other things, a history of these miracles – the healings,
the apparitions, the conversions. Today it requires approaching these events
as an anthropologist would, [the approach of the author of this book]
making no distinction between reality and myth.97
Many, however, in the early days of the appearance of the friar’s stigmata,
approached Padre Pio convinced he was an outright liar or fraud rather than
through the lens of an anthropologist.
After the sphere of outright disbelief, scepticism and rejection lies that
of belief in the possibility of miracles but espoused within a framework of
extreme caution. Let us examine three examples of that caution in action:
Lourdes, the process of canonisation in the Catholic Church and the phe-
nomenon of Medjugorje.
The miracle cures which are claimed to happen at the Marian shrine
of Lourdes in France are subjected to intense scrutiny ‘by impartial medi-
cal specialists and . . . the Catholic Church is famously cautious about her
pronouncements on these cases. So it is that only a few score of such cures
have reached official recognition during the last 150 or so years.’98 From the
time of Pope Benedict XIV’s (r. 1740–58) famous document De Servorum,
rigorous criteria have been laid down by the Catholic Church whereby a cure
might be judged a miracle by the theologians.99
Secondly, the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints requires evi-
dence of healing miracles from intercession made by a believer to a recent (or
ancient!) deceased before any beatification or canonisation can take place.100
It has not been the case for a very long time that the matter could simply
be decided by a local cult, popular acclamation or the local episcopal hier-
archy.101 Vauchez notes, with reservations, that ‘it is customary to date the
beginning of pontifical canonization to 993’102 by Pope John XV (r. 985–96),
but procedures became much more formalised and centrally controlled under
succeeding popes like Gregory VII (r. 1073–85), Eugenius III (r. 1145–53)
and Alexander III (r. 1159–81).103 Vauchez quotes a letter sent to King Kol
of Sweden by Pope Alexander in 1171 or 1172, stating, with reference to the
illicit cult of King Eric, killed while drunk, that ‘even if prodigies and mira-
cles were produced through his intermediary, you would not be permitted
to venerate him publicly as a saint without the authorization of the Roman
Church’.104
Further centralising statements and controls were made and exerted by
Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216)105 and, from the perspective of the deploy-
ment of posthumous miracles as a criterion for sainthood, the procedures for
canonisation may be said to culminate in the document of Pope Benedict
XIV to which we have alluded above.
Even the prominent atheist Daniel C. Dennett recognises the extreme
caution exercised by the Catholic Church with regard to the recognition and
acceptance of individual miracles. He writes:
Miracle-hunters must be scupulous scientists or else they are wasting their

time – a point long recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, which at
least goes through the motions of subjecting the claims of miracles made
on behalf of candidates for sainthood to objective scientific investigation.106
In this present volume the visionary experience will be included as belong-

ing to the sphere of the miraculous. Thus, and thirdly, under the heading
of cautious approaches to those realms, we might note the extremely cau-
tious approach adopted by the Vatican towards the alleged apparitions of the
Virgin Mary at Medjugorje in Boznia-Herzegovina since 1981. No evidence
of ‘any tricks, hoaxes or abuse of popular credulity’ was found by the Vatican
Commission on Medjugorje, established in March 2012 under the aegis
of Cardinal Camillo Ruini.107 However, to date, the Catholic Church has

refrained from giving a decisive verdict as to whether it accepts that there are
elements of the supernatural in the events at Medjugorje which continue to
unfold. Three of the original six visionaries who first claimed to see the Virgin
Mary at Medjugorje in June 1981 still claim to be in receipt of daily visions
of Mary in any part of the world in which they happen to be.108
To those who believe that such a diurnal embarras de richesses of visionary
experience is somewhat excessive, to say the least, Fr Francis Marsden, a
regular columnist in The Catholic Times, and a believer in the apparitional
phenomena at Medjugorje, simply responds: ‘God’s ways are not our ways.’109
Thus, it is clear that by no means all have accepted and adopted the official
Church position with regard to the claims of Medjugorge and agreed that
they should wait for an official verdict. It is possible that Pope Francis may
have been referring to the alleged miraculous visions at Medjugorge when he
remarked that the Virgin Mary ‘is not a postmaster, sending messages every
day’.110
Here we find expressed at the highest Vatican level that attitude of cau-
tion which characterises the official approach of those who are confronted
with phenomena which are allegedly miraculous. This is reinforced by the
data collected by the Stanford University graduate, Michael O’Neill: ‘Of
the 2000 apparitions reported since [the Council of Trent in 1545–63] . . .
sixteen of those have been recognized by the Vatican.’111
Robert A. Scott in his important work Miracle Cures, while adopting
a cautious approach to claims of miraculous healing via the intercession of
saints, nonetheless holds that such phenomena should not be dismissed out
of hand. They are not, in his words, to be dismissed as ‘hogwash’. The mind
may have an impact on the body and the claims of the devout who, having
prayed for a cure, are blessed with the sought-after cure, have some validity.
There is, in his view, scientific evidence to show that, despite the possibility of
‘exaggeration, wishful thinking, and shameless propaganda’, not to mention
pure illusion, fervent prayer to this or that saint may have an impact on the
body which might be quite dramatic in its ‘relief from suffering’.112
Large numbers of people in the West, despite all the massive advances in
technology and communications, not least in the sphere of the internet and
social media, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, remain convinced
that it is possible for miracles to occur.113 Such attitudes have an ancient

pedigree. For Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) a miracle might be defined as ‘the
work of God against the order of nature’ but it was to be regarded, not as a
violation of that order, but as a perfection of it.114
For theologians of Christology, a miracle could be classified as both a
‘sign’ and a ‘deed’.115 Critics have not been slow to raise objections to Hume’s
classic conception of miracles as ‘violations’. Colin Brown holds that this
particular emphasis of Hume’s takes no account of the possibility ‘of divine
immanent activity in the ordering of events’.116
Others, too, have mounted a strong defence, not just of the possibility
of miracles, but of their actuality and reality. They remain fascinated with
the idea that God has actually ‘acted in history’ on various occasions in a
miraculous fashion.117 For them, miracles prove God’s existence and, con-
versely, God’s existence may lead one to expect that miracles will occur.118
Indeed, for the believer, prophecy which has been fulfilled can be considered
to be a miracle,119 the Incarnation of Christ is a miracle,120 Jesus’ empty
tomb presupposes a miracle,121 that is, the miracle of a physical resurrection
of Jesus.122 Evidence of the latter is confirmed by those who physically saw
the risen Christ and the early New Testament record is to be accepted as
historical fact.123
In all this, of course, belief is key. Some would go so far as to say that
it is possible to believe in miracles without actually having any proof that
miracles in history or the present have occurred.124 For such people ‘the case
for miracles is strong’.125
Peter Crane, in his book Miracles and Modern Science: a Study in
Credibility,126 concurs. For Crane, ‘there is no possibility here or anywhere
else of giving certain proof that any reported miracle actually occurred’.127
Crane’s book does precisely what it states in the subtitle. He writes from the
perspective of a convinced, believing Roman Catholic and it is certainly true
that some, especially those who adhere to a sceptical position with regard to
the possibility of miracles, may find his book somewhat tendentious. He is
cited here as an example of those who are firmly convinced of the actuality
and reality, not just the possibility, of miracles. For him, miracles reflect
‘other-worldly realities’.128 Their actual occurrence may be rare,129 something
acknowledged, as we have seen, by even the most fervent partisans of the
reality of miracles, but for Crane, former naval electrical artificer and present
electronics specialist with advanced degrees in science and membership of the
Institute of Physics,130 there can be no conflict between the idea of miracles
and science.131 They inhabit different, and quite distinct, spheres of inquiry132
and thus, for him, ‘the miracle is perhaps the one phenomenon, and the only
one, which can be attributed to God without fear of contradiction from any
source’.133
Once belief in miracles becomes rooted in an individual mind, commu-
nity or faith tradition, a need to remember, memorialise and, in some sense,
recapitulate that miracle may follow. The memorialisation or remembrance
(anámnēsis) recalls a past, historical past, which is soaked in miracle and divine
intervention, whether that be the celebration of Passover in the Jewish tradi-
tion, the sacrifice of the Mass in the Catholic or the recollection of salvation
history itself: ‘Christianity further reinterpreted various aspects of Passover
ritual. The unleavened bread and wine are the elements transformed by the
Eucharist into the body and blood of Christ.’134 This anámnēsis is emphasised
by James McCaffrey: ‘The Eucharist is the Passover made present again: the
new Passover, the whole paschal majesty, the passion – death – resurrection
of Jesus.’135 The whole incorporates offering136 and reconciliation.137
In all this, several miracles are memorialised: the divine intervention
of the ten plagues in Egypt which are the ultimate catalyst for the Exodus;138
the Catholic sacrifice of the Mass, identified with the Passover as well as the
primal sacrifice on Calvary, and made sacramentally present at each cel-
ebration;139 all of which are followed, in Christian belief, by the miracle of
the resurrection of Jesus.140 This is salvation history writ in the language of
miracles. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) puts it: ‘Primarily
in the Eucharist, and by analogy in the other sacraments, the liturgy is the
memorial of the mystery of salvation.’141
Whether one adopts a recapitulationist, ransom or sacrificial theory of
the atonement,142 the incarnation for the believing Christian is a major mira-
cle.143 Moreover, Jesus doubles the miraculous in his own being, on the one
hand by possessing the two separate natures of divinity and humanity in the
one person and, on the other, by being born as the result of a miraculous
conception by the Virgin Mary.144 This miraculous incarnation is the key
to the Christian’s future eternal salvation: ‘Salvation through divinisation
was brought about by the incarnation of Christ’145 and his miracles can be
understood to flow from his perfect relationship with God.146
Typology can provide a dynamic gloss upon, and insight into, both
memory and memorialisation. For the Christian, the Exodus is the type
of ‘escape from sin’ for which the antitypes in the New Covenant are the
incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of Christ, memorialised and
re-presented day after day in the sacrifice of the Mass.147 This miracle and
‘economy’ of salvation148 for the Christian has been lauded down the ages,
often via the medium of typology, with the Old Testament as its prime point
of reference.
For example, during the liturgy of the Paschal Vigil on Holy Saturday
night, the hymn known as the ‘Exultet’ includes the following words:
This is the Paschal Festival, in which that true Lamb is slain,

with whose Blood the doorposts of the faithful are consecrated.
This is the night in which Thou didst lead the children of Israel,
our forefathers, out of Egypt . . . This is the night in which,
destroying the chains of death, Christ arose victorious from
the grave . . . O truly needful sin of Adam, which was blotted out
by the death of Christ!149
The eloquent and eponymously named preacher, St John Chrysostom (c.

345/7– 407), has been praised as the most prolific author of the Patristic age,
if we are to judge by his extant works, rivalled only by Augustine.150 With
such a huge output, it is hardly surprising that some of his works should be
better known than others, and that some should have fallen into obscurity.
The following little-known homily is perhaps better known in the
Orthodox Church than in other branches of Christianity. In this, we see the
eloquent preacher articulate a moving typology of the miraculous atonement
to which we have referred above. It is taken from the Homily on the Cemetery
and the Cross (In Homiliam de Coemeterio et de Cruce):
I will tell you something even more remarkable. Learn now [how Christ
triumphed over the devil] and you will be even more amazed, for using the
very weapons that the devil used to conquer us, Christ vanquished him!
Once He seized his weapons, He triumphed over him, and listen now to
how He did it: a virgin, wood, and death were the symbols of our defeat.
The virgin was Eve, for she knew not man. The wood was the tree [in
Paradise], and death was Adam’s epitimion [penance]. But behold, a virgin,
wood and death – the symbols of our defeat – became the symbols of our
victory. For instead of Eve, we have Mary; instead of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil we have the tree of the Cross; instead of Adam’s death, we
have Christ’s death. Do you see how the devil is vanquished by the very
weapons wherewith he vanquished us? By the tree, the devil vanquished
Adam; by the Cross, Christ conquered the devil. That tree led to Hades,
whereas the Cross led back from thence those that had been led there. And
again, that tree hid the captive’s nakedness, whereas the Cross revealed to
all the naked Victor from on high. Adam’s death condemned his descend-
ants, whereas Christ’s death raised all that had preceded Him. ‘Who shall
tell of the mighty acts of the Lord’ [Ps. 105:2]. Out of death, to which we
were subject, we became immortal. These are the accomplishments of the
Cross!151
In such wise does typology recall, for the believer in both Christianity and the
miracles associated with that tradition, the heart of the faith, memorialised
in the figure on the cross. For the Christian, the incarnation, which leads
ineluctably to the cross, is the sublime miracle, transcended only by the
miracle of the resurrection.
1.2.2 Islamic
Islam, too, inhabits a world of miracles. If the miracle of the incarnation in

Christianity may be said to be the inauguration of a world of miracles in
the Christian tradition, then the revelation of the Qur’an for Muslims has a
similar dynamic in Islam. The Qur’an is the primary or proto-miracle in that
tradition. The Arabic word for a ‘verse’ in the Qur’an is āya but the word also
means ‘sign’, ‘wonder’, ‘marvel’ and ‘miracle’.152 Bruce Lawrence lyrically
observes that ‘as tangible signs, Qur’anic verses are expressive of an inexhaust-
ible truth. They signify meaning layered within meaning, light upon light,
miracle upon miracle.’153
At various points, the Qur’an challenges its critics to produce comparable
verses. For example:
Say: ‘If the whole of mankind and Jinns

were to gather together
to produce the like
of this Qur’ān, they
could not produce
the like thereof, even if
they backed up each other
with help and support.154
It has been pointed out that it was verses such as this which provided the foun-
dation for Islam’s insistence that the Qur’an was indeed a miracle which was,
in addition, confirmed by the prophethood of Muhammad.155 The Qur’an is
considered to be ‘the supreme miracle’;156 it is ‘a glorious Qur’ān, (inscribed)
in a Tablet Preserved (lawª maªfūÕ)’.157 The Qur’an which Muslims have
on earth reflects a ‘heavenly prototype, “umm al-kitab”, literally, the Meta-
Book’ which transcends time and history.158
Richard Gramlich has noted that in Islam miracles are the province of
the deeply religious, of one whom he characterises as ‘the religious hero’
(religiösen Helden), and are often the decisive element in his greatness.159 Thus
a great prophet or pious person in Islam can signal their prophethood or piety
by the means, or deployment, of miracles, a manifestation of God’s blessing
(baraka) on humanity.160
The person and role of the Prophet Muhammad are, however, an interest-
ing case. Numerous miracles are attributed to the Prophet, as David Thomas
and diverse other scholars have stressed.161 These include, in particular, the
revelation of the miracle of the Qur’an via the agency of Muhammad, the
miracle of the splitting of the moon (to which we shall refer in more detail
later in this volume) and the miʿrāj, Muhammad’s journey through the seven
heavens (during which he meets diverse dead prophets and God Himself ).162
Yet Denis Gril notes that, while long-suffering prophets prior to Muhammad
were provided with miracles to signal a divine confirmation and approval of
the messages which they brought, Muhammad in the Qur’an is sometimes
shown as being denied such signals of divine approbation.163 The Qur’an
insists that Muhammad’s primary role is to be a ‘warner’ (nadhīr), not a
producer of signs.164 Indeed, there is almost a note of exasperation as the text
instructs Muhammad to tell his opponents that he is a mere human, albeit an

apostle (bashar rasūl ).165
Gril suggests that ‘Muhammad was not thought to have been granted
any miracles in traditional sense as they were not, ipso facto, sufficient to
convince unbelievers.166
Yet it is clear from al-Bukhari, for example, that evidence was both
demanded by, and given to, the polytheists of Mecca (mushrikūn), most
notably in that miracle of the splitting of the moon (inshiqāq al-qamar).167
The latter, however, is evidence from the tradition (ªadīth) literature. The
Qur’an itself fails to parallel the tradition literature in a lengthy presentation
of the well-known narratives of miracles performed by the Prophet.168 That
applies to the miracle of the splitting of the moon, the miʿrāj and the opening
of Muhammad’s chest.169
The picture that emerges then, after a survey of the above comments and
citations from medieval and modern sources, is that it is the hadith literature
which lauds Muhammad as a miracle worker rather than the text of the
Qur’an itself.170 Be that as it may, it is the revelation of the Qur’an which
remains the primary171 – many maintain the only172 – miracle in any hierarchy
one might devise of miraculous phenomena in Islam.
Leaving aside, then, this privileged position of the Qur’an in Islam as
the miracle par excellence, for the moment, it is worthy of note that not all
Muslim theologians down the ages have believed in the possibility and reality
of miracles. Miracles in Islam have been claimed by some to lack ‘any essential
importance’.173 David Thomas points to the position of the rationalist group
of medieval thinkers in Islam known as the Muʿtazila and their scepticism
about ‘wonders’ which they attributed to mere trickery.174 Earlier we drew
attention to the way in which the famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta was
disabused of his credulity about a possible miracle in China.175
However, it was the Muʿtazila who were vehement in their opposition to
the possibility of karāmāt. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI2) cites the Muʿtazili
exegete al-Zamakhshari’s (1075–1144) interpretation of the following
Qur’anic verse:
He (alone) knows the Unseen

nor does He make anyone
acqainted with His mysteries,

except an apostle
whom He has chosen.176
He states that the verse means that prophetic miracles do confirm the truth
of the messages they bring but have no relevance or reference to other alleged
miracles.177
Even some of those who adhered to the Ashʿarite school of theology did
not demur from the harsh Muʿtazilite criticism of the karāmāt.178
Yet not all Muʿtazilis totally rejected the possibility of miracles, even
though they might hedge that possibility with a number of careful caveats.
Thus the prominent Muʿtazili theologian ʿAbd al-Jabbar (c. 932–c. 1023–
25) bucked the general Muʿtazili trend of outright hostility to miracles by
establishing five criteria which allowed some event or action to be regarded
as a miracle: these included the need for a divine origin or character of that
event and the fact that it should manifest itself as something which fractures
the natural order of things.179
The criteria are quite restrictive and severe but it is clear that, for ʿAbd
al-Jabbar, Muhammad and the revelation of the Qur’an to him score very
highly according to these criteria: miracles confirm Muhammad’s claims to
being a prophet sent by God and the text of the Qur’an which he transmits is
itself to be considered a miracle.180
Others, in our modern age, have tried to provide a ‘rational’ taxonomy
for the interpretation of miracles: such miracles might, alternatively, be con-
sidered as an aspect of trickery on the part of the Divine; or a miracle might be
any event to which one chooses to attach a particular ‘religious significance’;
or the rational explanation might lie in the future for a seemingly miraculous
event in the present.181
Such a taxonomy would not, of course, gain the approval of many
Muslim believers, simply because it comprises attempts to explain away by
rational means the nature of miracles rather than devoutly accepting their
possibility as ‘unfettered’ acts of the Divine.
With regard to the usages and deployment of alleged miracles as ‘proof-
events’ of prophethood, the great medieval theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
(1058–1111) counsels caution. Thus the ‘cleaving of the moon’ (shaqq
al-qamar) should not be taken as proof of Muhammad’s prophethood since

such events might be regarded as a kind of enchantment and make-believe
(siªr wa takhyīl), albeit permitted by God. Al-Ghazali tells us that if you base
your faith on a miracle, that faith might be undermined by any ambiguity
and doubt (al-ishkāl wa ’l-shubha) pertaining to that miracle.182
Muslims down the ages have held that the Qur’an is a miracle. What
has been debated, and either accepted or refuted or, at least, regarded with
scepticism, is whether there can be other miracles outside the message of the
Qur’an, performed through the agency of holy men or awliyā’. For many, in
particular the Sufis, the example of the Qur’an has acted as a kind of trigger
for the identification and acceptance of numerous other miracles throughout
Islamic history. Distinctions may be made between karāmāt and muʿjizāt and
the possibility of illusion may be acknowledged but Sufism, ta‚awwuf, has
frequently been associated down the ages with the performance of miracles.183
Proficiency as a miracle worker fostered belief in the spirituality of a Sufi
shaykh among would-be disciples and many shaykhs did indeed seem to
have an extraordinary capacity to act in a way beyond the natural order of
things.184
Thus ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Jilani (1077/78–1166), the eponym of the Qadiri
Order of Sufis, not only had a reputation as a renowned healer185 but could
also raise the dead.186 There were saintly women who could fly.187 There
were Sufis who claimed to have undertaken miraculous ascensions into the
heavens, leaving their bodies, and encountering all sorts of mystical beings.188
Yet others might have the capacity to immobilise those whom they perceived
as possibly hostile by the infliction of ‘temporary paralysis’.189 Indeed, the
briefest of studies of the medieval Islamic world discloses an arena replete
with miraculous events.190
However, whether such miracles as we have just outlined did indeed
serve to bridge ‘the gulf between the transcendent God . . . and the material
world’,191 or merely serve to exacerbate that gulf, is a matter for debate.
Regardless of that, however, acceptance of the reality of miracles in Islam
has persisted into modern times and shows no signs of abating. It goes beyond
the Sufi realm and can characterise the lives of ordinary Muslim people.
Stories of miracles not only abound but are created and created anew. When
Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969, the press in Turkey claimed
that he heard the call to prayer;192 a Rifaʿi Sufi is alleged to have eaten a whole
fluorescent tube in 2007;193 and, according to another story, a kalashnikov
might be fired through the stomach of a shaykh but leave him unharmed.194
Thus, the acceptance of the possibility of a range of extraordinary mira-
cles can gain not only acceptance among a group of the Muslim faithful but
become an integral part of one’s Islamic social life.195 There is a dynamic
conjunction of ordinary milieu and extraordinary event.196
Belief in the possibility of miracles and acceptance of their reality is thus
a prominent thread in the fabric of contemporary Islam, especially in what
might be described as its ‘popular’ or ‘folk’ manifestations. Even the very
recitation of past miraculous events can be said to have a powerful efficacy.
One such popular recitation is that of the miracle of Hazrat Bibi Fatima,
that is, Janab Sayyida Tahira.197 The miracle is the kernel of an interfaith story
concerning a Jewish bride who dies, is brought back to life and converts to
Islam together with large numbers of her Jewish co-religionists.198 Listening
to the account of this original miracle will provide safety from death and
another miracle;199 failure to recite the account of the miracle, after vowing to
do so, can bring great woe.200
From an anthropological perspective, the account of the original miracle,
and those to which the account of it gives rise, have interesting references
to the fetching of water,201 a search for water202 and the purchase of sweet-
meats.203 Thus are the utterly mundane woven into accounts of the utterly
extraordinary.
This is a powerful text indeed for some Muslims living in the subconti-
nent. Nasra Hassan writes the following in a translator’s note to her private
translation of this text:
According to tradition in the sub-continent, only women may recite or hear

this miracle, or otherwise participate in the gathering. The reciter should sit
on the prayer mat after ablution, [and] perfume the book from which she is
reciting. All the listeners should also be perfumed, as well as the prayer mat.
The entire group should recite the salawat at the points noted in the printed
version. A dish of sweetmeats should be placed nearby before the recitation.
After the miracle has been recited, a prayer of thanks for the fulfillment of
the vow should be made, two rakas should be made, and the group present
should eat the sweets. No male should be given the sweets. No male may
even overhear or enter the room while the recitation is in progress. No male
may be told the story.204
Like Christianity, Islam too participates in a process of anámnēsis whereby

the prominent miracles of the past are recalled and made present for a con-
temporary generation. Some of the rituals (manāsik) of the Islamic pilgrimage
(ªajj), and the observance of the month of Ramadan, bring such anámnēsis
clearly into focus: pilgrims run between al-Safa and al-Marwa in emulation
of the desperate search for water in antiquity by Hajar, resulting finally in
the miraculous appearance of the spring of Zamzam.205 As we have seen,
the Qur’an is regarded as the supreme miracle in Islam and its revelation is
commemorated by the fasting month of Ramadan:
Ramadhān is the (month)

in which was sent down
the Qur’ān, as a guide
to mankind, also clear (Signs)
for guidance and judgement
(between right and wrong).
So every one of you
who is present (at his home)
during this month
should spend it in fasting.206
The Qur’an itself places much store by the remembrance of God207 and,
of course, it is the Sufis who, as we saw, are frequently associated with the
miraculous, and who, with their dhikr, undertake this remembrance most
prominently. A final example of anámnēsis, worthy of note here, may be
found in the famous Cloak Poem (Qa‚īdat al-Burda) by the Egyptian Sufi
al-Busiri (1212–c. 1274) who was affiliated to the Shadhili Sufi Order. While
the author was afflicted with paralysis he had a dream in which he saw the
Prophet Muhammad. In the dream the Prophet covered him with his cloak
(burda) and al-Busiri regained his health. In consequence the poem entered
the popular imagination as a miraculous talisman.208
1.3 Narratology
For a subject like miracles, which is a universal topos within so many of the
major world religions, numerous theoretical and methodological approaches
suggest themselves. In a previous volume I chose to assess the Neoplatonic
philosophical, theological and cosmological material through the lens of
semiotics and structuralism.209 But other, and newer, modes of assessment
and analysis immediately suggest themselves for the realms of the miraculous.
One such is narratology. It is useful, firstly, to provide some definitions
of the term together with a brief survey of the uses of such a methodology.
The following passages which I quote here, were first deployed in an essay of
mine as a methodological sieve whereby to analyse the Epistles (Rasā’il ) of
the medieval Neoplatonic Arab philosophers who went under the name
of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa’) (fl. tenth–eleventh centuries
ad):210
Narrative is universal. As H. Porter Abbott puts it: ‘Narrative existed long

before people gave it a name and tried to figure out how it works. It comes
to us so naturally that, when we start to examine it, we are a bit like
Monsieur Jourdain in Molière’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, who discovered
that he had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it’.211
Porter goes on to observe: ‘We think of [narrative] as novels or sagas or
folk tales or, at the least, as anecdotes . . . We make narratives many times
a day, every day of our lives . . . Given the presence of narrative in almost
all human discourse, there is little wonder that there are theorists who place
it next to language itself as the distinctive human trait’.212 Porter quotes
Roland Barthes’ ‘landmark essay on narrative (1966)’.213 Here, in part, is
what Barthes had to say:
The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is first and

foremost a prodigious variety of genres . . . narrative is present in
myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama,
comedy, mime, painting . . . stained-glass windows, cinema,
comics, news items, conversation. Moreover, under this almost
infinite diversity of forms, narrative is present in every age, in
every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of
mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without

narrative.214
Narrative can be multifaceted and appear within a framework as the classic

frame story. Classic examples cited by Abbott are Boccaccio’s Decameron,
The Thousand and One Nights [Alf Layla wa Layla] and The Canterbury Tales
of Chaucer. As Abbott succinctly puts it: ‘An embracing narrative acts as a
framework within which a multitude of tales are told.’215 At the very least,
we can have a single narrative within the frame of a larger narrative.
We may find certain themes and motifs repeated, for emphasis, or other
reasons in narrative.216 Now, there are numerous theories of narration and
narratology217 but it is on the themes and motifs that we shall focus here.
Abbott lays it down as ‘a general working rule for the discussion of nar-
rative, a theme is abstract and a motif is concrete. Beauty, nature, violence
and love can be themes; roses, gardens, fists . . . can be motifs’.218
Now a certain al-Tanukhi (938 or 940–94), who was born and brought
up in Basra,219 became a judge, Hanafi by legal School [madhhab] and
Muʿtazili by faith,220 is the focus of a major monograph by Nouha Khalifa.
In her examination of ‘elements of the journey theme in al-Tanūkhī’s spir-
itual stories’, Khalifa, naratologically, divides this theme into ‘four separate
components – time; place; mode of transport; and nourishment’.221
The main elements of the above narratological framework, already alluded to

and itemised in my Foreword, constitute the principal narratological tools by
which I propose to interrogate the miracle narratives which follow in the rest
of this volume. Particular emphasis will be placed on the identification and
role in each narrative of the key elements of themes and motifs. Following
the excellent methodology of Abbott, themes will embrace the abstract while
motifs will signal phenomena which have a more concrete reality. In addition
we shall sometimes stress these themes and motifs by characterising them as
‘metathemes’ and ‘metamotifs’. This is purely for the sake of emphasis.
f ood | 27
2
Food
2.1 A Proto-miracle: Manna from the Desert
T he miraculous feeding of the followers of Moses in the desert with

manna is common to both the Qur’an and the Old Testament. It is
the proto-food miracle in Islam, Christianity and Judaism. In addition,
for the Christian, the manna which came down on the Children of Israel
in the desert has a special significance, typologically, as a type of the future
Eucharist.1
In the Qur’an we read:
And We gave you the shade of clouds

and sent down to you
manna and quails, saying:
‘Eat of the good things
We have provided for you.’2
The text makes clear that the followers of Moses swiftly grew discontented
with the monotony of their diet:
And remember ye said:

‘O Moses! We cannot endure
one kind of food (always);
So beseech thy Lord for us

to produce for us of what the earth
groweth, – and its pot-herbs and cucumbers,
its garlic, lentils, and onions.’3
27
The Old Testament Exodus text also includes a reference to quails in its
narration. In this, the Israelite community complains about its lack of food
to Moses and tells him that they might just as well have remained in Egypt
where food was plentiful.4 God then tells Moses that he will shower them
with bread which is to be collected every day by the people as a daily ration
for their subsistence. This injunction is a test since God wishes to see whether
the community will obey his laws and commands. The sixth day’s preparation
of food, however, must be double the norm for the other days.5
Implicit, then, in the projected miracle of the manna is the key theme of
testing and obedience.
The event, as outlined in the Book of the Exodus takes place as follows:
quails overfly the Israelite camp in the evening and the following day they
find their camp covered in dew. The latter lifts, leaving a strange substance
behind ‘as fine as hoarfrost on the ground’. The puzzled Israelites ask among
themselves what this could be. Moses tells them that it is food which God has
sent down to them for their sustenance in the desert.6
Moses then instructs his followers about the collection of the manna,
noting that, in accordance with God’s command, only a day’s worth may
be collected at any one time. Those who disobey and collect surplus for the
morrow find their stocks riddled with maggots.7
On the sixth day, again according to God’s instructions, a double por-
tion of the manna is collected in preparation for the next day, the Sabbath,
when none will fall. But some disobedient people go out to seek manna on
the Sabbath itself and are disappointed. Moses chides them for their disobe-
dience and orders that all rest on the Sabbath.8
This mysterious and miraculous food is then given a name in the text:
‘The House of Israel named it “manna”. It was like coriander seed; it was
white and its taste was like that of wafers made with honey.’9
The narrative of the miracle of the manna is much more extensive in the
Old Testament than in the Qur’an. Nonetheless, the Qur’an, like the Book
of the Exodus, does reflect the discontent of the followers of Moses in what
might be characterised, narratologically, as ‘the theme of grumbling’. And, as
we have noted, the Exodus account has an added typological significance in
being a type of that future antitype, the Eucharist.
Both Muslim and Christian exegetes have agonised at length over
f ood | 29
the exact nature of the primary motif in this miracle narrative, the manna
(Arabic: al-manna) which came down from the heavens. The great Muslim
exegete and historian, Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari (839–923),
records eleven opinions, including the interpretation of the word as ‘resin’,
‘like ice’, ‘honey’, ‘thin bread’, ‘ginger’, and ‘a sweet drink’.10 His interests
here appear to be primarily philological, laying out a whole stall of definitions
and recording the differing opinions of the scholars as to why God furnished
the people with quails and manna.11
It is of interest that al-Tabari too, dwells on the theme of testing with
regard to the actual collecting of the manna: ‘If a man took more manna
and quails than he needed to eat in one day, it went bad, unless they took
on Friday food for Saturday, when it did not go bad.’12 (This statement, of
course, reflects a Jewish Sabbath, rather than an Islamic day of prayer.)
The theme of complaint or grumbling is also elaborated upon by al-
Tabari13 as are the Exodus references to the theme of ‘forty years’.14 The latter
theme is extended by al-Tabari to reflect a forty-year durability for both
clothing and sandals.15
Contemporary commentators appear to be in broad agreement as to
the origin and nature of manna, focusing on the tamarisk tree but differ-
ing in some of the detail. For example, the translator of the Qur’an, Yusuf
Ali, notes that ‘the actual manna found to this day in the Sinai region is a
gummy saccharine secretion found on a species of Tamarisk’.16 He goes on
to observe that ‘it is produced by the puncture of a species of insect like the
cochineal’.17 The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) concurs: ‘Manna is formed from
the secretions of insects living in Tamarisk trees, but only in Central Sinai; it
is harvested in May–June.’18 Richard J. Clifford elaborates further:
Manna is the honeylike dropping from the tamarisk tree of Palestine and
Sinai, which the bedouin of the Sinai call mann. The droppings from the
tamarisk are secretions from two kinds of scale lice, which suck large quan-
ties of liquid from the twigs in Spring in order to collect nitrogen for
their grubs. It contains glucose and fructose but no protein and cannot be
harvested in quantity.19
Clifford also makes reference to the ‘folk etymology’ which derives the
word manna from man hû, ‘What is it?’, more correctly stated in Hebrew
as mâ hû.20 The Islamic translator, Yusuf Ali, was also aware of this alleged
etymology.21
From the perspective of narration, then, we may identify, within both
the Old Testament and the Qur’an, together with their commentators, four
primary themes: testing and obedience, discontent and complaint, sabbath/
holy day and forty years. The two primary motifs are the quails and the
manna. And despite the overall interest by the exegetes in the manna and its
possible etymologies, a good theological case could be made for suggesting
that the overarching topos or metatheme is that of testing. The manna and
the mode of its collection are designed to be tests.22 Clifford places the collec-
tion of manna test and its accompanying rules in the context of three closely
related textual tests, identifying it as the second major one. For him, the
first major one is at the bitter waters of Marah, the second is the manna test,
and the third is the ‘lack of water’ test at Massah and Meribah.23 A further
metatheme, then, may be identified as ‘trust in the Lord’.
By such testing in the wilds of the desert, God wishes to learn where the
loyalties of His chosen people really lie. He tests them but they should not
attempt to test Him.24 From the narrative perspective we note the underlying
emphases on food, drink and authority.25
In Morris West’s magisterial novel, The Devil’s Advocate,26 the statement
is made by one of the characters:
‘I have never seen a miracle.’

The response comes:
‘Do you believe in them?’
The reply is a curt: ‘No.’27
We noted earlier that some might classify as a miracle any strange event to
which one might choose to attach ‘religious significance’.28 Is the latter what
happens when contemporary observers examine the descent of the manna on
Moses and the People of Israel in the desert? Certainly, the various exegeses
of the manna narrative adumbrated above by both Christian and Muslim
commentators might lead us to think so. Yet Clifford remarks: ‘The Bible
portrays manna as miraculous; it is not an everyday occurrence.’29
We return to our fundamental question about the exact definition and
nature of miracles. This volume, as it speaks from a strictly neutral, anthropo-
f ood | 31
logical perspective, makes no judgement either for or against the miraculous

nature of the manna in the desert. While acknowledging that many other
Biblical phenomena of an allegedly miraculous nature, like the ten plagues
of Egypt,30 have been subjected to a similar ‘rational’ exegesis by scholars, we
will conclude this section by treating the manna account as a miracle from
a narratological point of view, one which, from this perspective, may be
regarded as ‘the proto-food miracle’ in the Christian and Islamic traditions.
In the former, this miracle is the type of which Christ, who proclaims himself
in the New Testament as ‘the bread of life’,31 is the antitype. In the latter,
Islamic tradition, there is no such typology but rather an emphasis on God’s
power and generosity as He feeds an ungrateful and fractious multitude.
2.2 The Feeding of the Five Thousand: Christianity
The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand performed by Jesus is recorded
in all four of the Gospels.32 The event takes place after news of the execution
of John the Baptist by Herod reaches Jesus and the latter tries to withdraw
to a secluded place with his disciples, perhaps intent on mourning John
in private. However, a massive crowd follows him and the lack of food is
remarked upon by the disciples and Jesus. The latter then takes the five loaves
and two fishes which they have with them and miraculously multiplies them
so that all are fed. The profusion of food is such that twelve baskets of scraps
are collected when the meal is finished.
From the perspective of typology and intertext, the exegetes are not
slow to comment. The feeding of the five thousand in the New Testament
constitutes, like the Eucharist, an antitype of the Old Testament types33 of
both the provision of manna in the desert to Moses and the children of Israel,
and the way that Elisha multiplies bread and oil.34
So important does the New Testament regard the miracle of the mul-
tiplication of food by Jesus that we find a second version in the Gospels of
Matthew and Mark where seven loaves and a few fish are multiplied and
given to a crowd of four thousand, after which seven baskets of scraps are
collected.35 This version may be termed ‘the feeding of the four thousand’.
Clearly what we have here is the same event but recorded in two different
ways ‘which [both] depict the event in the light of OT precedents’.36 The
NJB finds the numbers given in each narrative significant: ‘twelve baskets’
resonates with the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles; ‘seven bas-
kets’ resonates with seven Canaanite gentile nations and the seven deacons.37
There is clearly a large degree of intertextual artifice and play at work here
on the part of the evangelists. New Testament exegetes have relished the
number ‘twelve’ as indicative of Israel while the number ‘seven’ refers us to
the gentiles.38
The Gospel accounts are thus shown attempting to be all-inclusive: the
miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes not only has a
typological resonance, looking backwards to the manna in the desert and
forwards to the establishment of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, but it is
represented as a miracle with significance for the universal church, Jew and
gentile alike. And, as one scholar puts it, the miracle of the feeding of the
five/four thousand ‘anticipates the Messianic banquet in the Kingdom’.39
The very phraseology of Luke 9:15, where Jesus ‘blesses’, ‘breaks’ and ‘gives’
the food to the crowd, bespeaks a deliberate intertext in its powerful, direct
reflection of the narrative of the future institution of the Eucharist at the Last
Supper and the post-resurrection encounter of the two disciples with Jesus in
Emmaus.40
One might ask how the fish fit into such intertextual and typological
analysis. Harrington suggests that the references to fish in the Gospel nar-
ratives of the miracle may have been an ‘afterthought’ although he posits
the idea that fish might possibly have been used in the celebration of the
Eucharist in early Christianity in parallel to the quails in the Old Testament
account of the manna in the wilderness.41
Of course, other interpretations are possible. The waters in and around
Palestine were replete with fish and therefore they could stand as symbols of
‘the eschatological banquet’ according to another exegete.42
To summarise: an examination of the above New Testament narrations
of the feeding of the five/four thousand by a miraculous multiplication of
loaves and fishes discloses an embedded typology and intertext which at once
looks forwards and backwards, Janus-faced and omnipresent. The Eucharist,
which is considered by many Christians to be the same sacrifice as that of
Calvary,43 is a central point on an intertextual chain or paradigm whose
present reflects a transitory past and looks forward to an eternal future in
an eternal Paradise. Thus the Old Testament provision of manna to the
f ood | 33
grumbling Israelites has its New Testament counterpart in the feeding of the
five/four thousand whose exegesis is given by Jesus himself as he reflects on
the ancestors of the Jews, who ‘ate manna in the desert’, and declares himself
to be ‘the bread of life’.44
This is then reified in dramatic fashion at the Last Supper/Passover45 at
which meal and sacrifice coalesce,46 giving rise to the Eucharist as anámnēsis,
memorialisation.47 For the Christian all is confirmed by the post-resurrection
narratives of the appearance of Jesus at Emmaus and, thereafter, miraculously
signalled by a plethora of eucharistic miracles down the ages48 which, as it
were, function as heralds of that final sublime miracle of the eschatological
banquet in Paradise to which we earlier referred.
If we were, therefore, to give our multiplication of loaves and fishes
narratives a paradigmatic shape, it might suitably be represented as follows:
Passover > manna > feeding of the 5,000/4,000 > ‘I am the Bread of Life’
> Last Supper and Institution of the Eucharist > Calvary > Emmaus >
Eucharist/Mass as meal, sacrifice and anámnēsis > Eucharistic miracles >
eschatological banquet in Paradise.
Thus, just as the present rituals (manāsik) of the Islamic pilgrimage signal an
evocative past and an eschatological future,49 so too, the miracle of the feeding
of the five/four thousand in the New Testament fulfils a similar function as
the above paradigm clearly illustrates. In a more narrative form, past, present
and future may be envisaged intertextually in the following statement:
The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and
the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice . . . In the sense of sacred
scripture the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the
proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for man. In the liturgi-
cal celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and
real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time
Passover is celebrated the Exodus events are made present to the memory
of the believers . . . In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new
meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates
Christ’s Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offered once
for all on the cross remains ever present.50
Down the ages Christians have believed that miracles can bespeak, or give rise
to, other miracles. Thus, there are those among the faithful who believe that
the initial, proto- miracle of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, has given rise
to a host of associated Eucharistic and food miracles over the centuries and
even into the present.51
A very real physical hunger might provide a relevant catalyst. Jacques Le
Goff notes that hunger could be omnipresent in the Middle Ages, and so it
is hardly surprising that miracles such as those of the provision of manna to
the Children of Israel and the feeding of the five/four thousand should catch
man’s attention.52
Thus, during a severe famine in Campania, St Benedict of Nursia (c.
480–c. 550) miraculously provides his monastery with abundant flour.53 The
apostle St James, hundreds of years after his death, mysteriously feeds an impe-
cunious pilgrim with a miraculous loaf that reconstitutes itself every day.54 St
Dominic’s (c. 1170–1221) brethren are visited by two mysterious strangers
bearing bread in their cloaks which they deposit and then disappear.55
Le Goff emphasises that bread is at the heart of all these miracle narra-
tives, recalling not just the miracles of Christ but the fact that bread was the
staple food of the majority of people.56
It is thus no exaggeration to identify ‘bread’ as the metamotif in all
that we have discussed and analysed in this New Testament multiplication
of loaves paradigm. In the light of this, our metatheme may be identi-
fied as hospitality. In Judaic and Christian scripture, hospitality and bread,
metatheme and metamotif, are inextricably linked.57 The Old Testament
Abraham and Sarah entertain three strangers who may be angels or even
a type of the Trinity itself58 at the oak of Mamre. They are provided with
bread, a calf, curds and milk.59 The eating of unleavened bread is associated
with the preparations and rituals of Passover.60 As we have seen, hospitality
is, of course, a key element in the Gospel accounts of the feeding of the five/
four thousand.61
Again, we find this metatheme of hospitality in the celebration of the
Last Supper and the inauguration of the Eucharist.62 Finally, and perhaps
most dramatically from the perspective of narrative, it appears in the revela-
tion of the risen Christ to the two weary disciples over a meal at Emmaus as
Jesus ‘is made known to them in the breaking of the bread’.63 Here, in the
f ood | 35
latter, a further theme is introduced, that of recognition: ‘With that their eyes
were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.’64
Clifford Yeary emphasises the way in which Jesus takes control in the
wayside inn at Emmaus and introduces – or rather, reintroduces – the theme
of divine hospitality: ‘They offer him the hospitality of food and shelter when
they arrive at their destination. [But] what happens next goes against the
rules of hospitality, however, for it is their guest who takes the bread, says the
blessing, and breaks it in order to serve his hosts.’65
Enfolding all in this post-resurrection Gospel account in Luke, for the
Christian, is the metamiracle itself, the metatheme of the resurrection.
The theme of hospitality – human this time rather than divine but pre-
cipitated nonetheless, by a divine miraculous intervention – may be found in
the pious custom of the distribution of ‘St Anthony’s bread’ (actual bread or
equivalent alms) to the poor on 13 June, the feast of St Anthony (c. 1190–
1231). A miracle story, whose hero is the saint himself, lies behind this custom:
a twenty-month-old baby called Tomasino in medieval Padova drowns in a
tub of water. His frantic mother implores St Anthony’s intercession and the
baby recovers after the mother has promised to give the child’s weight in
grain to the poor if he will revive the child. The hospitable distribution of ‘St
Anthony’s bread’ to the poor in succeeding centuries marks this miracle.66
As Christian history developed, however, this seminal theme of ‘the
breaking of the bread’ at the Last Supper, and how to interpret that key
action, became a source of massive division throughout Christendom: what
exactly did Christ mean when he pronounced the words over the bread, ‘This
is my body?’67 Symbol, signification or ontological transubstantiation?
As is well known, the Christian churches divided over the issue and thus
the theme, ‘the breaking of the bread’, inhabits a semantic pool of hospitality,
unity68 and, paradoxically, division.69 If the role of the sacred meal, classically,
was to foster the ties of unity among those present, taking the Passover meal
as paradigmatic,70 then we find that this ambition was torn asunder as the
Protestant reformers reinterpreted the Eucharist in such a way that it remains
to this day a sign of division in Christianity71 among Catholics, Orthodox
and Protestants with further divisive interpretations developing within the
body politic of Protestantism itself.72
Those who chose to espouse a traditional Catholic interpretation of the
Eucharist, who conceived it as a miracle of transubstantiation, have been

keen down the ages to ‘prove’ their miracle in some way or another, by means
of other miracles which build upon the primary one of transubstantiation.
This is despite the fact that the New Testament does not furnish us with a
precise exegesis, either in the Last Supper narrative or later, of exactly what
Jesus meant when he famously stated, ‘This is my body.’73
This striving for extra-textual proofs has given rise to a subgenre of
miracles characterised as ‘Eucharistic miracles’. They were most usefully
catalogued by a young Italian named Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia
on 12 October 2006. In a short but devout life he used his passion for digital
technology to build a website which featured a catalogue of all the Eucharistic
miracles on which he had information that had taken place throughout the
world down the centuries.74
Numerous examples of Eucharistic miracles, devoutly alleged and
accepted by many of the Catholic faithful, exist. The following are just a few
examples. All are articulated in the light of the classic Catholic doctrine of
transubstantiation, couched in Aristotelian terminology, whereby the sub-
stance of the bread and wine at the celebration of the Eucharist are changed
into the body and blood of Christ, while the external appearance and form,
the accidents, remain the same.75 This doctrine of transubstantiation has been
characterised as ‘the most controversial of miracles’.76
In the Eucharistic miracles which we shall now present and describe, it
is claimed by the observers and participants that a change in appearance and
matter is perceived as well. We shall identify the themes and motifs of these
miracle narratives and seek to note their similarities and differences where
appropriate. Our purpose, here and throughout, is to attempt to illuminate
each miracle account in a new way by focusing on its narrative aspects. No
attempt is made to evaluate the actuality or reality of that narrative.
Scholars have differed as to the actual numbers of Eucharistic miracles
which have been claimed to have occurred down the ages. Marsden, for
example, after noting in traditional fashion that it is the ‘reality (substantia)’
of the Host which changes and not the ‘appearance (accidentia)’, accepts that
there have been about forty or fifty ‘verified’ cases where the latter has been
seen to change as well.77 However, Renzo Allegri counts ‘numerous’ such
events78 and identifies as many as fifteen in the thirteenth century.79 Few or
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many, the following narratives provide a flavour of widespread belief in the

reality of an extraordinary phenomenon.
Lanciano (Ancient Anxanum) (c. 750)

The town of Lanciano lies in Abruzzo in Italy. It lays claim to having ‘the first
documented case’80 of a Eucharistic miracle. It is certainly one of the most
famous. A monk belonging to the Order of St Basil was afflicted by doubts
about the possibility of transubstantiation but, on one occasion when he
celebrated Mass in the Church of St Legontian (Longinus), it was seen that,
after the consecration, the Host had ‘changed into real flesh and the wine was
changed into real blood’.81
Clinical investigations by modern science have been unable to explain
this extraordinary occurrence82 even though the preserved materials were
subjected to rigorous scientific tests in 1970–1 and 1981 and a full scholarly
documentation was undertaken by means of photographs via a microscope.83
Professor Edoardo Linoli, who conducted the investigation in his capacity as
the Director of Arezzo Hospital, concluded on 4 March 1971: ‘The “miracu-
lous flesh” comes from the muscular striated tissue of the myocardium (heart)
. . . the flesh and blood are human . . .’84 Needless to say, such conclusions
greatly intrigued the world of medicine. In 1973 a commission of scientists
was established by the World Health Organization to check the findings of
Professor Linoli. After a full fifteen months of investigations the commission
confirmed that the material was ‘living tissue showing all the clinical reac-
tions found in living beings’ and confessed themselves completely unable to
account scientifically for the phenomenon which they had reviewed.85
St Catherine of Siena (1347–80)

St Catherine of Siena was one of the great visionaries and mystics of the
Middle Ages. Tertiary Dominican and fierce interlocutor with the papacy of
the day,86 later canonised by Pope Pius II in 146187 and, in the twentieth cen-
tury, proclaimed one of the few female Doctors of the Church,88 she was the
recipient of diverse mystical experiences on receiving communion at Mass:
Wondrous things occurred during these Holy Communions. While it was

still in the hands of the priest, the Sacred Host would move by itself and,
sometimes, abruptly fly from there and place itself on Catherine’s tongue.
She often saw, as she solemnly declared, Jesus himself in the form of a small
boy in the Host; the altar appeared to her gaze as though it were surrounded
by angels and at times it seemed to be enveloped by flames as the burning
bush did to Moses.89
Ferretti tells us that she even had the charism of being able to distinguish
between ‘communion bread’, that is, an unconsecrated Host, and the real
thing.90
Bordeaux (1822)
The events at Bordeaux centre on a visiting priest, a certain Fr Delort, to a
community of sisters, known as the Sisters, Ladies or Daughters of Loreto,
to celebrate the liturgy of Benediction. After the first incensing of the mon-
strance, the priest raised his eyes and saw, not the Host in the monstrance,
but the moving figure of a beautiful young man, aged about thirty, wearing
a red sash, whom he took to be Jesus himself. The apparition was confirmed
by the altar boy, John Degreteau, who also saw it and it only reverted to the
appearance of a large Host at the end of Benediction.
The priest who should have originally taken the Benediction service,
Fr A. Noailles, founder of the Loreto Sisters, queried in a letter of 1822
why Jesus should have so spectacularly appeared during Benediction to the
visiting priest and the altar boy: ‘Perhaps it was simply to revise the faith of a
miserable priest like me, if that were possible.’91
However, belief in such Eucharistic miracles was not confined to the
Middle Ages, nor post-revolutionary nineteenth-century France. Two nota-
ble modern examples from Buenos Aires in Argentina and Sokołka in Poland
are worthy of record. Indeed, the latter case is known as Poland’s Lanciano.
Buenos Aires (1996)

According to one account of this alleged Eucharistic miracle, a certain Fr
Alejandro Pezet, having celebrated Mass on 18 August 1996, was informed
that a Host had been found lying on the floor at the back of the church. The
Host was recovered and placed in water and then locked in the taberbnacle.92
The detail in this narrative can vary slightly: another suggests that the
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event began on 15 August as follows: a Host was accidentally dropped by

a communicant. It was retrieved by the presiding priest but, because it had
become dirty after dropping onto the floor, the priest did not want to swallow
it, as would have been the expected norm, but put it in a small glass of water
to dissolve it. The glass was locked in the tabernacle.93 Yet a third account has
the priest discovering a Host discarded on a candleholder at the rear of the
church.94
However, all accounts agree on what happened next: the priest opens the
tabernacle a few days later and discovers a piece of bloody material instead
of the Host.95 With the permission of the local bishop, Jorge Bergoglio (the
future Pope Francis, r. 2013–), the material is photographed. These photo-
graphs provide clear evidence that what was the Host has now become ‘a
piece of bloody flesh’.96 Later scientific analysis concludes that the sample
which they have analysed is ‘human cardiac tissue, from the myocardium of
the left ventricle’.97
On being informed of the origin of the sample, one of the analysts, Dr
Frederick Zugibe, a highly experienced forensic pathologist and author of an
acclaimed medical textbook in his field,98 exclaimed: ‘How and why can a
consecrated host change its nature and become living human flesh and blood?
This will remain an inexplicable mystery to science – a mystery totally beyond
her competence.’99
Dom Antoine Marie OSB, who is fervently persuaded of the possibility
and reality of Eucharistic miracles,100 comments: ‘Other experts have com-
pared the lab reports written following the miracle of Buenos Aires with those
produced for the miracle of Lanciano. These scientists, who did not know
where the samples had come from, concluded from the reports that the two
samples had come from the same person.’101
It is worthy of note that, as with the Lanciano event, one of the protago-
nists, not a priest this time but a Bolivian neurophysiologist by the name
of Dr Ricardo Castañón Gómez, called in to investigate the phenomenon,
moved from an initial atheism back to the Catholic faith, precipitated by
this and other events.102 The metatheme of initial doubt followed by faith is
therefore a powerful and dynamic feature in both narratives.
From a narratological perspective it is also of interest that the intial dis-
covery of the Host at the back of the church differs slightly in detail according
to which account one reads, but all accounts concur on the ensuing scientific
analysis of the Host and the astonishing and inexplicable conclusions. In
one account it is the Australian journalist, Mike Willesee, one of those who
conveys the Host for analysis to New York, who reverts to his childhood
Catholic faith when the results of the test are revealed.103
Thus we have several narratives which may be said to form a coher-
ent whole, barring minor details, but which exhibit the dual metathemes
of movement from doubt to belief on the one hand, and confirmation in
physical, albeit inexplicable, form of an ancient doctrine on the other.
Sokółka, Poland (2008)

The narrative of the miracle at the Church of St Anthony of Padua in
Sokółka on 12 October 2008 has many features in common with the nar-
ratives of the eucharistic miracles of Lanciano, Bordeaux and Buenos Aires.
Anthropologically, we may identify the primary motif as the Host, transub-
stantiated in Catholic belief into Christ’s flesh; and the primary theme as a
dramatic resurgence in faith by the lukewarm, the lapsed, the broken and
many who seek a cure through the medium of the miraculous event.104
The narrative unfolds according to a traditional pattern which builds to
a simple, coherent conclusion but, once again, exhibits discrepancies in some
of the details according to which source one consults.
According to one, it is a Fr Filip Zdrodovvski who celebrates the Mass
at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday 12 October 2008, with a Fr Jacek Ingielewicz acting
as a Eucharistic minister in the distribution of communion.105 In two other
accounts it is the latter who says the Mass.106
A Host accidentally falls on the ground during communion, is recovered
by the priest, placed in a vasculum (a small silver container), to which water
is added, and the container is locked away in the sacristy safe.107 Our modern
sources then differ as to who makes the discovery, whether it was a nun or
the parish priest.108
The most dramatic account runs as follows: since the expectation was
that the dropped consecrated Host would dissolve in the water in the space
of a few days, a certain nun, Sister Julia Dubowska, would check on the vas-
culum every day to see if this had in fact happened. She opens up the safe in
the sacristy on 19 October and is puzzled to encounter a smell of bread. She
f ood | 41
examines the Host in the vasculum and is dumbfounded to see at its centre
something looking like ‘a bloody piece of living flesh’ no more than 1cm
by 1.5cm across. Scientific analysis later reveals that this piece of material is
living heart tissue which seems to have come from a body in its death throes,
perhaps suffering a heart attack.109 In a most extraordinary and inexplicable
fashion, ‘heart muscle tissue and bread’ have joined in a single structure110 in
a way that any analysis under a microscope would easily have discovered if
fraud had been involved.111
Of course, by no means all have been convinced that what are called
‘Eucharistic’ miracles are actual miracles in any of the senses adumbrated
earlier.112 Some would relegate such beliefs to the realms of a kind of piety
more characteristic of the popular devotions of the Middle Ages.113 They
might point to the fact that Eucharistic miracles are often perceived to take
place during times of tribulation in the Church.114 However, it is interesting
to note that the Sokółka miracle takes place in 2008, that is, after the fall
of communism in Poland in 1989, and the persecution of the Church in
that communist era115 which gave rise to the murder of such charismatic
popular priests as Fr Jerzy Popiełuszko in 1984.116 Thus the event at Sokółka
cannot be accounted, or explained by, a popular reaction to an antagonistic
government, and contexts for the miracle, if they be required, must be sought
elsewhere.
From the perspective of narratology, our metamotifs and metathemes
remain constant and it is no part of this book to provide explanations for
any of these and other miracles alleged either by the Christian tradition or,
indeed, the Islamic. Our focus will remain phenomenological and anthro-
pological, though always, where appropriate, with an interest in historical
context. Those who wish to dispute the reality of what has been outlined
above, of course, will wish to add ‘delusion’ and ‘fraud’ to our list of promi-
nent metathemes.
2.3 Jesus, the Test and the Table: Islam
The equivalent in a revelation text to the New Testament accounts of the

feeding of five/four thousand occurs in the fifth chapter of the Qur’an, the
Sura of the Table (Sūrat al-Mā’ida). The Qur’anic account is much shorter
than the New Testament accounts. The latter might be characterised as ‘proof
texts’: in addition to their numerological aspects of four and seven baskets of

left-over food, and their typological significance in the paradigms we have
earlier established, these feeding narratives were designed to confirm the mis-
sion of Jesus. However, the Qur’anic account, which features a table laden
with food miraculously brought down from Heaven by Jesus’ prayer, belongs
to the realm of what might be termed a ‘double testing’: Jesus’ disciples
are much in need of reassurance. Like many of the Eucharistic miracles in
the Christian tradition, the Qur’anic account is precipitated by the theme
of ‘doubt’. The disciples ‘test’ Jesus and challenge him to perform a food
miracle; God, in turn, proclaims that he will ‘test’ their future faith once that
miracle is performed.
The Qur’anic account reads as follows:
Behold! The Disciples said:

‘O Jesus, the son of Mary!
Can thy Lord send down to us
a Table set (with viands)
from Heaven?’ Said Jesus:
‘Fear God, if ye have faith.’
They said: ‘We only wish
to eat thereof and satisfy
our hearts, and to know
that thou hast indeed
told us the truth; and
that we ourselves may be
witnesses to the miracle.’117
Accordingly, Jesus prays for the miracle of the table as described and chal-
lenged by the disciples and God agrees to answer the prayer of Jesus. But
there is a solemn warning thereafter from God: anyone who then disbelieves
after the miracle has been performed will be severely punished.118
Some modern scholars have not been slow to see this Qur’anic event as
a possible, albeit indirect, parallel to the New Testament feeding of the five
thousand.119 Geoffrey Parrinder draws attention to the way some Muslim
exegetes actually amalgamated the two narratives. He cites the narration
of the celebrated Muslim exegete ʿAbdallah ibn ʿUmar al-Baydawi (d. c.
f ood | 43
1286–1316) of a table of food borne down to the disciples on two clouds, a

table laden with fish, salt, vinegar, herbs and five loaves of bread.120 A clear
intertext could be elaborated from these details with the New Testament
narrative and this is confirmed by Parrinder, who notes the literalism of some
of the more popular Islamic accounts. He draws particular attention to the
exegesis of another of the great medieval exegetes of the Qur’an, Muhammad
ibn Jarir al-Tabari (c. 839–923) who, in one version which he narrates, gives
prominence to the account of the feeding by Jesus of five thousand in place
of the classic Qur’anic story of the descent of a table laden with food from the
heavens.121 Here then, according to Parrinder, we end with a direct conflation
of the Christian and Islamic narratives.
From a literary as well as a theological perspective, there is also an inter-
esting parallelism with verse 48/51122 of the same Sura of the Table: here it is
the Book, the Qur’an itself, which is sent down (wa anzalnā ilayka al-kitāb),
clearly as spiritual food. Jesus’ Miracle of the Table, of course, involves the
bringing down of very real, physical food.
The Qur’anic Miracle of the Table in Sura Five is also paralleled, in
slightly different terms in the hadith literature. Alfred Guillaume held that
this was the closest instance of an Islamic miracle imitating a New Testament
one.123 Here in the hadith it is the Prophet Muhammad who works the
miracle, or is the agent through whom the miracle takes place. The numbers
fed are fewer than in the New Testament account and are given as seventy
to eighty. Thus we may usefully term this miracle worked by the Prophet,
to distinguish it from the New Testament and Qur’anic miracles, as ‘The
Miracle of the Feeding of the Seventy or Eighty Men’. G. H. A. Juynboll,
commenting on the hadith in which the event is recorded, reminds us that
this important Prophetic miracle exists in a large number of different ver-
sions,124 but the ‘undeniable originator’125 of this account was the early jurist
Malik b. Anas (d. 796). The narrative may be outlined as follows: a certain
Abu Talha tells his wife that the Prophet Muhammad must be quite hungry
since his voice sounds rather weak. Bread is produced but the Prophet arrives
in a whole company of people and there is clearly not enough food to go
round. However, the bread is crumbled and it is seasoned with clarified
butter. Muhammad pronounces some words over it and a group of ten men
are asked to come in and eat. When they have finished, another group enters
and eats and the process is repeated until about seventy or eighty men have
been fed and are satisfied.126
Such stories do not stand alone. This narrative is part of a broader intertext
which embraces the feeding of large groups of people by miraculous means
from a small amount of food. Other accounts exist in the hadith literature
where the number miraculously fed by the intervention of the Prophet rises
to one thousand.127 They are also part of a smaller intertext within the Islamic
tradition itself: for, as Juynboll surmises, did Malik plagiarise, or at the very
least base, his own story on a similar earlier account by the biographer of
the Prophet, Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), and omit, because of personal animus, any
mention of his actual source?128
Juynboll draws attention to Ibn Ishaq’s Sīra where it is narrated that the
diggers of a ditch, preparing to defend Medina in the famous forthcoming
battle in 627, are supplied with dates. A small number are presented to the
diggers by Muhammad, the diggers start their meal and the dates multiply
until all are satisfied.129
The twentieth-century scholar of Islam, Alfred Guillaume, was not slow to
level accusations of pretence and fraud at such miraculous claims. He held that
the origin of such miracle stories in Islam were the Christian–Muslim contro-
versies and debates over the figures of Muhammad and Jesus. He noted the
classical argument that Muhammad was not sent as a miracle worker and that
claims to such miracles as the multiplication of dates and bread by the Prophet
completely contradicted this classical view. Guillaume refused to speculate
as to the reasons for this kind of alleged imitation but did mention the very
human need ‘for a visible manifestation of divine power’ as a possibility.130
Here we find then, and not for the first time, the metatheme of the divine pres-
ence in the world being stated as a major topos in the realms of the miraculous.
It is a theme to which we will revert many more times in this book.
These are interesting statements by Guillaume. He is clearly closed to
the idea of further miracles being performed by Muhammad and keen to
champion the classic Islamic view that the Prophet’s only miracle was to be
the primary channel of the revelation of the Qur’an. The Prophet is lauded as
‘the great Arabian’, but the collectors of hadith are traduced as transmitters of
fictional narratives.131 This view that Muhammad was not a miracle worker is,
of course, held by many mainstream, traditional Muslims today.
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On a popular level, however, one cannot avoid the fact that the web
is awash with accounts of modern Islamic miracles. Whereas, according
to the Catholic Christian narratives adumbrated earlier, the bread of the
Host miraculously and visibly becomes actual flesh, an Islamic paradigm
has developed on a popular level whereby the word Allah assumes a primary
significance, being perceived for example, inter alia, on a piece of bread.132
This is intriguing narratologically since, as Parrinder notes, the Qur’an refers
to Jesus as ‘a word from God’ (kalima min Allāh).133 However, theologically,
Parrinder counsels caution in the interpretation of this ‘word’ in view of the
analogies which might, wrongly, be drawn with Logos doctrine at the very
heart of the beginning of the Gospel of John.134 It is clear that, since incarna-
tion is of the essence of the Christian doctrine of the Logos, the Qur’anic
characterisation of Jesus as ‘word’ and the Logos of John cannot be identical.
Nonetheless, Islam constantly proclaims itself as a religion of the text;135
thus the written word Allah has an especial, mighty and sacred significance
for all Muslims. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find that popular Islam
claims the miraculous appearance of that word in a whole host of different,
sometimes unexpected, settings. One website holds that the Islamic religion
is a religion which is replete with miracles from its very beginnings right up
to the contemporary period.136 Listing fifteen miracles, it records the word
Allah written on cows, a baby’s forehead, leaves, an eggplant, a cloud forma-
tion together with the name Muhammad, a satellite shot of the continent of
Africa and, most intriguingly from the food perspective of this chapter, a loaf
of bread purchased in Lahore. The list also includes a photograph of a Baluchi
tree which has assumed, or twisted into, the shape of the word Allah. Locals
are strictly forbidden to sit on this tree!137
Neither the loaf of bread nor any of the other loci in which the word
Allah has been discovered are deemed to have a sacramental or redemptive
aspect such as is associated with the Christian Eucharistic miracles which we
discussed earlier. All are, however, considered miraculous without question
by the local populaces and sources of great joy and blessing.
It is clear from all this that there is an obvious dichotomy between a clas-
sical mainstream view that Muhammad did not perform miracles and that
the only miracle in Islam is being a channel for the revelation of the Qur’an,
and a more popular view, deriving from, and dependent upon, the hadith
literature in origin, that Muhammad was a great miracle worker. Moreover,

there have been diverse miracles in Islam down the ages and these persist into
the modern era as the above cited website illustrates.
If we were to try to establish a paradigm comparable to the Christian one
which we adumbrated earlier, it would look something like this:
Manna (Qur’an) > Miracle of the Table (Qur’an) > miraculous feedings by
the Prophet (Hadith) > the miracle of the name Allah in bread.
There is an intertext to be identified here between the Christian and Islamic

narratives comprising protagonists, texts, numbers fed, and past and present
all loosely linked by the metatheme of hunger. In terms of the variant num-
bers fed, the Christian accounts depend on revelation (the Gospels), while the
Islamic narratives draw from the traditions of the hadith literature.
For Timothy Scott, ‘participation in the soteriological Eucharist is simul-
taneously a microcosmic cosmogony and eschatology’.138 For the Catholic
Christian, the Eucharist is bread made flesh, the Word (Logos) made flesh.
No such concepts attach to the word Allah in Islam. Nonetheless, as the
Qur’an shows over and over again, this is the most sacred of words whose
very essence is the declaration of the oneness of the Deity, Tawªīd. It is small
wonder that man might yearn for some sign of the presence of the Unseen,
even in a humble loaf of bread. For God is present in the East and the West.139
A pious Muslim, reading that God ‘produces for you corn, olives, date-palms,
grapes and every kind of fruit’ as ‘a Sign’140 may not find it strange to find the
name of Allah written on a loaf of bread in Lahore, nor demur from declaring
publicly that this is indeed a miracle for the modern age, a miracle which we
might observe or add is in complete accord and harmony with our Islamic
paradigm adumbrated above.
2.4 The Narrative Arena
The feeding stories in the New Testament and the Qur’an which we have
outlined may all be characterised as universal topoi, aspects of the ‘numberless
. . . narratives of the world’ (to use Roland Barthes’ terminology which we
quoted earlier), whose basic elements of themes and motifs, as we shall see,
bespeak a common, universal narrative currency. In one sense, the accounts
can stand alone and, narratologically, are not classic frame stories in the
f ood | 47
sense of the Arabic Alf Layla wa Layla (The Thousand and One Nights)141 or
the Italian Decameron.142 In another, theological, sense, however, the New
Testament accounts of the feeding of the five/four thousand stand within
a broader, soteriological framework for the Christian of the entire New
Testament narrative of salvation; while the Islamic Miracle of the Table may
be viewed within a classical Sīra framework and also exhibit a soteriological
and eschatological dimension: after the Sign of the table laden with food has
been sent down, God insists that the observers of the miracle believe in Him
and threatens dire punishment on those who resist and maintain their wilful
disbelief.143
The context and pattern of narration of the principal New Testament
and hadith accounts are quite similar and, indeed, simple: a lack of large
quantities of food is perceived, only a few items of food are available, a pro-
tagonist takes charge and the food multiplies miraculously so that all are fed.
But the narrative of the Miracle of the Table in the Qur’an differs radically in
that it is a response to a challenge.
Overall, however, we may identify the following metathemes held in
common by the Christian and Islamic narrations: hunger (mainly physical
but with an underlying spiritual aspect), doubt and faith, testing and obedi-
ence, trust and anámnēsis. The metatheme which sets the Christian accounts
apart is that of sacrifice.
The metamotifs are manna and bread with the latter diverging radically
from Islam in the Christian tradition as it morphs into Eucharist and, in the
Eucharistic miracles, flesh.
Minor themes common to the main Christian and Islamic narratives
include complaint and discontent, holy days, numbers (forty years in both
traditions and 5,000/4,000, seven and twelve in the New Testament tradi-
tion), and hospitality. Minor motifs shared by both include quails, with the
motif of fish playing an additional role in the New Testament and in the
Islamic tafsīr literature.
A classic aspect of narratological theory, as we saw earlier, is repetition.
We find this both in the Christian paradigm, where the account of the feed-
ing of a large number is repeated, in slightly different terms (five thousand
and four thousand) in two of the four Gospels. In the Islamic paradigm, too,
slightly different feeding stories appear in the hadith literature as supplements
to the narrative of the Miracle of the Table in the fifth chapter of the Qur’an,
The Sura of the Table.
Such repetition in both the Christian and Islamic traditions serves to
emphasise narratologically the sublime power of God for the believers as well
as confirm the mission and prophethood of the main protagonist.
Both traditions also lend themselves neatly to typological analysis.144 In
the Christian, the Eucharist constitutes an antitype to the type of the manna
provided to the Israelites in the desert. In the Islamic, the Miracle of the Table
is the antitype to that same provision of manna as articulated in the Qur’an.
Manna, Eucharist and the Islamic Table food together form a fundamental
intertext which then extends to, and embraces, the diverse other feeding
events which we have outlined above. In all, the past is made present in real
time and often looks forward to a future145 in the celestial destination of
Paradise. Such feeding events are primary links in the intertextual paradigms
which we have formulated for each tradition in Christianity and Islam.
However, while the miraculous feeding narratives in the two religions
have much in common, being the result of physical and, indeed, spiritual
hunger, and manifesting, as we have observed, the power of God and the
confirmation of prophetic mission, the significance of each event diverges
hugely.
The Islamic paradigm of feeding features a miracle of power and reas-
surance; those who observe gain knowledge, epistemologically and visually,
of the extraordinary power of God. For the Christian, all this is true but
the miracle of the feeding goes beyond that; ultimately, it is a foretaste of
another miracle, that of the Eucharist, which is primarily ontological in the
belief of the faithful. The Islamic miracle features a very visual theophany;
the Christian miracles feature a dual theophany, the one overt and the other
hidden; the multitudes witness the multiplication of the bread; the faithful
believe in the divine presence, concealed in the accidents of the bread and
wine.
We turn finally to a consideration of the catalyst for these various mira-
cles. In the twelfth chapter of the Qur’an, the Sura of Joseph, the catalyst for
the action, as I have shown in a previous essay, is the dream.146 With regard
to the feeding miracles in Christianity and Islam, as elaborated in the later
Eucharistic miracles and appearances of the word Allah in or on food, the
f ood | 49
initial impulses of physical or spiritual hunger or ‘asking’ and ‘testing’ may be

precipitated by catalysts as diverse as ‘doubt’ (perhaps the most common),147
a Christian–Jewish dispute148 and even, perhaps most exotically, a love affair.
Such was the case in the Miracle of Alatri in 1228: a young woman, needing
what she thought might become a kind of ‘love potion’ with which she might
draw the attentions of a man with whom she was in love, took the Host out
of her mouth after receiving it in communion and was dismayed to find that
it had turned into human flesh.149
Whatever the catalyst, however, it was recognised in both Christianity
and Islam that it was God who was the originator, the cause, the one who
‘acted’ in the miracle even though that miracle might appear via a human
agency.
Kenneth Woodward draws our attention to this when he cites the
great medieval theologian and Sufi, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) as
saying: ‘Allah changed the customary course of events through the agency of
Muhammad more than once.’150 The original Arabic reads: ‘Fa-qad kharaqa
Allāh al-ʿāda ʿalā yadihi ghayr marra.’151 Now the verb kharaqa can be ren-
dered much more powerfully than in the translation which we have just cited.
Thus, we might better read the phrase as: ‘God tore apart customary usage by
his [that is, Muhammad’s] agency several times.’
This emphasises much more strongly the real, mighty agency of God
combined with the dynamic channel of the miracles who was the Prophet
Muhammad.
From a narratological perspective, then, it is clear that the overarching
metatheme in all these food miracles is the power of God, articulated and
reified through his incarnation in the Christian tradition, and through his
Prophet Muhammad in the Islamic. It is a power which is not channelled
through magicians, soothsayers or astrologers; it cannot be accessed by their
tricks and auguries but only by divine revelation and instruction.152
3
Water
3.1 A Proto-miracle: Water from the Rock
W e saw earlier that the narratives of the miraculous feeding of the fol-
lowers of Moses in the desert with manna are common to both the
Qur’an and the Old Testament. The same is true of the miraculous produc-
tion of water from a rock by Moses.1 Once again, the appearance of the water
is what might be characterised as a ‘grumbling and testing’ miracle.
The encamped community of Israel find no water to drink at Rephidim.
In their thirst they complain to Moses, asking him why he led them out
of Israel only to let thirst overtake and kill their families and animals.2 A
thoroughly exasperated Moses seeks God’s help and is instructed to strike a
rock from which water will flow. Moses does so and the thirst of his fractious
followers is quenched. Clearly fed up, Moses calls the place Massah and
Meribah, words which mean respectively ‘tried’ and ‘contention’3 because of
the argumentative nature of his people and the way they persisted in testing
God.4
The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) comments that ‘this is another instance of
the theme of discontent in the desert’5 and reminds the reader of a previous
water miracle by Moses at Marah where the water is undrinkable because it is
so bitter: Moses takes a piece of wood shown to him by God, casts it into the
water and this then changes from bitter to sweet.6
The NJB also reminds us that the miracle of the water at Massah and
Meribah is relocated in The Book of Numbers to a place called Kadesh.7
In this account Moses and Aaron call everyone together before a rock and,
addressing them angrily as ‘rebels’, Moses asks whether he should go ahead
and get the rock to produce water. Moses then takes the branch and hits the
50
water | 51
rock twice with it. Copious amounts of water flow forth and the discontented
Israelites, together with their animals, quench their thirst.8
This then is another important narrative repetition, akin to the repetition
of the narrative of the feeding of the five/four thousand in the Gospels. In the
Old Testament it is clearly done for emphasis, emphasising both the power
of God, again, as well as the exasperation of Moses. In addition, the accounts
serve as ‘signs’ and ‘confirmations’ of the rightness of Moses’ leadership and
mission as the Children of Israel wander towards the Promised Land.
However, the Numbers version of the water miracle at Massah/Meribah/
Kadesh goes beyond the Exodus account. Immediately after the narrative in
The Book of Numbers, Moses and Aaron are told that ‘because you did not
believe that I could assert my holiness before the Israelite ‘eyes’, they will not
enter the Promised Land.9
Why are these two prophets being punished in the text after all they have
done? What have they done wrong? The NJB comments that this is a mystery
and surmises that perhaps ‘Moses showed a lack of faith in striking the rock
twice’.10
Other explanations are certainly possible11 but if the above surmise is
correct, then here again we have the theme of doubt and lack of trust enter-
ing a miracle narrative either before or during the performance of the actual
miracle.
Mark S. Smith stresses Moses’ role in these complaint narratives as a
‘prophetc mediator’ between God and the people he leads and the role that
geography plays in the narrative from a thematic perspective: Egypt repre-
sents the themes of servitude and death; the desert is a place where the theme
of ‘divine care’ comes to the fore; and Sinai is the locus par excellence of the
theme of revelation.12 Smith also points out that there are different kinds of
testing: after the episode at Marah God specifically states that he will test the
Israelites: if they obey his commandments and laws then they will remain free
from the sort of plagues he visited on the Egyptians. He charaterises himself
as ‘Yahweh your Healer’.13 Smith notes, too, that the testing of man by God
and God by man were themes often associated with shrines and sanctuaries.14
Here then, we note the emergence from these biblical texts of some key
themes and motifs which will assume an even greater primary importance in
this volume as we proceed: we have the motif of ‘shrine’ as a site of the divine
presence; that divinity is garbed not just in the theme of ‘testing’ but with
that of ‘healing’ as well.15 These themes and motifs assume a dominant role
in the narratology of miracles, those metathemes par excellence of this book.
As with the manna narratives, the Islamic account of Moses striking
the rock for water in the Qur’an is more succinct than the Old Testament
narratives in Exodus and Numbers, and lacks any characterisation of God as
‘Healer’. The Qur’anic account runs as follows:
And remember Moses prayed

for water for his People:
We said: ‘Strike the rock
with thy staff.’ Then gushed forth
therefrom twelve springs.
Each group knew its own place
for water. So eat and drink
of the sustenance provided by God,
and do no evil nor mischief
on the (face of the) earth.16
The verse is revealed in a context of ‘challenge’ and ‘testing of God’17 and thus
its significance in terms of theme is similar to that of the Exodus/Numbers
accounts. However, the motif of ‘the twelve springs’ is more akin to the
reference, in Exodus after the bitter > sweet water miracle at Marah, to ‘the
twelve springs and seventy palm trees’ of Elim18 than the Exodus/Numbers
narratives themselves.
There is, however, a repetition of the Qur’anic account, albeit a fleeting
one, in Sura 17, and it is worth repeating it here because of its stress on ‘test-
ing’ and ‘doubt’:
They say: ‘We shall not

believe in thee, until thou
cause a spring to gush
forth for us from the earth.19
Obedience to the laws of God, as in the Exodus narrative, is essential, as we

see in the Qur’anic narrative, here and elsewhere, and often consequent upon
testing and the production of miracles. Al-Tabari, in his exegesis of this verse,
water | 53
confirms this idea, first stressing the sublime power of God whose miracle
it was: the quails, manna and springs ‘of sweet, fresh water’ appear ‘by the
power of Him to whom glory and tribute belong’.20 Al-Tabari concludes:
Then, together with permitting them what he had permitted, and blessing
them with the agreeable life He had blessed them with, He commanded
them not to spread corruption in the land, or arrogantly do mischief
there, and said to them: ‘And do not transgress upon the earth working
corruption.’21
We can also recall here again the severer Qur’anic statement to which we
alluded above in which, after the promise of the Miracle of the Table, God
enjoins sincere belief; failure to believe will result in dire punishment.22
Anthony Johns, surveying the references to water in the Qur’an stresses
its profound role ‘in the divine economy of creation’.23 For Johns, water, in
all its diverse kinds, usages and symbolisms, occupies pole position in the
natural world of the Qur’an: ‘It brings the dead earth back to life and is
thus an image of God’s power to resurrect the dead.’24 In connection with
the latter, he cites the powerful verse from the Qur’an in Sura 41 in which the
same God who waters the earth with rain and revives it can also raise the dead
to life,25 ‘for He has power over all things’ (Innahu ʿalā kull shay’ qadīr).26
From all this, we can develop a paradigm of themes, applicable equally
to the Christian and Islamic traditions, which may be represented as follows:
Complaint > testing > God’s power > satisfaction > obedience to God’s law
> physical and spiritual healing.
This last theme emphasises then, a healing not just from physical thirst, want
and privation but also, as Yusuf Ali neatly puts it, a healing of the ‘spiritual
life . . . God’s messenger [Moses] can provide abundant spiritual sustenance
even from such unpromising things as the hard rocks of life’.27
The dominant metamotif in the Old Testament and the Qur’anic nar-
ratives is, of course, water, but other, slightly more minor motifs, figure
strongly in both these accounts. They include rock, the staff/branch with
which Moses strikes the rock together with the circumambient desert. The
initial desolation of the latter is transformed by God’s miracles into a school
of divine instruction, knowledge and obedience.
3.2 Lourdes, Shrines and Healing
Setting the Scene: Text and Context

It is clear from the last section that Moses is the chief protagonist, the hero, in
the miracle of the water from the rock. Now, many New Testament scholars
hold that Matthew views Jesus as ‘the new Moses’ whose life, as it were, is
designed to mirror that of the Old Testament prophet, but who brings a new
covenant in place of the Old Testament Mosaic model.28
Jesus in the New Testament is associated with many events in which
water is of primary significance and in which it plays a major role as a motif
par excellence. There are events which have a sacramental, spiritual signifi-
cance; there are those which powerfully demonstrate the huge power of God;
and there are those which emphasise this power through healing miracles, a
metatheme in the overall New Testament corpus.
We may review each of these aspects briefly in turn.
Christ’s baptism with water by John in the river Jordan29 represents the
proto-sacrament whose matter in sacramental theology is identified as the
water.30 And while Jesus is baptised theologically in the Holy Spirit,31 albeit
literally with water, baptism for all other people is held to wash away the stain
of original sin in a healing of global significance.32 Baptism destroys sin and
regenerates the soul.33
In the New Testament, speaking to the Pharisee Nicodemus who con-
sults Jesus secretly by night, Jesus emphasises the role of water whose use in
baptism will provide a miraculous, spiritual passport to eternal salvation. He
tells Nicodemus that it is impossible to enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless
one has been ‘born through water and the Spirit’.34
A similar statement is made by Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well.
He reminds her that drinking water from her well will not stop her thirsting
again. However, he has a kind of water which will quench all thirst for ever
and imbue the person who drinks with ‘a spring of water, welling up for
eternal life’.35
There is a neat typology at work here though clothed with a different
significance. The NJB reminds us that the Patriarchal and Exodus narratives
in the Old Testament often portray meetings or gatherings around actual or
potential sources of water: that water is a symbol of life from God. However,
water | 55
in the Gospel, the Samaritan woman whom Jesus meets at the well is prom-
ised water which ‘signifies the Spirit’.36
There are several instances in the New Testament where Jesus deploys
water to demonstrate the power of God. Thus, his disciples, rowing hard
against an opposing wind in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, are terrified to see
Jesus walking on the water. He gets into the boat and the wind abates.37
On another occasion, Jesus falls asleep in a boat which is hit by a squall.
The boat starts to take on water; the disciples awake Jesus who promptly
calms the stormy sea and wind. Luke records the awe and astonishment at
Jesus’ power over the waters and they ask each other who this man Jesus can
be since he is obeyed even by the seas and the wind.38
At the wedding feast in Cana in Galilee, Jesus changes water into wine.39
However, what is of most interest in this brief survey of Christological
events associated with water is the fact that Jesus also uses water in his healing
miracles. Water in the New Testament can thus be a motif of the metatheme
of miraculous healing.
The Gospel of John narrates how Jesus encounters a blind man over
whose eyes Jesus puts a paste which he makes from earth and spittle. He
then tells him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. The blind man obeys
and immediately recovers his sight to the astonishment of his neighbours
and those who had previously only known him as one who was blind.40 Here
water becomes a catalyst for sight and Jesus swiftly builds on this, telling the
Pharisees and others who object to what he has done that his mission in the
world is to heal the blind and blind the sighted.41
This ‘hands-on’ approach42 to healing has drawn the attention of Deirdre
Jackson, who stresses the significance of washing in the Pool of Siloam since
this was a source of water for the temple altar in Jerusalem during the annual
Festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot).43 There is thus a clever, albeit perhaps sub-
liminal, link enacted by Jesus between the waters of the old dispensation and
his healing miracle of the new.
Another notable miracle performed by Jesus takes place in the vicinity
of a pool in Jerusalem known as the Pool of Bethesda, a ‘miraculous’ pool,
which had a reputation for curing whoever entered the water first after it
had been disturbed by an angel.44 Again, the water of the pool may be said
to belong to that antique paradigm which so often endows water with the
capacity to heal45 and often builds a series of ‘curative rituals’ around certain
wells, pools or other sites of water.46 Here, at Bethesda, it was clearly the ritual
stirring by the angel which would precipitate the miracle for the first entrant
of the water. We may also stress here that the motif of the angel is highly
significant in the realms of the miraculous and we shall have diverse occasions
in this volume to present and discuss a variety of angelic interventions, tasks
and missions undertaken at the bidding of the Divine.
However, at Bethesda, Jesus does not deploy an angel as an instrument
of the miraculous. He encounters a sick man unable to enter the pool first
because of his infirmity. Jesus even chooses to dispense with the use of the
pool’s water; the hallowed site is sufficient. He simply tells the man to pick
up his mat and walk, and he does so.47
From all the above we can see that the New Testament adumbrates
a series of narratives and sayings which allude to the quenching of both
spiritual and physical thirst, the latter betokening a spiritual healing as when
Jesus proclaims: ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me! Let anyone who
believes in me come and drink!’48 Water is the image, the sign, the means
and, indeed, the metamotif of the narratives. As we have seen, it is also associ-
ated with physical healing as in the story of the healing of the blind man at
the Pool of Siloam.
The paradigm that develops may be articulated and extended as follows:
Moses > John the Baptist > Jesus > spiritual and physical healing > sacra-
ment of Baptism > Mary.
We have not previously discussed the last item, the motif of Mary, in the
above paradigm and so we shall now turn to develop the person and role of
Mary. This will be within a context which lauds the metatheme of healing,
the metamotif of water and the metatheme of the power of God. All these
aspects embrace a spiritual as well as a physical dimension. All are to be
identified and located at such famous Marian pilgrimage sites as Lourdes and
it is on this that we shall now focus.
The Lady and the Water: Aquerò

In Act 1 of Goethe’s Faust, Dr Faust proclaims: ‘Of all her children faith
loves miracle best.’49 Perhaps there are few places on earth where this is more
water | 57
true than the great basilica and grotto-shrine in the town of Lourdes, which
nestles in the foothills of the Pyrénées on the French side.
When Bernadette Soubirous (1844–79)50 saw a series of apparitions of
the Virgin Mary in 1858 the little village was home to only about 4,000
people.51 Today the numbers who have visited on pilgrimage, and continue
to visit, rank in the millions. The shrine has achieved worldwide fame as a
place of healing and spiritual nourishment.52 Yet it was not always thus: at
first, Lourdes’ fame lay in the idea that it was just a site of apparitions to a
young girl, Bernadette.53
So what happened? How did a small peasant village, via a series of appari-
tions to an adolescent, uneducated girl, become transmuted, not only into a
mere ‘local source of grace’,54 but into what National Geographic Magazine
dramatically characterised as ‘the Virgin’s miracle factory, with more than
7,000 miraculous cures claimed since the mid-1800s’?55
While the article goes on to acknowledge that the Catholic Church
has only recognised sixty-nine of these 7,000 claimed miracles as authentic
(later upgraded to seventy)56, this metamorphosis of Lourdes into what is
considered by most people as a global, and commercial,57 phenomenon, is
nonetheless extraordinary.
Milieu and context for miracles and apparitions are both important and
significant. The following remarks are designed to provide a narrative context
and phenomenological frame within which to assess the event of Lourdes.
For it is a truism that every miracle and every apparition has a social, politi-
cal, cultural and historical context which frame, and can, indeed, illuminate,
those seemingly incomprehensible phenomena.
In her classical apparitions Mary is often perceived to appear to people
with no inclination to visionary experiences58 and who are often unedu-
cated.59 This was certainly the case with Bernadette. The recipient of the
vision may be a child or adolescent, and female.60 Bernadette was an ado-
lescent girl of fourteen at the time of her apparitions. Life may be lived in
relative ignorance, simplicity, illness and poverty, summed up, indeed, in
the phrase ‘on the margins’.61 Bernadette’s father drank and was frequently
unemployed. Her family lived in poverty62 and by the age of nearly twelve
Bernadette found herself having to work as a shepherdess to alleviate some of
that poverty. In addition, she was afflicted with asthma and malnourished.63
Communities in which apparitions take place may feel isolated, neglected

or even abandoned.64 Poverty, hunger and incipient famine all played their
roles in the Lourdes of Bernadette’s childhood;65 the cholera epidemic there
of 1855 took many lives.66 In the face of such disasters, Mary would appear to
be an assured succour, especially in times of war and its aftermath.67 Although
many apparitions might take place in distant rural environments,68 like
Lourdes, that small village cannot have been completely unaware of the revo-
lutionary ferment which swept at times across nineteenth-century Europe,
such as the 1848 revolutions in France, Germany and Italy.69 Lourdes was
never so cut off as to prevent access by large crowds, police and soldiers at the
site of the apparitions as the outside world became aware of the unfolding
events in the village.70
Norman Davies has drawn attention to the profound shock of the
episcopacy at this revolutionary wave and the way that they took refuge in
deeply traditional and conservative attitudes which were not dispelled until
the inauguration of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.71 Davies sees
Bernadette as part of a Catholic paradigm of traditional piety which regarded
itself as a bastion against the advance of nineteenth-century secularism.72 For
him, she ‘belonged to a timeless community, where water was venerated . . .
[and where] the caves and grottos of the Pyrenean wilderness were still held
to be the haunt of fairies. She even called the apparition petito demoisella – a
phrase sometimes used for fairy.’73
Davies here thus, gently but clearly, expresses the profound scepticism
about the reality of the apparitions which many in Bernadette’s age felt and
vocally expressed.74
Miri Rubin has usefully reminded us how the events at Lourdes consti-
tuted a profound challenge to the status quo: state, science and the law were
challenged as was the Catholic Church as it sought an uneasy modus vivendi
with the state. All this took no account of popular upsurges in Marian piety
with visionary experiences at their heart.75
Because the visionary experience may be considered an aspect of the
realms of the miraculous, and because such experiences may themselves bring
forth miraculous phenomena, it is useful at this point, before investigating
the narrative of Bernadette Soubirous more fully, to pause and ask: what did
the Catholic Church believe, then and now, with regard to apparitions? What
water | 59
exactly were apparitions and were they held to have an ontological objective
reality?
A number of interpretations, together with diverse reservations, by eccle-
siastical authorities are available.76 The following is interesting and instructive
but it should be noted that it is only one view among many and should not
be regarded as definitive.
A Jesuit scholar who has studied the phenomena of such apparitions
in considerable depth, Fr Giandomenico Mucci, holds that, although such
visions assume a public aspect, they
do not transpire in the objective material world but in the subjective mind
of the visionary. ‘At Lourdes, the Madonna was not really in the grotto.
She was in the mind of Bernadette, who was touched by a special grace,’
he explained. That does not mean that an apparition is a mere fantasy, but
it does explain why other witnesses fail to see Mary in the same way. This
subtle distinction has been an important one for Catholic scholars through
the centuries.77
In contrast to this, Maunder notes that ‘in Catholic doctrine, it has been
possible for apparitions to be both miraculous and material’.78
Bernadette Soubirous’ visions of the Virgin Mary are paradigmatic and
represent a prototype on which many other Marian visions have been mod-
elled, consciously or unconsciously.79
Narratologically, Robert Scott identifies three key features of the para-
digm: the apparition of Mary takes place in a single location; it features at
its heart a beautiful young woman; it is only seen by the putative visionary.80
We might add to this paradigm two further features: in the early-modern
and modern periods, Marian apparitions are usually to the uneducated who
might be children and/or belong to the peasant class.81 The apparition usu-
ally, but not always, speaks. We have the cases of the silent 1879 apparitions
at Knock in Mayo, Ireland82 and the equally silent 1968–71 Zaytun, Old
Cairo, apparitions.83 We may contrast these with the messages that are trans-
mitted by the apparitions at, for example, Lourdes, Fatima, Garabandal and
Medjugorje.84 Secrets, often of an apocalyptic nature, may form the substance
of such messages.85
However, it is by no means the case that water is always involved, though
frequently miracles of a healing nature and other similar phenomena may

follow. A shrine is often later built near or on the site of the apparition.86 As
we have seen, and it is worth stressing again, historical context provides an
obvious substratum for the event of the apparition or the miracle, and secular
governments could make good use of religious phenomena to bolster their
own authority after setbacks. Thus the government of Nasser in 1968, after
the defeat of Egypt by Israel in the 1967 War, suggested that the apparition
of Mary in Zaytun ‘was a sign from God of an imminent victory’.87
Bernadette Soubirous was born in 1844 in a mill called Boly. She was
born into an extremely poor household with a father who was to suffer
unemployment and even imprisonment. Despite this, she was an intensely
pious child, albeit with hardly any proper religious education.88 The latter
observation by Laurentin is important in view of the canards which circulated
after the apparitions, both in her own age and up to the present, as we shall
see.
Between 11 February and 16 July 1858 Bernadette claims to have seen
the beautiful lady, whom she characterised in the local patois as aquerò (that
thing),89 eighteen times.90 Perhaps the most interesting of all these appari-
tions, from an anthropological perspective because of its focus on water – the
key metamotif of this chapter – was the ninth apparition on Thursday, 25
February 1858. Bernadette is seen to scrabble in the muddy, watery soil of
the grotto, reject it several times before finally managing to drink some of the
foul water.91
The celebrated mariologist René Laurentin cites Bernadette’s explanation
for the seemingly extraordinary – some suggested, mad – sequence of events:
Aquerò told me: ‘Go and drink at the spring and wash yourself in it.’ Not
seeing any water, I went to the [river] Gave. But she indicated with her
finger that I should go under the rock. I found a little water, more like mud:
so little that I could scarcely cup it in my hand. Three times I threw it away,
it was so dirty. On the fourth try I managed to drink it.92
This is literally the fons et origo of the great shrine at Lourdes as it is today, and
the miracles, physical and spiritual,93 which have been claimed from bathing
in its waters.
The first ‘water-healing’ miracle was declared on Monday, 1 March
water | 61
1858 by a certain Catherine Latapie (Chouat) whose paralysed fingers, after

a fall from a tree, were healed after being put into the stream started by
Bernadette.94 Not all agree, however, that Bernadette was the original cause
of the appearance of the water. A spring is alleged to have been present at that
location before the visionary experiences of Bernadette.95
On 8 December 1854 Pope Pius IX (r. 1846–78)96 solemnly defined as
an infallible dogma the Immaculate Conception of Mary.97 Eamon Duffy
observes: ‘Heaven evidently approved, for four years later, at Lourdes, the
visionary lady identified herself to Bernadette Soubirous by declaring: “I am
the Immaculate Conception.”’98 Warner adds: ‘[Pius IX’] dogma was ratified,
in the true spirit of the Counter-Reformation, by the appearance of the
Virgin in person.’99
This dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, frequently confused with
that of the Virgin Birth, held that, in the words of Pope Pius IX,
the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by the
singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of
Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved immune from
all stain of original sin.100
This belief, and its opponents, were by no means new101 but it was given
renewed prominence and authority by Pius’ solemn declaration and the
words of the Virgin, four years later, to Bernadette Soubirous.
It is to this that we shall now return. During the apparition of 25 March
1858, Bernadette insisted that the apparition reveal who she was. The reply,
incomprehensible to Bernadette herself, was extraordinary:
Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou

‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’102
The words certainly stunned Dean Peyramale in his rectory when she reported
them to him, stumblingly, having memorised them on her return from the
grotto.103 It was he, the parish priest and Dean of Lourdes, who had insisted
that Bernadette interrogate the Vision as to her identity, otherwise there
would be no building of any chapel such as the apparation had previously
demanded.104
Many scholars accept that Bernadette had no idea what the words which
she repeated to Dean Peyramale meant, and accept her statement as a kind
of ‘proof’ of the reality of what she claimed to see.105 Marina Warner, how-
ever, strikes a dissenting note when she suggests that Bernadette might have
heard the phrase from the nuns who taught her catechism in preparation
for her First Communion.106 Warner does, however, accept the absolute
sincerity of Bernadette’s statement about the Immaculate Conception and
that Bernadette believed that she was genuinely the recipient of a powerful
visionary experience.107
Earlier, we identified four distinct attitudes towards the concept of mira-
cles: (1) disbelief and scepticism; (2) caution; (3) belief; and (4) memory and
memorialisation. This is a suitable paradigm within whose framework we
might consider the water visions and miracles of Lourdes. Certainly, it is
clear that attitudes over the decades have ranged through all four aspects of
the paradigm. They will be considered here briefly in the order of their listing
above.
Almost from the beginning of Bernadette’s apparitions becoming public,
there was deep scepticism and doubt. Was the girl a total fraud who put on
‘comedies’ in the grotto?108 Hostility towards Bernadette and her alleged appa-
ritions ran the gamut of school through to clergy and to the local police.109
The Catholic Church was able, in the long run, to ‘manage’ Bernadette and
the phenomenon of Lourdes by confining the girl in a convent as a nun. But
there was always a lurking embarrassment behind all this and indeed, other
classical apparitions, together with a fear of giving credence to an alternative,
popular magisterium.110
The same might be said to be true of the phenomenon of Medjugorje in
our own age where the alleged visions of the Virgin Mary have given rise to
much popular piety on the one hand and accusations of gross fraud on the
other.111
From a narratological perspective, the great nineteenth-century, anti-
clerical and anti-Catholic, French novelist Émile Zola (1840–1902) remains
the archetype of disbelief and scepticism as far as the events at Lourdes were
concerned. He made a trip to that town in 1892. Travelling by train, he
encountered a young woman of eighteen years suffering from advanced lupus
and tuberculosis. After bathing in the spring waters of Lourdes she was healed.
Zola, a witness to the event, refused, however, to believe that this was
water | 63
the result of a miracle. Later he would write a novel about Lourdes in which
he gave full rein to his scepticism about the possibility of miracles at the
shrine.112 We shall return to this novel in a short while.
Zola had found the whole idea that Mary had appeared in a small grotto
near Lourdes in 1858 utterly ridiculous. He could not countenance the idea
that the town had become a source of miraculous healings. With a fervent
desire to gather ammunition with which to rebut all these miraculous claims,
Zola made this visit to Lourdes in August 1892. ‘But the unexpected hap-
pened: [as we have just noted] he witnessed a miracle.’113 And that was not all:
he was also present at another cure in Lourdes from terminal tuberculosis. Yet
Zola still refused to accept a miraculous explanation, observing: ‘Were I to see
all the sick at Lourdes cured, I would not believe in a miracle.’114
For Zola, the explanation had to be much more mundane: all was the
result of ‘autosuggestion in an hysterical religious atmosphere’.115 The second
cure features in his 1894 novel Lourdes in which, contrary to actual life, the
‘healed’ patient relapses.116 Challenged, Zola claimed an author’s prerogative
to change the facts in a work of fiction.117
The Catholic Church, through its Lourdes Medical Bureau, has always
been extremely cautious about accepting that anyone has actually been
cured miraculously as a result of bathing in the waters at the Lourdes shrine.
Thousands of unofficial claims of miraculous cures have been made down
the decades but, as we observed earlier, official Church recognition has been
given to far fewer.118
This reflects the early caution with which the claims of Bernadette herself
were treated. The Catholic Church feared both ridicule and a blow to its
tentative authority in an age of scepticism, growing atheism and revolution.
It was only after a full four years that the local Catholic hierarchy felt able
to issue a more positive gloss on the events that had overtaken the hitherto
obscure little town of Lourdes.119
Finally, on 18 January 1862, the local Bishop of Tarbes, Bishop
Lawrence, felt sufficiently convinced and emboldened to issue the follow-
ing official statement: ‘We judge that the Immaculate Mother of God truly
appeared to Bernadette.’120 In such wise did the waters of Lourdes with
their miraculous charism move into the mainstream of Catholic devotion,
while always, of course, accompanied by the caveat that such revelations
and miracles belonged to the province of private revelation and there was no
doctrinal compulsion on anyone to accept them.
Narratologically, in the whole story of Bernadette, her apparitions and
the waters of Lourdes, we may identify two major topoi: the metatheme of
doubt transmuted into belief (though not, of course, in the case of Émile
Zola!), and the metamotif of water. Furthermore, as Sarah Jane Boss neatly
points out, the latter is part of a Lourdes Empedoclean quartet in which we
find water, fire (candles), earth (grotto rock) and air (outdoor processions)
are omnipresent.121
A 2015 edition of the popular magazine National Geographic, as we
saw earlier, lauded Lourdes as the Virgin Mary’s ‘miracle factory’.122 It drew
attention to the huge scale of the underground basilica, the millions of visi-
tors who go to Lourdes every year and the grotto where Bernadette reputedly
inaugurated the spring in whose waters, miraculous in the eyes and beliefs
of the pious visitor, cures are sought by countless thousands.123 Priests and
laity alike position the claims of miracle healings and miraculous waters in a
theology of ‘sound Marian doctrine’124 and all is underpinned by the omni-
present belief of the pilgrims that at Lourdes Mary once proclaimed herself to
Bernadette as ‘The Immaculate Conception’.125
The Lourdes narrative which thus unfolds, with a surface simplicity
masking deeper theological, literary and anthopological truths, may thus be
viewed as divisible into diverse sub-narratives whose leading ethos may be
devout belief, myth,126 caution and scepticism or, as in the case of Zola, out-
right disbelief. It has also spawned several fictional narratives among which
rank prominently: Émile Zola’s Lourdes (1894)127, Franz Werfel’s The Song of
Bernadette (1941)128 and Michael Arditti’s Jubilate (2011).129
The first, as we have noted, is by a convinced anti-Catholic; the second
is by a deeply sympathetic Jewish author; and the third may be described as
a novel of doubt and hope. Above all, however, the narrative of Bernadette
and her ‘water apparitions’ in real time betokens two types of memory and
memorialisation: there is the memory of ‘the “presence” of the divine in
the world’,130 epitomised in the apparition of the Virgin and the purity of
the visionary Bernadette, later a nun and a type of alter-Mary,131 within the
context of a growing Marian cult.132 Secondly, there is also the memory of
wholeness, wholeness of body and soul, former health of body, mind and
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spirit, memorialised in the healing rituals and waters of Lourdes which, very
occasionally, will restore that memory of sound health, that wholeness, in a
miraculous metamorphosis, to a broken body; or perhaps, more often and
less dramatically, provide a spiritual healing for a torn or tormented soul.133
These themes of ‘divine presence’ in the world, and wholeness, are treated
in very different ways in the three novels by Zola, Werfel and Arditti. They
are accompanied by the motif of the bath-water rituals134 and the dominant
metathemes of belief and doubt, and Church authority. We will briefly exam-
ine these topoi as they appear in the three novels.
Zola’s Lourdes
F. W. J. Hemmings tells us that Zola was genuinely puzzled by the phe-
nomenon of Lourdes. Were the pilgrimages there simply ‘a publicity stunt
concocted by the Roman Catholic Church?’135 He needed to find out, hence
his visits.
His resulting 1894 novel Lourdes does allow him to give some rein to
his sceptical anti-clericalism and anti-Catholicism.136 For him, Bernadette
Soubirous was the victim of hallucination.137 But the novel is not stridently
anti-clerical in its tone throughout,138 though Zola has no truck with the
idea that miracle cures might take place in Lourdes.139 It is also important to
note, with Hemmings, that there was a background of religious revival which
would not have pleased the sceptical Zola.140
The hero – or, better, anti-hero – of Zola’s novel is the Abbé Pierre
Froment, a ‘doubting’ priest.141 Reflecting on his seminary years as the train
journeys to Lourdes, Pierre asks himself how he has been able to acquiesce to
the harsh rule of blind faith for so long and believe all that that faith taught
without question.142 His doubt thus contrasts dramatically with the faith of
his fellow-travellers in the third-class train compartment,143 and this drama
of faith and doubt constitutes a primary leitmotiv, a major theme, of the
entire novel. All are enveloped, willingly or unwillingly, with the memory of
‘divine presence’, a theme made present, dynamically present, to the believer
by the very ambience of Lourdes itself as it proclaimed itself to the world as
the custodian of Bernadette’s apparition; and even more powerfully when,
for the believer, God intervened, produced a healing miracle, and the Divine
bent down to touch and enter the afflicted, terrestrial world.144
The water rituals of immersion in the healing waters are enacted145 in

a search for a wholeness which has become a distant memory;146 for at the
service at the grotto it seemed that the three Lourdes hospitals had disgorged
veritable ‘chambers of horrors’ (salles d’épouvante).147 A cure is claimed148 but
Pierre’s faith is completely lost.149 Reason alone must now be his ‘Maîtresse
souveraine’.150 When he encountered the seemingly inexplicable, it was
Reason who whispered that there must be some natural explanation for the
phenomenon before him, but he could not bring it to mind.151
Finally, over all in the novel hangs the authority of the Church, slow at
first to accept the reality of Bernadette’s water visions,152 but later embracing
the grotto and all it stood for with enthusiasm.153 Zola cynically but typically
observes in his novel that there was a continous flow of gifts at the grotto,
akin to a river of gold,154 all of which Zola was only too well aware would
enrich the Church.
The eventual acceptance by that Church of the events at Lourdes contrasts
vividly with the reaction to Zola’s novel which was met with outrage by the
Catholic Church and very swiftly placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.155
This is not surprising given Zola’s extremely antagonistic and derogatory
remarks about the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the last pages of
the novel.156
Werfel’s Song of Bernadette

Franz Werfel’s novel, The Song of Bernadette, could not be more different from
that of Zola. The Song is a hagiographical hymn of faith; any doubt that is
articulated comes from the mouths of those who initially reject the messages
of Bernadette and refuse to believe her, or obstruct her.157 George Weigel, in
a modern Foreword to a new edition of Werfel’s book, has observed: ‘On re-
reading The Song, what struck me most about Werfel’s craft was how deeply
this Jewish writer, who had long been interested in Catholicism but who had
never converted, had entered into Catholicism’s sacramental imagination
about the world.’158
But for Werfel himself, Bernadette’s ability to communicate ‘to the
downtrodden something of that compassionate consolation which flooded
her being whenever she saw the lady again’ was a much ‘greater miracle than
the discovery of a spring’.159
water | 67
The narrative of The Song is extremely simple and follows a straight

line from some introductory paragraphs about Bernadette’s father, François
Soubirous, through to Bernadette’s death, and her later canonisation by Pope
Pius XI on 8 December 1933. In lucid, ordered prose it presents Bernadette’s
family’s early life,160 her youthful ignorance of her faith,161 her first162 and
later apparitions,163 the hostility, scepticism, scorn and outright disbelief she
encountered,164 and her later, last years in the convent at Nevers.165
The whole text is infused with a recollection and memory of the super-
natural and the Divine. This is articulated in different ways in references to
early catechism and preparation for first Holy Communion classes,166 the
sublime, preternatural beauty of the ‘Lady’ who Bernadette sees167 and the
startling references to the Immaculate Conception; Bernadette certainly does
not understand this phrase168 but the clergy like Dean Peyramale were acutely
aware of it since it was only four years since the dogma had been solemnly
proclaimed by Pope Pius IX.169
This latter proclamation of the dogma was in itself a revival, an empha-
sis upon or memory of something that had long been held to be true
by many of the faithful for centuries.170 Indeed, the whole narrative of
Lourdes fitted into a wider context of revived Marian devotion with the
memory of the Virgin Mary being brought once more to the fore by such
devotees as Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673–1716).171 One of
Werfel’s characters in The Song notes: ‘Everywhere in this land you see the
principle of the adoration of Mary.’172 A discussion of a possible heraldic
device precipitates a memory of possible origins, whether Christian or
pre-Christian.173
Chris Maunder has emphasised how this resurgent Marian cult in
Europe constituted Catholicism’s reply to the seemingly atheistic precepts
of the French Revolution and how Marian devotion became a weapon of
choice against the waves of Republicanism and rationalism which swept
Europe.174 The apparitions at Lourdes in 1858 occurred at a particular
moment in time and within a particular intellectual context: Catholicism
versus freethinking.175
We see all this dramatically played out in Zola’s novel Lourdes but it
is also the context and background, albeit writ more discreetly, of Werfel’s
Song, many of whose characters, major and minor, articulate a memory of
either outright atheism or pure disbelief. As in Zola’s Lourdes, therefore, faith

and doubt assume a primary importance throughout Werfel’s narrative and
constitute an enduring leitmotiv and metatheme in his text.
Lourdes is about wholeness and the memory of wholeness, spiritual
wholeness for the many, and an aspiration to physical wholeness for the
lame, injured, sick and afflicted. Werfel movingly describes the first miracle
cure, that of the child of Croisine Bouhouhorts, after the child is bathed by its
frantic mother in the spring.176 While the ‘water rituals’ which were later to
develop in Lourdes are too early for Werfel’s narrative, the healing nature of
the spring is lauded: ‘Many bore earthen vessels on their heads to carry home
the water of the spring of grace.’177
Water, as in Zola’s novel, remains a metamotif in Werfel’s text and serves
to bind the events in Werfel’s novel together in the same way that it actually
bound the events in Bernadette’s short life and bound her to her apparitions.
The link between water and apparition is a key theme in life as in fiction.
Werfel in his novel makes this plain as he cites the words of the Lady: ‘Go to
the spring yonder and drink and wash yourself.’178
Finally, we note the appearance in the novel, as in actual life, of the
theme of Church authority. It is embodied in the stern figure of Dean Marie
Dominique Peyramale;179 it is embodied in the figure of Bishop Bertrand
Sévère Laurence, the Bishop of Tarbes;180 and it is embodied in the aura of the
papacy itself with its four-year-old dogmatic proclamation and which hangs
as a kind of shadow with authoritarian weight over the whole of Werfel’s
novel.181 Indeed, this dogma of the Immaculate Conception is both a key and
a key theme in the narrative, both real life and fictional, since for the believer
it unlocks belief after much doubt.182
Finally, the Catholic Church, with all its magisterial authority, claims its
own. Although, in the words of René Laurentin, ‘Bernadette does not seem to
have ever questioned her desire for a religious vocation,’183 Werfel’s narrative
makes the Bishop of Montpellier, Mgr Thibaut, altogether more proactive
and calculating. Listing various alternatives and scenarios to account for the
apparitions alleged by Bernadette, he gives as number three:
You have been visited by the Most Blessed Virgin’s special grace, little
Soubirous. Miracles issue from your spring . . . You must disappear . . .
water | 69
because we can’t let a saint loose in the world . . . Therefore, little Soubirous,
the Church must take you under its guardianship.184
And the Church does precisely that, in the novel as in life, overseeing the
insertion of Bernadette into the Convent of Saint-Gildard in Nevers. Here
she remained for the rest of her life.185
Arditti’s Jubilate
Michael Arditti’s Jubilate has been claimed to be ‘the first serious novel about
Lourdes since Zola’.186 It is a book about Catholic Lourdes written by an
outsider, an Anglican author,187 which features as one of its heroes Vincent,
another outsider who is a lapsed Catholic and who makes film documenta-
ries.188 Alexander Lucie-Smith believes that ‘as an Anglican, Arditti looks at
Catholicism from the outside, with the sharpness of observation that those
of us on the inside might have lost’.189 His co-hero Vincent O’Shaughnessy’s
‘avowed intention is to explode the myth that this is a place of miracle
cures’.190 The theme of doubt is thus embodied in one of the main characters
throughout the novel which is, however, fundamentally, a love story.191 In
the course of the narration there is a probing, often painful, exploration of
‘questions of faith, loyalty, love and theodicy’.192 Vincent is gradually forced
to re-examine his early assumptions about all these questions.193 As Anna
Arco puts it: ‘While Vincent is interviewing members of the Jubilate group
[of pilgrims to Lourdes] for his film, he realises questions of faith are not as
simple as they first appeared.’194
The other hero of the novel, Gillian Patterson, who has a passionate love
affair with Vincent in Lourdes, has come to Lourdes with her brain-damaged
husband Richard.195 Despite the trauma of her uninhibited husband, and his
need for care, Gillian remains a Catholic, but her loyalties are torn ‘between
God, her husband, her mother-in-law, her new lover and herself.’196
Rivka Isaacson sums up the situation as follows:
Jubilate’s secular sermon might be that the true miracle of Lourdes is neither
medical nor religious; it is rather that the juxtaposition of people’s generos-
ity onto a background of kitsch seems to hearten, amuse and inspire visitors
to face whatever hardship lies ahead.197
Nonetheless, our five memory topoi of four themes and one motif are still
much in evidence in Arditti’s narrative. As with Zola and Werfel’s novels,
there is an all-pervasive memory of ‘divine presence’ in the world, particularly
the little enclosed world of Lourdes, despite the ugly kitsch on sale in the
shops.198 There is the memory of Gillian’s husband Richard’s former whole-
ness.199 The water rituals of naked immersion in the freezing water of the
baths are described through the character of Gillian for whom they are a
source of questioning and mystery.200 The themes of faith and doubt domi-
nate the text of the novel. We have already noted the inquisitive doubt and
scepticism of the documentary film-maker, Vincent.201 Are the water rituals
of Lourdes for Vincent ‘simply a balm that does little to treat the deep-rooted
pain of those who go there in search of a miracle’?202 There is the dogged,
unfaltering – even if slightly confused – faith of Gillian.203 Contrasting with
both is the unquestioning, slightly unnerving and very traditional, firm faith
of Gillian’s mother-in-law.204
Over all hangs the shadow-authority of the Church, apparent in every
nook and cranny of Lourdes, saying Mass, controlling the pilgrims, organis-
ing processions and holding out the hope of healing, spiritual or physical, in
the town’s healing waters.
Arditti’s text contains a vivid description of a procession into the Pius
X Basilica for Benediction with numerous wheelchairs, brancardiers, multi-
lingual voices, priests and a ‘Cardinal of Cracow’.205 Just as the Church took
control of Bernadette and her apparitions in her own lifetime, so Arditti
holds that it has control, often overt and at least covert, in the town of
Lourdes. At the end, it seems that it is the Church and its moral authority
which wins: after bathing at the baths, Gillian tells her devout mother-in-
law, Patricia, that she has decided never to leave her handicapped husband,
Richard. She declares that she came to Lourdes in search of a miracle and has,
in fact, found one. As she succinctly puts it in Arditti’s text: ‘I’m cured of my
delusion; I’m ready to resume my life’.206
For her it is a miracle of and for the mind, a spiritual miracle, and quite
the opposite of the physical miracle that she had hoped for, for her husband.
The waters of Lourdes have produced an unexpected but still, for Gillian,
satisfying result.
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3.3 Zamzam, Shrines and Healing
Setting the Scene: Text and Context

The most notable healing miracle with water featured in the Qur’an has Job
(Ayyub) as its central protagonist:
Commemorate Our Servant Job.

Behold he cried to his Lord:
‘The Evil One has afflicted
me with distress and suffering!’
(The command was given:)
‘Strike with thy foot:
Here is (water) wherein
to wash, cool and refreshing,
and (water) to drink.’207
Yusuf Ali comments:
The recuperative process having begun, he was commanded to strike the

earth or a rock with his foot, and a fountain or fountains gushed forth – to
give him a bath and cleanse his body; to refresh his spirits; and to give him
drink and rest. This is a fresh touch, not mentioned in S.XXI208 nor in the
Book of Job,209 but adding beautifully to our realisation of the picture.210
Deirdre Jackson stresses how Job’s recovery here, consequent upon his drink-
ing and bathing in the miraculous spring, was the result of his patience and
constant trust in Allah.211 The Islamic tradition presents us with a trans-
formed Job whose own wife does not recognise him.212 Jackson notes that this
miraculous healing of Job transformed the figure of Job among the masses
into a mighty intercessor for healings from leprosy and diseases of the skin,
and that his gushing spring, wherever that might actually be, retained its
healing properties.213
The Qur’anic verse,
And We gave him (back)

his people and doubled
their number, as a Grace [raªma]214
from Ourselves, and a thing

for commemoration [dhikrā], for all
who have understanding215
building upon its two predecessors,216 thus supports at its heart an exegesis
whose key components are the motif of water and the theme of healing, in
addition to the primary theme of memory (dhikrā) which dominates both
this Qur’anic section on Ayyub217 as well as the following section on Ibrahim,
Ishaq and Yaʿqub.218
The Damascene chronicler, Ibn Kathir (c. 1300–73),219 makes much play
with the theme of non-recognition of Job after he is healed and transformed
after his sufferings: God clothes him in splendid attire and his wife finds him
sitting in a corner. Unable to recognise her husband, she asks where the suf-
fering person who was previously there has gone. She expresses the fear that
perhaps he has been eaten by wolves or dogs. She goes on talking to him for
a long while until a clearly exasperated Job asks her what her problem is. He
tells her that he is in fact Job, but she accuses him of making fun of her. He,
however, insists and stresses that God has healed his formerly afflicted body
and restored it to its normal state.220
This theme of non-recognition resonates powerfully with other parts of
the Qur’an from a narrative perspective: when Joseph’s brothers meet him
in Egypt after Joseph’s elevation to power, they do not recognise him.221
Ibrahim at first identifies a star, the moon and the sun as his Lord (rabb)
before finally recognising God Himself.222
Ibn Kathir also records a miraculous ‘water and wealth exegesis’ for the
Job story in Q.38:41–3. Beginning with the injunction in verse 42, ‘Strike
with thy foot’223 (Urku∂ bi-rijlik), Job does as God commands and a rush-
ing spring appears. He is ordered to wash in it and drink the water. He is
promptly cured from the agonies and pain of his illness with which he had
been afflicted and his body is made whole again. That is not all: God now
endows him with massive wealth, which appears to rain down upon him like
locusts fashioned out of gold.224
A. H. Johns has characterised the Job story in the Qur’an ‘as a reward
narrative . . . with an emphasis different from that of the story of Job in the
Bible’.225 While that is undoubtedly true, there is also, at the very least, a reso-
water | 73
nance and intertext with the Old Testament story of the army general of the
king of Aram whose name was Naaman and who suffered from a particularly
nasty disease of the skin. The prophet Elisha commands him to wash seven
times in the river Jordan and promises that, if he does so, his flesh will be
restored to wholeness. Naaman finally obeys ‘and his flesh became clean once
more like the flesh of a little child’.226
It is noteworthy that in some versions of the Islamic tradition, it is the
angel Gabriel (Arabic: Jibril) who is the messenger of the saving news that
if Job washes in, and drinks from, the spring then he will swiftly make a
miraculous, complete recovery.227 There is thus a marvellous, prefigurative
narrative here regarding the role of Gabriel, whom we will shortly encounter
again in the story of Hajar (Hagar) and Ismaʿil. Of course, Gabriel in both
these accounts reflects a massive Islamic intertextual narrative with regard to
the role of this angel which embraces, inter alia, the revelation of the Qur’an
and the Islamic annunciation of the forthcoming birth of ʿIsa to Maryam.228
Interestingly, Gabriel does not play a role in Ibn Kathir’s narration and
exegesis of the Job story.
The Qur’anic paradigm and metatheme which emerges, of water having
healing power in addition to its normal functions and properties229 is, of
course, articulated with a physical emphasis only. There is no baptismal ele-
ment, no cleansing from the stain of original sin as in the Christian tradi-
tion,230 nor any concept of the New Testament idea that ‘no one can enter
the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit’.231
Job’s Qur’anic healing is thus primarily a physical healing with water, though
the Arabic texts do show that he is certainly in receipt of God’s blessing and
infinite mercy.
It would be wrong to use the term ‘grace’ here since this belongs to the
theological register of the Christian tradition but an analogy may at least be
drawn: for the angel Gabriel in one account identifies himself to Job by name
and tells him that he brings happy news of forgiveness, or remission from
God (maghfira Allāh).232 What might be characterised as a divine spiritual
blessing here has a profound physical healing effect on the body of Job.
The Qur’anic and Islamic folk story (Qi‚a‚) association of some waters
with miraculous healing powers is apparent in the hadith literature as well.
The Qur’an might insist that Muhammad was not a miracle worker but his
future biographers clearly felt a real need to clothe his life with elements of
the miraculous.233 These would provide concrete proofs of his prophethood
but were also signs that the supernatural was an integral part of the Islamic
faith.234
The great jurist Malik ibn Anas (d. 796), for example, relates a water
miracle performed by the Prophet Muhammad as follows: the time for the
ʿa‚r prayer arrives and the people with Muhammad look around for water in
order to perform their pre-prayer ablutions; they are unable to find any. The
Prophet orders that some water be brought and tells his companions to use
that, miraculously multiplying the small amount of water in the container
until all have washed satisfactorily. Malik states that he actually saw water
flowing out of the fingers of the Prophet.235 Al-Bukhari records that more
than eighty people thus performed their ablutions,236 and a commentator and
translator lauds this as a miracle of Muhammad.237
Al-Bukhari also records an occasion when the Prophet was able to com-
mand rain to fall and then halt the downfall.238 Kenneth Woodward suggests
that such miracles which demonstrate that Muhammad is able to command
nature itself should not be viewed in the same light as Jesus’ ‘nature’ miracles
as we find them in the New Testament. Jesus wrought his miracles to confirm
that He was divine as well as human; Muhammad’s ‘nature’ miracles are best
viewed as ‘miracles of compassion’.239
The Prophet is again shown to be in complete control of nature and
water, combined with a striking compassion and care for his followers, in
the following narrative by the early scholar and chronicler of the campaigns
and raids (maghāzī) of Muhammad, Abu ʿAbd Allah Muhammad ibn ʿUmar
al-Waqidi (c. 747–c. 823) in his famous Book of Military Campaigns (Kitāb
al-Maghāzī): the people halt at a source of water near al-Hudaybiyya which
is perceived to be somewhat scant. Drawing an arrow, Muhammad gives
the order that it be plunged into the source of the water. A rivulet of water
miraculously appears and the thirst of all the people is duly sated.240
In another, variant account the Prophet spits into a bucket of water and
commands that it be poured into the well and that the water be stirred up
with an arrow. The well miraculously overflows with water and all are satis-
fied.241 Control and compassion thus emerge as major themes from all these
accounts.
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The Angel and the Water

The story of Hajar (Hagar) and Ismaʿil (Ishmael) is common to many of the
folk narratives of the prophets (Qi‚a‚ al-Anbiyā’) who preceded Muhammad.
Here I will follow, and briefly outline, the narrative of Ibn Kathir. Firstly,
however, it is useful to begin with what the Qur’an has to say about these two
seminal figures in what we might term the ‘proto-history’ of Islam.
Unlike Hajar, Ismaʿil is mentioned by name in the sacred text but the
references are brief: God ‘has covenanted with Abraham and Ismaʿil that
they should sanctify My House for those who compass it round, or use it as
a retreat, or bow, or prostrate themselves (therein in prayer)’.242 The Qur’an
draws specific attention to Ismaʿil and Ibrahim as the builders (or re-builders)
of the Kaʿba:
And remember Abraham

and Ismaʿil raised
the foundations of the House.243
Ismaʿil is one to whom God has given ‘favour above the nations’.244 He is
characterised as both ‘an apostle (and) a prophet’ (rasūlan nabīyan);245 and he
is lauded among those who are patient (min al-‚ābirīn).246 Apart from these
references we find that the Qur’an itself tells us little more about Ismaʿil.247
It does not identify him as Ibrahim’s chosen victim for sacrifice.248 As we
shall see, it is left to the tradition literature, encapsulated for example in the
Íaªīª of al-Bukhari, together with the folk narratives of the Qi‚a‚ al-Anbiyā’
and many others, to flesh out our portrait of Ismaʿil. Furthermore, the ‘water
miracle’ performed by the angel Gabriel for Hajar and her son Ismaʿil is un-
Qur’anic, but it is a key feature of the tradition which developed.
Ibn Kathir furnishes us with one of the classic accounts,249 deriving much
of it from al-Bukhari:250 Ibrahim’s wife Sara (Sarah) has been barren for
twenty years. So she tells her husband to sleep with the slave girl Hajar in the
hope that Ibrahim might at last have children. Hajar duly becomes pregnant
and vaunts her pregnancy over Sara who becomes so angry that she complains
bitterly to her husband; he tells her to act with Hajar as Sara thinks fit.
In fright, Hajar runs away and goes off to a spring (fa-nazalat ʿinda
ʿaynin),251 presumably some distance from the family house. Already we see
a ‘water’ motif intrude into the narrative and it is clear that the spring here
represents safety, at least from thirst. But, almost as a precursor to the main
‘water miracle event’, an angel appears to her, telling her not to be afraid:
God will bring much good from the child she has conceived. She will bear a
son and is commanded to name him Ismaʿil.
All this comes to pass. But Sara’s jealousy increases to the extent that
Ibrahim finally feels constrained to lead Hajar and Ismaʿil away from the
family home; despite Hajar’s protestations, Ibrahim abandons mother and
child in the present-day vicinity of Mecca. Hajar’s supply of water is used up,
so, frantic for herself and her child in fear that they might both die of thirst,
she runs between the mountains of al-Safa and al-Marwa, searching for help
and water.
Suddenly, an angel, identified in other texts as Gabriel,252 appears, dig-
ging with his wing or heel ‘at the place of Zamzam’ (ʿinda maw∂iʿ Zamzam).
Water appears and Hajar and her son quench their thirst, saved by the action
of that angel.253
There is a powerful intertextual resonance here with the actions of the
young Bernadette in the primitive grotto at Lourdes. She is commanded by
the Lady whom she sees to drink at a spring which she cannot yet detect. She
is forced to scrabble in the mud and dirty water until she gains a little water
which she can actually swallow. That minimal flow will later become a great
spring.254
In Ibn Kathir’s account it is the angel who does the digging with his
wing or heel, producing water which Hajar proceeds to gather in her hands,
eventually filling up a container with water until it overflows.255 In other
accounts, however, and even more significantly for comparative purposes with
Bernadette, it is Ismaʿil himself who scrabbles in the earth at the direction of
the angel, until the water flows,256 using his finger or toe (bi-i‚baʿihi).257
Later on, the well disappears and is lost to history until its rediscovery,
excavation and repair by the Prophet’s paternal grandfather, ʿAbd al-Muttalib
(sixth century ad) as the result of a dream.258 Of course, ancient narratives
may vary. It is of interest that a minority tradition characterises Zamzam
as Ibrahim’s well and declares that it was Ibrahim who actually dug it.259
Such a variant narrative, of course, would completely undermine the whole
miraculous nature of the majority account of the well’s origins with Hajar,
Ismaʿil and Gabriel.
water | 77
From all this, then, we may establish a grand paradigm which runs as
follows:
Moses > Job > Hajar and Ismaʿil > Zamzam > Muhammad.
Each figure connects intertextually with its successor for the common topos,
or rather metamotif, is water and the common metatheme is the miraculous
production of that water. Zamzam, and its healing properties analagous to
those of Lourdes, is the final, divinely produced telos or goal.
Miracles have been associated with the Well of Zamzam from ancient
times. The internet is awash with accounts of such miracles. It was earlier
believed that the waters of the well rose miraculously in the middle of the
Islamic month of Shaʿban. The Hispano-Arab traveller, Ibn Jubayr (1145–
1217), records the event in 1183 as follows, though it is clear from his text that
he attributes the miracle of the rising of the water to ignorant credulity rather
than actuality; care was needed, however, that one did not publicly profess
one’s scepticism of the claims of a miraculous nature for whatever took place,
because of the popular violence towards such a sceptic which might result:260
On Friday the following day, a strange circumstance occurred in the

Haram. It was that there was not a boy in Mecca but did not come early to
it; and congregating all in the dome of Zamzam they cried with one voice,
‘Recite the tahlil’ [‘There is no God but God’] . . . Men and women were
crowding round the dome of the blessed well because they thought, rather
on the affirmation of the ignorant than the wise, that the water of Zamzam
rose on the night of the middle of the month of Shaʿban . . . Their aim in
this was to gain the grace of that blessed water whose rise was evident. The
water distributors stood on the orifice of the well, drawing water and pour-
ing it on the heads of people by throwing it from a bucket. Some received
it on the face, others on the head or elsewhere, and often the water would
go far from the force of the thrust from their hands. The men nevertheless
called for more, and wept, while the women on their side rivalled them in
weeping, and competed with them in prayers . . .261
Obvious analogies may be drawn here with the present-day immersion by

pilgrims in the waters of Lourdes together with all the emotion and prayers
engendered at that site by that immersion.
Ibn Jubayr records the miraculous healing properties of this water as well
as its miraculously delightful taste:
A singular feature [fī amrihi ʿajab]262 of this water is that when you drink it
on its issuing forth from the bottom of the well you find it, to the sense of
taste, like milk coming from the udders of a camel. In this miracle of God
Most High is evidence of His care and blessing that needs no description.
‘It serves the purpose for which it is drunk [huwa li-mā shuriba lahu] . . .,’263
as said the Prophet – may God bless and preserve him. ‘God, with His
grace and favour, granted that all who thirst for it should drink therefrom.’
One of the tried effects of this blessed water is that if perchance a man
should feel a touch of sickness or langour of the limbs, either from many
circumambulations (of the Kaʿbah) or from the performance on foot of the
lesser pilgrimage or for other reasons causing fatigue, and pours this water
on his body, he will on the instant find relief and be enlivened and that
which afflicts him will pass away.264
A major difference, of course, between healing in the waters of Zamzam and

healing in the waters of Lourdes is that any sought-after healing is not the
primary purpose nor intention of the entire Islamic pilgrimage, whereas, very
often, pilgrims have visited Lourdes, from its very inception as a pilgrimage
site, in search of physical or, at the very least, spiritual cures.
Ibn Jubayr does record, however, that some spiritual aspects of the waters
of Zamzam were sought by visitors to the Kaʿba as well. For when the Kaʿba
was washed with the waters of Zamzam and ‘the water poured from the
Kaʿbah many men and women hasted to it, seeking blessedness by laving
their hands and feet in it, and often collecting it in vases they had brought
for the purpose’.265
The great Maghribi traveller Ibn Battuta (1304–68/9 or 1377) was also
well aware of the miraculous properties claimed for Zamzam. He noted in his
famous Travelogue (Riªla): ‘We drank of the water of Zamzam, which, being
drunk of, possesses the qualities which are related in the Tradition handed
down from the Prophet (God bless and give him peace) . . .’ [wa sharibnā min
mā’ Zamzam, wa huwa li-mā shuriba lahu ªasabamā warada ʿan al-nabī].266
The general attitude which lies behind so many of the miracles associated
with the waters of Zamzam is, as noted above,267 encapsulated in the classic
water | 79
hadith mā’ zamzam li-mā shuriba lahu (The water of Zamzam effects the
purpose for which it is drunk). This is explained by Mujahid:268 ‘If you drink
the water of Zamzam in search of a cure, God will cure you. If you drink it
out of thirst, God will quench your thirst. And if you drink it because you are
hungry, God will satisfy you.’269
We see here, in this explanation by Mujahid, a particular emphasis on
the role of intention (niyya), a concept which has a primary role in Islamic
worship and law.270 And from these foundational texts, we may derive at least
three kinds of ‘water miracles’: water as food and drink, water for healing and
the miraculous proliferation and increase of water.
An excellent example of the first, of water as miraculous food, is to be
seen in the following story. The protagonist is a well-known Companion of
the Prophet named Abu Dharr al-Ghifari (d. c. 652–3).271 He is discovered
by the Prophet in the precincts of the Kaʿba and asked how long he has
been there. He replies that he has been there for thirty days and nights. The
Prophet asks who has fed him over this period and Abu Dharr replies that he
has existed just on Zamzam water (mā kāna lā †aʿām illā mā’ zamzam). That
is not all. Rather than this regime having a deleterious effect on his body, Abu
Dharr says that he has actually put on weight! The Prophet exclaims: ‘[The
water] is blessed! It is certainly food which fills one up’ (Innahā mubāraka.
Innahā †aʿām †uʿm).272
However, it is the healing properties of Zamzam water for which it is
most famous. These cures can include miraculous recovery from fevers and
headaches.273 Particularly startling and dramatic is the following narrative
of a cure from cancer. A Moroccan woman named Layla al-Halu suffered
from a cancer from which she became very ill and in great pain. The cancer
metastasised and spread throughout her chest. Her doctors in Paris gave her
three months to live. Before returning to her home in Morocco, and at the
suggestion of her husband, she went to Mecca to perform the minor pilgrim-
age (ʿumra). While there she existed on a daily regime of Zamzam water,
bread and a single egg. Her severe pain lessened and she returned to Paris to
see her doctors once more. To their amazement they found that the cancer
had disappeared. She became convinced that she had been cured as a result of
drinking the Zamzam water.
Yet that was not the end of the story. The pain recurred and she
underwent debilitating chemotherapy. But a second miracle was claimed: she

believed that she was visited in a dream by a bright light which she knew to
be the Prophet Muhammad himself. He stroked and pressed her head and
told her that all would ultimately be well. The cancer finally disappeared for
good.274
Scholarly commentators believed that a miracle, or dual miracle had
occurred. Citing the above-mentioned hadith about a devout and focused
intention accompanying the drinking of Zamzam water, one scholar observed
that she had visited Mecca with a pure intention and drunk the Zamzam
water in the hope that God would cure her through its agency. Her fervent
prayers were accepted and God healed her. The hadith thus underlined and
disclosed the very real, miraculous powers of the waters of Zamzam when
coupled with the sincere intention of a supplicant. However, this narrative
of a cure from cancer stresses that it is God who actually cures, God who is
the agent behind the miraculous waters of Zamzam and thus, it is God who
is the miracle worker rather than the water per se.275 As the commentator
succinctly puts it: ‘The will of Allah Almighty desired this pure water to act
on this illness and cure it.’276
A final example of miraculous events associated with Zamzam water
concerns the fact that the water never seems to dry up, having flowed for
well over a thousand years; the water levels of the spring/well remain the
same. Such phenomena are regarded as deeply miraculous by pious Muslims.
We may compare with the New Testament accounts of the feeding of the
five and four thousand where there is a seemingly endless supply of loaves
of bread until all are fed. Here at Zamzam there is an undiminishing, con-
stantly replaced, flow and supply of water to the astonishment of all who
have witnessed it down the ages. Modern research shows that taste and salt
composition remain the same and all who have tasted it vouch for its drink-
ability. The well has never needed to be treated with chemicals and remains
free of ‘biological growth’.277 Clearly, for the believing Muslim, the waters of
Zamzam present not just a single miracle but a whole complex, intertextual
and interlocking web of miracles.
The extended development of the basic story of the finding of Zamzam
by Ibrahim and Ismaʿil which we find in Ibn Kathir’s narrative belongs to
the later folkloric, Qi‚a‚ al-Anbiyā’ tradition and the tafsīr rather than the
water | 81
Qur’anic text itself. The latter does not provide any parallel to Ibn Kathir’s
narrative and its references to Ibrahim and Ismaʿil as a pair who act together
are limited to a single set of verses.278 By contrast with the spring of Salsabil
in Paradise,279 Zamzam is not mentioned in the Qur’an. Thus, there is no
obligation on the Muslim faithful to believe in narratives such as those of Ibn
Kathir. Nonetheless, it remains true that the majority of Muslims hold the
water of Zamzam280 in very high esteem and many regard it as a miracle with
miraculous properties.281
Ibn Kathir’s narrative is certainly infused with a sense of ‘divine pres-
ence’. For example, Hajar, upset at the prospect of being deserted by Ibrahim
in a waterless valley wilderness, asks Ibrahim whether he is doing this at
God’s command. Ibrahim affirms that this is the case and Hajar is thus filled
with hope that God will not allow her to die in that place in consequence.282
Here then, most powerfully, is a belief in the theme of God acting mercifully
and his very real presence in the world and desire to act in that world.
The ‘wholeness’ of family life which Hajar had possessed with Ibrahim,
and whose child Ismaʿil she has borne,283 is thus rudely and suddenly rup-
tured. Only the memory of this remains in the constant and thirsty presence
of the infant. But that wholeness is restored in a completely different fashion
by God. The angel tells her that she should not fear perishing in that desolate
valley. Her son Ismaʿil will rejoin his father and (re)build the Kaʿba (literally,
‘the House of God’, Bayt Allāh) in that place.284
Thus the projected pairing of father and son as builders of the Kaʿba
suggest a coming together of this part of the family and, although we are not
told by Ibn Kathir about the future of Hajar, we may safely suppose that she
returns, at least temporarily, with her infant son to Ibrahim.
As we can see, the motif of water is powerfully articulated in the narrative
of Ibn Kathir and the frantic running by Hajar between Safa and Marwa
prefigures one of the key ªajj rituals.285 In her initial questioning of Ibrahim
the metatheme of faith and doubt is portrayed: there is initial doubt followed
by profound faith in God (underlined by the message of the angel) when she
learns from Ibrahim that he is acting under God’s command. Embedded in
all this is the overall metatheme of God’s authority and His articulation of
the divine plan for the building of the Kaʿba, through the mouthpiece of the
angel.
In sum, then, we have a total of five narratives which we have surveyed and
analysed: there are the twin narratives of Bernadette and Hajar with Ismaʿil
which take place in what might be termed ‘real time’, though it might be
more accurate to characterise the Hajar/Ismaʿil narrative as occurring in ‘pre-
history’. The ‘real life’ narrative of the story and significance of Bernadette is
then fictionalised in the three novels adumbrated above by Zola, Werfel and
Arditti.
Two immediate and similar narratological paradigms present themselves.
In Ibn Kathir’s account, an angel (Jibril) appears and digs with his wing or
heel for the purpose of producing water with which to satisfy Hajar and
Ismaʿil’s thirst; water appears and, down the centuries, it is said to assume a
variety of properties including, most notably here for comparative purposes,
healing. At Lourdes, according to the non-fictional and fictional accounts of
Laurentin and Werfel, the Virgin Mary asks Bernadette to dig, for purposes
unknown to her, water appears and, again, the water swiftly becomes associ-
ated with healing.
These narratives have some profound internal similarities in terms of
themes and motifs. The dramatis personae in both accounts, who may be
characterised as metamotifs, are celestial beings from another world; in each
case there is searching and digging for another metamotif, water. The Islamic
account focuses on the theme of thirst which is satisfied by the discovery
of Zamzam, a spring later endowed with the theme of healing. Early on, at
Lourdes, this theme of healing comes to the fore.
There are differences, of course. The ‘intention’ behind the production of
Zamzam is the very practical one of saving Hajar and Ismaʿil from dying of
thirst. The request by the Lady, Aquerò, to Bernadette to drink from a spring
which cannot yet be detected is completely opaque in intention at first.
There are similarities and divergences in the respective accounts of the
motif of the building. In both accounts buildings result. Bernadette receives
the following command from the Lady whom she sees: ‘Go and tell the priests
that people are to come here in procession and to build a chapel here.’286
Obeying the same impulse to mark and ‘signify’ places of sacred action, we
find over the centuries the appearance and elaboration of very different types
water | 83
of building in Mecca from the perspective of structure, which now cover the
Well of Zamzam and the sites of Safa and Marwa.287
Ibn Kathir’s ‘pre-history’ account of the exile of Hajar and Ismaʿil, and
the ensuing discovery of the waters of Zamzam, is much less structured from
a temporal point of view than the fictional narratives of Zola and Arditti, and
the ‘real-time’ narrative of the apparitions of Bernadette. The jealousy and
ill-feeling of Ibrahim’s wife Sara towards Hajar precipitates their being cast
out of the family home but our text does not position the running of Hajar
between Safa and Marwa, the appearance of the angel and the digging for
water in a particular time frame. The impression is given that all these seminal
events take place in a single day, although the actual time frame may well
have been greater given that Hajar, in her desperate search for water, climbs
the mountain (jabal) of Safa, descends, crosses a valley (wādī), climbs another
mountain, the mountain of Marwa, and repeats these actions seven times.288
Bernadette’s eighteen apparitions took place between 11 February 1858
and 16 July of the same year. Within that time frame there was a special
fifteen days of apparitions for the Lady had requested of Bernadette: ‘Would
you have the graciousness to come here for fifteen days?’289 However, the spe-
cific numbers involved, eighteen and fifteen, have no mystical nor semiotic
significance.
When we turn to the fictional accounts by Zola and Arditti, a much
greater play is made with the theme of time, and this is done in a deliber-
ately artificial way. Writing of Zola’s 1894 novel, Lourdes, Angus Wilson
commented:
As a work of art, Lourdes has much of Zola at his best in it. The train
packed with hideously diseased people, the agony of the jolting, the stifling
heat, the devoted nuns and priests, the vital faith that makes the singing
of the Offices an intense happiness despite the horror around – all this is
unforgettable.290
Yet, overall, Wilson was not impressed by the novel:
The brilliance of these opening chapters is unfortunately swallowed up

in scattered action, meaningless detail, and melodrama that is too little
prepared to be convincing. Already one feels that mechanical atmosphere
of the writer who is too tired to make his vision coherent, who cannot find
energy to force the scattered elements into a whole.291
It is true that Lourdes does not, and cannot, rank, for example with Zola’s
brilliant Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels.292 Lourdes (1894) is the first of
Zola’s Trois Cités cycle of novels of which Rome (1896) and Paris (1898)
constitute the other two, all written towards the end of his life in 1902, each
reflecting Zola’s constant hostility towards the Catholic Church.293 That said,
however, Wilson’s verdict may be somewhat harsh. Zola’s Lourdes does have
a very interesting temporal structure. It is carefully articulated in five principal
and lengthy chapters, each covering a single day (journée). The individual
chapters are then themselves divided into smaller, untitled sections. The
device is a useful frame, resonating as it does with a modern pilgrimage to
Lourdes which might take place within the short space of less than a week,
incorporating all the intensive rituals – water and otherwise – which have
become associated with that pilgrimage. Above all, the novel is narrated in a
linear fashion by one authorial voice.
By contrast, Arditti’s novel, Jubilate, while also narrated over a period of
five days (Monday, 16 June to Friday, 20 June of an unspecified year) – in
conscious imitation of Zola? – has two narrators, Gillian and Vincent, whose
voices alternate in separate chapters. Gillian’s story is told backwards, begin-
ning on the Friday, 20 June, and moving back to the Monday, 16 June, while
Vincent’s is linear, beginning on that latter date and moving forward to the
Friday. Each short chapter is titled with the name of one of the protagonist-
narrators (Vincent and Gillian) and the particular day of the week on which
the action in that chapter takes place.
The narratives which we have explored, whether they be the ‘real-time’
narrative of Laurentin’s biography of Bernadette, the ‘pre-history’ narrative of
Ibn Kathir or the fictional narratives of Zola, Werfel and Arditti, deal in uni-
versal themes and motifs. The search for healing from sickness, often through
the miraculous agency of water, is the metatheme or leitmotif par excellence.
The narratives are multifaceted and often bespeak a quest for spiritual as well
as physical healing. Divine agency, through the intermediary of the Lady or
the angel, provides a hidden pathway to that healing. Repetition, as it were
to reinforce the message, has a key role: there are eighteen apparitions of the
water | 85
Virgin Mary to Bernadette; Hajar runs seven times between Safa and Marwa.
Hajar, of course, in her running is a type for the antitype of the running of
all modern pilgrims as they move between Safa and Marwa each year during
the ªajj. The early miracles at the grotto during Bernadette’s lifetime are a
type for the antitype of the claimed miracles at the grotto of Lourdes today.
There are no frame stories as such in the narratives which we have explored
and yet, in a very real sense, each narrative ‘frames’ an overt or hidden quest
for a species of salvation. Our narratives also frame a multiplicity of themes
and metathemes, motifs and metamotifs, which we have identified above: all
feed into a greater intertext in numerous world religions where the possibility
of miracles can dominate and enchant the believing mind.
The arch-protagonist for the believer in these ‘water miracles’ is, of course,
God and this is acknowledged to be so in both the Islamic and Christian
traditions. Those who might be termed ‘the agents of the miracle’ are Aquerò
and the angel Gabriel. While there may be less doubt and scepticism on the
Islamic side, the miracles claimed in Christianity, as we have seen, are often
the source of much scepticism and, indeed, outright disbelief or, as in the case
of Zola, fervent hostility.
The miracles which we have surveyed above find their primary signifi-
cance as exhibitions of God’s omnipotent power, care and desire for whole-
ness for the believer, and his continual intervention in a world perceived by
many to be in a state of flux and chaos. Water in this chapter has figured
as the primary narratological catalyst for the miracles we have described,
resultant upon the thirst of Hajar and Ismaʿil on the one hand and the blind
obedience of Bernadette on the other.
However, it is worth noting with Arditti’s heroine Gillian in Jubilate that
the modern miracle, even in the presence of the healing waters of Lourdes,
may for both believer and sceptic take many forms: ‘We came looking for
a miracle and I’ve found one.’ It is delusion she is cured of, not physical
sickness.294
4
Blood
4.1 Proto-miracles: Blood and its Contrastive Christian and Islamic

Domains
I n our previous chapters we have presented narratives of what we term

‘proto-miracles’ by way of setting the scene for our main accounts of the
miraculous in Christianity and Islam. These ‘proto-miracles’ comprise narra-
tives common to both the Christian and Islamic traditions whose origins may
be located in the Old and New Testaments and the Qur’an.
However, this will not be the case in our chosen accounts of ‘proto-
miracles’ which focus on blood, even though, as previously, such accounts
will serve as prologues or prefaces to the principal narratives of the chap-
ter, namely the events of Bolsena in 1263 and an account of a Sufi ‘blood
tradition’.
The reasons are clear: the principal theo-anthropological domain of blood
in Christianity is sacrifice.1 This is articulated most powerfully in the Catholic
Christian tradition which holds that, at the celebration of the sacrifice of the
Mass, the blood and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of
Christ in what is regarded in essence as the same sacrifice of Calvary and not
a repetition.2
However, the principal theo-anthropological domain of blood in Islam
is creation and the revelation of God’s power in that creation.3 God dynami-
cally and powerfully calls attention to the fact that He has created man out of
a blood clot (khalaqa al-insān min ʿalaq).4
In Christianity, the blood which flows from the side of the dead Christ
exhibits the ‘essence’ of the God-Man; in Islam, the blood clot (ʿalaq) exhib-
its the ‘essence’ of God’s power and man’s simple, undivinised humanity. The
86
blood | 87
first segues neatly into the events at Bolsena which we shall shortly describe,
where the emphasis is on wine becoming blood as part of a sacrifice. The
second segues into our story of a Sufi novice where the product of his intense
prayer is blood.
Obviously, in the mainstream Islamic tradition, the account of Longinus
piercing the side of the dead Christ does not, and cannot, figure for the
simple reason that, for Islam, Jesus remains uncrucified and someone else
is crucified in his place.5 In sum then, this section of proto-miracles on the
theme of blood presents two overall contrastive paradigms:
Christian: Jesus > sacrifice > blood > death > flow of blood > miracle of
healing of Longinus > Lanciano and Bolsena6 > Eucharistic miracles.
Islamic: God > miracle of creation > blood clot (ʿalaq) > man > Sufi novice.
The Christian Domain

We can identify three proto-miracles which set the scene ultimately for our
classic paradigm of ‘change into blood’. The first is a New Testament example
of miraculous change of liquid substances; the latter two form part of that
broader intertext which relates to blood:
• There is firstly what we might term from a narratological perspective an

elementary pre-paradigm of water > wine.
• Then there is the healing of Longinus.
• Finally there is the miraculous flow of blood from the body of the dead
Christ.
All these, in turn, prefigure our principal, post-New Testament Christian

paradigm of bread > blood which we will survey and analyse in the next
section on Bolsena. This shares in a broader intertext whose principal narrato-
logical dynamo is ‘change of substance’ in a mysterious and miraculous way.
In addition, by means of this intertext, we can link our present motif of blood
to that of the bread whose miraculous properties we surveyed in a previous
section. We will discuss each of the above-mentioned three miracles here.
Water > Wine Jesus’ attendance at a wedding feast in Cana where he per-
forms his first miracle by changing water into wine is very well known. The
wine runs out and Jesus’ mother, Mary, draws his attention to this fact.
Jesus seems at first to tell his mother to let him alone since his ‘hour has not
yet come’, seeming to imply that it is not yet the moment for him to start
performing miracles but, in fact, referring to his future ‘glorification’.7 But
Mary, almost knowing in advance what will happen, instructs the servants at
the feast to carry out any instruction Jesus might give. The latter duly gives
orders for the six jars of ablutions water to be filled; this is done and the man
who presides over the feast is called upon to taste the water: it has now turned
into wine!
The president tells the bridegroom: ‘Everyone serves good wine first and
the worse wine when the guests are well-wined; but you have kept the best
wine till now.’8
Commenting on this passage, Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict
XVI, r. 2005–13) notes that the miracle which Jesus performs at Cana does
not, prima facie, seem to gell or harmonise with his later miracles.9 Jesus pro-
duces a massive glut of wine for what is just ‘a private party’.10 But Ratzinger
then reminds us that ‘the sign of God is overflowing generosity’ and that such
‘abundant giving is his “glory”’.11
Intriguingly, Ratzinger also draws our attention to a possible intertext
with Dionysus, the god of wine: we might see at the heart of the Cana nar-
rative a transformation of the Dionysus myth even if such an interpretation
was far from the mind of St John.12 Regardless of origins, however, Pheme
Perkins stresses the symbolic nature of the whole story and, while an initial
reading of the miracle might lead us to focus on such major themes as ‘glory’,
‘power’, ‘generosity’ and, on the part of Mary at least, ‘faith’,13 the primary
motifs, of course, are self-evidently the water and the wine.
Blood Flow and Healing The Gospels do not name the centurion who
guarded Jesus at the crucifixion14 nor the (same?) soldier who pierced Jesus’
side with a lance.15 Identifying the two, medieval tradition names this figure
Longinus. He suffers from poor eyesight, but this is completely restored after
he touches his eyes with hands covered in Jesus’ blood. The legend has it that
he becomes a Christian and dies a martyr’s death.16
Indeed, medieval scholars like David of Augsburg (d. 1272) and Dionysius
the Carthusian (d. 1471) identified a double miracle.17 The Gospels relate
blood | 89
that when Jesus’ side was pierced with the lance ‘immediately there came
out blood and water’.18 The fact that blood was recorded by John as having
flowed from the body was regarded by David and Dionysius as miraculous
because it was impossible for blood to flow from a dead body.19
Both St John and the early fathers interpret the miracle verse typologi-
cally: the Old Testament prophet Zechariah (fl. 520 bc) had earlier stated:
‘They will mourn for the one they have pierced as though for an only child
. . .’20 John writes: ‘And again, in another place scripture says, “They will look
to the one whom they have pierced.”’21 Ratzinger reminds us that the double
flow of water and blood was perceived by the early fathers as an image of the
sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist ‘which spring forth from the Lord’s
pierced side, from his heart’.22
Here then, from John, through the early fathers and the medieval schol-
ars to the modern Joseph Ratzinger, we find an intertextual conjunction of
water and blood together with an attempt from earliest times to interpret
this miracle typologically and, indeed, sacramentally. For the medieval and
modern Church, this is a narative of a dual miracle focused on the twin
topoi and motifs of blood and water, ineluctably conjoined: Longinus’ poor
eyesight is cured and blood flows with water from a dead body. These are the
metathemes of the narration which constitute a dual miracle. As Caroline
Walker Bynum powerfully notes, Longinus may be accounted ‘the facilitator
of redemption’ since it is he who pierces the side of Christ with a spear, thus
precipitating the flow of the blood which saves us.23
The Islamic Domain

Blood is at the very heart of the Qur’an. The angel Gabriel/Jibril commands
the Prophet Muhammad in the famous Meccan Sura 96:
Proclaim! (or Read!)

In the name
of thy Lord and Cherisher
who created –
created man, out of
a (mere) clot
of congealed blood.24
The verse has an intratextual resonance with one in an earlier sura in which
it is revealed that
We made the sperm (nu†fa) into a clot of congealed blood (ʿalaqatan).25
Harun Sahin draws our attention to the way that modern scholars have argued
from these two verses that we can detect an early outline of the development
of embryology which is slowly being brought to light in our modern scientific
age.26 Sahin notes, however, that another scholar, M. Bucaille, rejects ‘blood
clot’ as the traditional translation of ʿalaq. For Bucaille, the correct transla-
tion is ‘egg’.27
Nonetheless, if we adhere to the traditional translation of ʿalaq as ‘blood
clot’, then it is clear that, in itself as a very early stage in life, however inter-
preted, and from the dynamic circumstances of the actual first revelation
of the Qur’an, that the ʿalaq is both sanctified and possessed of a particular
quality; that quality, though clearly well short of the divine, nonetheless
inhabits the sphere of the sacred.
The renowned anthropologist Mary Douglas reminds us that ‘blood, in
Hebrew religion, was regarded as the source of life, and not to be touched
except in the sacred conditions of sacrifice’.28 Contrasting with this, of course,
is the reverse side of the anthropological ‘coin’ whereby blood is regarded as
a pollutant.29 This was true of the Jewish,30 the Christian31 and the Islamic
traditions.32 In the latter, that attitude still persists with regard to the exemp-
tion from fasting during Ramadan for menstruating women33 and the full
execution of the pilgrimage rituals.34
Thus we find in Islam a notable dichotomy: blood, in the primary form
of the ʿalaq is sacred as a life force; but blood is also a pollutant and renders
one ritually impure. That said, the Qur’an makes it very clear that deliberate
shedding of blood is to be feared and, indeed, avoided. When God tells the
angels that He is going to create a khalīfa (namely, Adam) on earth, they
fearfully ask:
‘Wilt thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed
blood (wa yasfiku al-dimā’ )?’35
It seems that the angels had good reason to be apprehensive if we are to accept
al-Tabari’s tafsīr: he tells us that the first inhabitants of the earth were the jinn
blood | 91
who were, indeed, responsible for bloodshed and killing:36 ‘And the angels
knew from God’s knowledge that there was no greater sin before God than
the shedding of blood.’37 According to another tradition quoted by al-Tabari,
God foresees that Adam will be a shedder of blood and ‘the angels found
it distressing that God should place someone on earth who would disobey
him’.38
The Islamic domain thus exhibits here a text whose primary motif,
indeed metamotif, is blood in diverse forms, whose themes are the sacred and
the profane, to use Mircea Eliade’s evocative title.39 For the Muslim, all are
enveloped in a dual miracle: the miracle of the revelation of the Qur’an and
the miracle of man’s primeval, and continuing, emergence from an ʿalaq.
4.2 Bolsena 1263: Host > Blood
The events at Bolsena in 1263 constitute and illustrate a post-New Testament

paradigm in which the accidents of the sacramental bread, the Host, used
during the celebration of Mass are visibly seen to drip blood, blood that for
the believer is the actual blood of Christ. At Bolsena, as with the miracle of
Lanciano surveyed above, the initial catalyst of the miracle is the nagging
doubt of the priest-celebrant about the reality and truth of the doctrine of
transubstantiation to which he is required to adhere. Such proofs of host
> blood were embraced enthusiasically by the faithful. As André Vauchez
puts it: ‘Les Laïcs suivirent avec enthousiasme et entourèrent d’une dévotion
particulière des hosties qui s’étaient mises à saigner entre les mains d’un prêtre
incrédule (Bolsena, 1264 [sic.]) ou sous les coups d’un juif profanateur . . .’40
We shall return shortly to the latter dimension of host > blood as a
direct result of perceived profanation or threat of those allegedly hostile to the
Church and/or its believers, but let us firstly survey in a little more detail
the famous miracle of Bolsena. At the heart of this kind of blood miracle lie
the twin catalytic themes of doubt and profanation or threat.
Bolsena today is a small town of some 4,083 inhabitants (in 2014)41 not
far from the city of Orvieto in Umbria. The city gets its present name from
the Latin urbs vetus (Old City).42 As early as 590 it had been an episcopal
seat43 and it became a famous residence of later thirteenth-century popes.44
It has not always gone by that name. In 990, when the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Sigeric, went on pilgrimage to Rome, and to receive the pallium
at the hands of the Pope,45 the town went by the name of Santa Cristina.46
The latter was a third-century Christian martyr who had been born in the
town. When she converted to Christianity her enraged father secured her
heel with a rope, weighted it with a great rock and hurled his daughter into
the Lago di Bolsena.47 However, the rock was seen to rise to the surface
bearing the marks of her feet. It was later enshrined in a chapel dedicated to
the memory of Cristina. A fourth-century church erected there underwent
rebuilding in the eleventh century.48
Thus Santa Cristina/Bolsena was a site of miracles, and probable pilgrim-
age to its Chiesa di Santa Cristina, long before the more famous Eucharistic
miracle of Bolsena in 1263. With the narrative of Santa Cristina, from an
anthropological perspective, we have a miracle which exhibits the dual motifs
of water in a lake and a rock which floats: water and stone. Nature seems to
be defied. Just as, later, in the Eucharistic miracle, the impossible would seem
to happen with the Host changed in the minds and eyes of the beholders into
something which drips blood,49 so in ancient Santa Cristina the laws of grav-
ity are defied as the imprinted rock floats to the surface. God seems to make
the impossible possible in the astonished eyes of the beholders.
In 1263 a Bohemian priest named Peter of Prague was on pilgrimage to
Rome and celebrated Mass in Bolsena.50 He had long been afflicted by doubts
about the reality of transubstantiation at the consecration at Mass of the two
elements of bread and wine.51 On pronouncing the words of consecration,
the astonished priest found that the elevated Host was dripping blood which
marked his vestments and fell to the floor.52 It is interesting how the drama
and dynamic of the miracle are narrated in slightly different ways by modern
commentators according to their chosen degree of verbal emphasis. For
Charles Freeman, the Host ‘drips’ blood.53 For Alison Raju, the ‘blood was
gushing out of the consecrated host’.54 Francis Marsden is more restrained:
‘The host bled in the hands of the priest Peter of Prague’.55 Thus are the
narratives of miracles enhanced and endowed with greater immediacy or,
alternatively, treated with some restraint according to authorial taste and
belief.
There are variations too in the modern narratives as to where the blood
actually lands. As we have seen, Freeman tells how the Host drips onto the
floor.56 The stained vestments become a ‘major relic’ in Orvieto Cathedral
blood | 93
and the floor of the chapel of the miracle is still stained red and can be viewed
by the modern visitor today.57 However, in the account of Joan Carroll Cruz,
the ‘blood started to seep from the consecrated Host and trickle over [Peter’s]
hands onto the altar and corporal’.58 This account is paralleled by that of
Renzo Allegri in which ‘drops’ are perceived to ‘fall’ after a profuse bleeding
of the Host, but the drops stain the corporal and altar linens.59 This corporal
now has a place of honour in Orvieto Cathedral, where it may be seen in a
jewelled casket in the Cappella del Corporale,60 a chapel which dates from
about 1350.61
What was the reaction of the priest, Peter of Prague, to the miracle which
he witnessed? In each major account we see a movement from doubt through
fear to faith and belief. But the narratives again differ slightly. According to
one, the shaken priest, shocked out of his disbelief, tried to conceal the blood,
broke off from saying Mass and sought transport to Orvieto where the Pope,
Pope Urban IV (r. 1261–4), was in residence.62 Another version has Peter
initially hiding the bloodstained vestments and linens in the sacristy before
he realises that the miracle cannot be hidden.63 In yet another modern version
of the miracle, Pope Urban is an actual witness to the miracle64 while in other
accounts he is simply resident in Orvieto at the time and is brought news of
what has happened.65
After investigation, the event is accepted as miraculous by the Church,66
and both Orvieto Cathedral and the Chiesa di Santa Cristina become foci
for visitation and pilgrimage in the centuries which follow.67 Indeed, Orvieto
Cathedral becomes the ‘house of the miracle’ since, according to some
accounts, it was built at the request of Pope Urban himself as a shrine for
the Bolsena corporal.68 Not all, however, are in agreement with this account.
Michele Mattioni holds that the cathedral at Orvieto was already under con-
struction by the time the miracle of Bolsena took place in 1263.69 In turn, the
architectural historian, Bernhard Schütz, disagrees with Mattioni: he claims
that the building of the cathedral, starting in 1290, was a direct response to
the miracle at Bolsena.70
Whatever the actual truth of the matter, it is clear that the large influx of
pilgrims wishing to view the miraculous sacred corporal had rendered the old
cathedral too small and thus the foundation stone of a new and larger edifice
was laid by Pope Nicholas IV (r. 1288–92)71 on 15 October 1290.72
Urban IV’s devotion to the Eucharist73 led him in 1264 to institute the
feast of Corpus Christi by means of a papal bull entitled Transiturus de hoc
mundo.74 It has been claimed that the blood miracle of Bolsena acted as a
catalyst for this proclamation75 but Bynum holds this claim to be apocryphal:
neither contemporary art nor contemporary texts prior to the fourteenth
century, nor Urban’s bull itself, make reference to the miraculous events at
Bolsena.76
The miracle of Bolsena kindles faith from doubt. Blood, however, could
signal in a very real semiotic sense for the believer, God’s purposes in other
ways. It could signal, for example, as we shall briefly itemise, a protest against
profanation and abuse of the sacred species.
Our primary miraculous blood paradigm thus far in this chapter may be
characterised as Host > blood. But diverse others may be identified as well.
These include:
• profanation/abuse of Host > blood

• identification with Christ > stigmatic blood
• healing sought > blood of the martyr
• coagulated blood > liquified blood
• chalice for wine > blood
In three magisterial volumes77 Caroline Walker Bynum has analysed in par-

ticular the first of these paradigms. The blood, as she stresses, is always a sign
of presence,78 but also of salvation and redemption: the early Middle Ages
viewed Longinus as a sinner who repented, sought forgiveness from Jesus on
the cross and received healing by direct contact with His blood.79 Longinus
is thus, in Bynum’s phrase, not just a ‘facilitator of redemption’,80 physically
and spiritually, for himself but by his actions he allows the salvific blood of
Christ to become available for all mankind,81
From this protypical Longinus account might be derived a specific, nar-
ratological Longinus paradigm, whose component parts can be specifically
identified as follows:
Christ’s presence > blood > Longinus > profanation by piercing > healing >
personal and universal redemption and salvation.
blood | 95
Such a paradigm may underline much of what follows but its direction may
move from ‘redemption and salvation’ to a dramatic epiphany. As Bynum
succinctly puts it, blood is a herald of ‘both presence and violation’.82
The Paradigm of Profanation/Abuse of the Host > Blood

This particular paradigm is often associated with widespread anti-semitic
attitudes towards the Jews.83 The essence of the story is that a consecrated
Host comes into the possession of a Jew who abuses the Host with sharp
instruments and blood flows.84 Jews were accused of ‘host crucifixion’.85 The
Jewish theft of a consecrated Host might also precipitate the flow of blood.86
From a narratological perspective it is significant that a frequent theme in
many of the stories about Jews desecrating a consecrated Host is that they are
unable to destroy it after such a desecration.87
Behind, and parallel to, such anti-semitism was the cult of the Virgin
Mary, at least as it developed in eleventh–twelfth-century England. Mary was
endowed with characteristics of mercy and queenship but also characterised
as a ‘bane of the Jews’ and one who sought to convert and punish them. Jews
were accused of ‘desecrating images, blaspheming against Mary and assault-
ing her followers’.88
Such hatred of the Jews even expressed itself in the propagation of blood
libels according to which they were accused of ritually murdering Christian
children in order to use their blood.89 Interestingly, however, in what is
both a Marian and Eucharistic miracle, one which is in total contrast to the
anti-semitic strain of the above accounts, Mary, in a popular and powerful
narrative, saves a Jewish boy from death: having carelessly received Holy
Communion alongside his Christian companions, he is cast into an oven
by an enfuriated father. But Mary allows the boy to remain completely
unharmed by the flames.90 The father is executed and the boy and the boy’s
mother convert to Christianity.91
Identification with Christ > Stigmatic Blood

From medieval times at least, it has been understood that the priest ‘acts
in persona Christi Capitis’.92 At ordination the priest, an ordinary man, is
transformed and becomes an ikon of Christ himself who is characterised as
‘the eternal priest’.93 He is sacramentally aligned to Christ in his priesthood.94
However, the idea of the priest as an alter Christus assumes a particularly

vivid aspect on those very rare occasions when the priest becomes a stigmatic.
The wounds of the passion of Christ appear in the body of the priest and,
while the blood of the latter remains human blood – it is not believed to
change into the actual blood of Christ in the way that Catholic belief holds
that the wine at Mass becomes the blood of Christ after the Consecration – it
symbolises and parallels in a mystical fashion the passion and death of Christ
himself.
The miraculous nature of some stigmatic phenomena has been debated.95
The most famous stigmatic of the twentieth century, Padre Pio Forgione of
Pietrelcina (1887–1968), later canonised on 16 June 2002 by Pope John Paul
II as St Pio, was the subject of much intense speculation and suspicion con-
cerning the origin and nature of the wounds which appeared in his body.96
It is, of course, the famous medieval saint of Assisi, St Francis (1182–
1226) who ranks as the archetypical alter Christus by virtue of his miraculous
stigmata.97 Though not a priest, and remaining a deacon,98 he embodied the
finest sacerdotal virtues of purity, humility and brotherly love. Woodward
suggests that, above all other people, Francis marked a movement in
Christian spirituality towards a concentration on Christ’s humanity. Thus,
to be Christ-like was to copy in a really literal way the very human aspects of
the life and works of Jesus.99
However, extremely few human beings are marked with the stigmata,
least of all in the miraculous fashion in which it was bestowed on Francis.
Around the time of 15 September 1224, the Feast of the Exaltation
of the Holy Cross, on Mount Alverno, Francis, in ecstatic prayer, saw in a
vision a six-winged seraph with a crucifix between his wings.100 The vision
disappeared and Francis found that the five wounds of the passion of Christ
on the cross began to appear on his body:
For the marks of nails began to appear in his hands and feet, resembling
those he had seen in the vision of the man crucified. His hands and feet
seemed bored through in the middle with four wounds, and these holes
appeared to be pierced with nails of hard flesh; the heads were round and
black, and were seen in the palms of his hands, and in his feet in the upper
part of the instep. The points were long and appeared beyond the skin on
blood | 97
the other side, and were turned back as if they had been clenched with a
hammer. There was also in his right side a red wound made by the piercing
of a lance; and this often threw out blood, which stained the tunic and drawers
of the saint.101
Here then, it is ecstatic prayer, rather than doubt as at Bolsena, which pre-
cipitates the blood miracle. And, whereas at Bolsena, the blood flows from
the Host, signifying the actual body of Christ in the form of bread, on Mount
Alverno the blood issues from a human who has become a veritable ikon of
the passion.102
Healing Sought > Blood of the Martyr

Blood for healing, and the search for it, was a common topos of the Middle
Ages.103 With regard to the saints, Deirdre Jackson suggests a taxonomy of
three types of healing miracle: ‘Those performed by the saint directly, those per-
formed by proxy and those performed posthumously.’104 She identifies exam-
ples of all of these in the life of the famous Abbot and Bishop of Lindisfarne,
St Cuthbert (d. 687).105 Some of the most striking, perhaps because their
modality is the most strange, are the posthumous miracles performed by a
saint after his death. The martyred saint especially became a focus of particular
veneration. Jackson draws our attention to a liturgical Office written by a
contemporary of St Thomas à Becket named Benedict. This Canterbury monk
had been present at the brutal killing of the archbishop on 29 December
1170.106 In this Office Benedict expresses his wonder at both the number of
Becket’s miracles and their excellence: he was particularly impressed by the
miraculous restoration of eyes and genitals to suppliants who had lost them.107
Unlike Cuthbert, Becket had no miracles or signs attributed to him prior
to his death,108 except in popular retrospective hagiography: one such account
has him eating with the pope and duplicating Jesus’ miracle of Cana three
times.109 The brutal murder changed everything: the first blow to Becket by
the sword of the knight Reginald Fitz Urse took off the top of Becket’s head.
Finally, a helper of the four knights by the name of Hugh of Horsea ‘put his
foot on the victim’s neck, thrust the point of his sword into the open skull
and scattered blood and brains on the floor’.110 It was an extremely savage and
messy murder which produced much blood.
Afterwards, and as the reality of what had occurred sank in, rags were
dipped in Becket’s blood and some of it was collected in small containers.111
A cult began, though Barlow stresses that not all accounted Thomas’ murder
as martyrdom from the moment it happened.112 The essence of the cult was
blood, a martyr’s blood.113
The first miracle occurred as early as six days following the murder. Rags
stained with Becket’s blood were applied to the eyes of a blind woman called
Britheva who became able to see again.114 Other miracles swiftly followed:
applying or even drinking the blood of the martyred archbishop resulted in
cures of a paralysed tongue, a person struck down with fever, a dying man
and the swollen legs of Matthew of Canterbury’s wife, a woman named
Godiva.115
The blood from the Host at Bolsena in a slightly later age (1263) seems
at first sight somewhat removed from the blood shed by Becket in 1170.
The first was designed to be a remedy for doubt. The second, the miraculous
healings resulting from the drinking of Becket’s blood or the application of
material soaked in that blood, bore immediate witness to the sanctity of the
saint and the grievous wrong inflicted on him by King Henry II (r. 1154–89),
wittingly or unwittingly, and the four knightly murderers. However, from
an anthropological and narratological perspective, this metamotif of blood
bespeaks a supernatural domain of power well beyond the physical properties
of that substance. Differences, of course, still remain despite this unifying
aspect of sanguinary divine power: Bolsena produces divine blood from the
Host according to popular Catholic belief; the martyred Becket sheds human
blood from his body whose product is, nonetheless, divine healing.
Coagulated Blood > Liquefied Blood

The miraculous liquefaction of blood from its coagulated state signifies and
asserts life, indeed, eternal life.116 The most famous liquefaction of blood, said
to take place every year up to this day in Naples, is the liquefaction of the
blood of the early fourth-century martyr, St Januarius, on his feast day of 19
September.117 Failure of the blood to liquefy is regarded as a sign of impend-
ing disaster.118 While a procession with the relics of St Januarius through
the streets of Naples is said to have calmed a violent eruption of Vesuvius
in 1631,119 Thavis tells us that non-liquefaction down the ages has been fol-
blood | 99
lowed by plagues, wars, earthquakes, epidemics, political conflict, droughts,

an invasion by Turkey, not to mention the fact that thirteen archbishops of
Naples died after such non-liquefaction.120
Here, if anywhere, is a dynamic example of blood which, in popular
Neapolitan belief at least, has miraculous powers. The hierarchs in the Vatican,
however, in the last few decades have been more circumspect and some have
preferred to characterise the event as it occurs on any of its three ‘liquefaction
feast days’ as a ‘prodigy’ rather than a ‘miracle’.121 Despite official Vatican
scepticism though, mixed with the seeming sensitivity of modern popes like
Benedict XVI (r. 2005–13) and Francis (r. 2013–) kissing the ampoule of St
Januarius’ blood when they visited Naples in 2007 and 2015 respectively,
Thavis succinctly notes that ‘in general, the Vatican has learned not to mess
with Saint Januarius’.122
The phenomenon of the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius at
Naples shares in the metatheme of an exhibition of sacred power, a charac-
teristic also, as we have seen, of the event of Bolsena and the post-mortem
healings in the blood of the martyred Archbishop Becket. Narratologically,
the liquefaction also exhibits the wider theme of protection.
St Januarius has become the revered patron and protector of the city of
Naples. Failure of his blood to liquefy is taken by some as a personal insult
to the city, a withdrawal of protection. A liquefaction accomplished is a
dynamic sign that all is well and that St Januarius continues in his designated
primary protective role.123
Chalice for Wine > Blood

Caroline Walker Bynum notes the medieval topos whereby blood suddenly
appears in the chalice in place of wine:124 ‘Subito in dicto calice miraculose
verus sanguis oculis corporeis visibilis apparuit’125 (‘Suddenly in the aforesaid
chalice, true blood miraculously appeared, visible to bodily eyes’).126 She
stresses, however, that these sorts of what she calls ‘chalice miracles’ did not
follow the usual major pattern of Eucharistic miracles in which blood would
be seen to drip or pour from a consecrated Host as evidence to a miscreant,
disbeliever or desecrator of the truth in Catholic tradition of the miracle of
transubstantiation.127
We have briefly surveyed five blood paradigms in addition to the primary
100 | i sla m, chri sti a ni ty a n d th e mir a cul o us
one of Host > Blood. In each of these we can identify what might be termed
a ‘middle figure’ or element which is ‘the catalyst of need’. Narratologically
this is the real engine of change. We might contrast it with the Joseph story as
it appears both in the Book of Genesis and the Qur’an where it is the dream
which is the catalyst for advancing the narration.128 There is a need for and
by the Host to assert its true sacred identity and majesty to the profaner and
desecrator by pouring real blood. There is a need for the would-be saint who
meditates fervently on the passion of Christ to so identify with Christ that
he or she becomes a stigmatic. There is a need to show to the assassin and the
simple pious person alike that the slain martyr is indeed a saint whose soul
is indubitably in Heaven, by the production of healing miracles. Those who
might doubt that the coagulated blood in a phial is indeed that of a saint
need reassurance and they have their doubts laid to rest when that coagulated
blood liquefies. Finally, the wine in the chalice which spontaneously becomes
blood is again a sign of reassurance to the Catholic doubter and sceptic of the
truth of transubstantiation.
Narratologically, then, the theme of ‘need’ is cited between the two
polarised themes of ‘doubt’ and ‘belief’. Other themes of power, sacred-
ness and admonition are never far behind. As Bynum succinctly summarises:
‘Blood did not appear randomly.’129
Blood miracles, then, served to quell doubt. But they had political, finan-
cial and social ramifications as well.130 In any consideration of such blood
phenomena, and indeed, all other miraculous phenomena as well, context
is all. Referring to the devotion, particularly among the older generation of
Neapolitans, to St Januarius, John Thavis notes that this devotion arises not
from the pious enlightenment by that saint of the people in their doctrines,
nor from an increase in hope nor from the expectation of a juster community
but simply because he delivers miracles. He fulfils a need.131
Apparitions, too, fulfil a similar need, a need for reassurance, comfort,
safety in addition to confirmation of those doctrines held to be true by
the faithful. The visions at Fatima, for example, which took place between
13 May and 13 October 1917, had as their hideous backdrop, as Chris
Maunder reminds us, the horrors of the First World War, with political
unrest, food riots and many of the youths of Portugal finding themselves
in the thick of the fighting in that war. Mary’s appearance was a consoling
blood | 101
presence, one who brought news that that terrible war would soon be
over.132
The First World War, with all its horrors, bloodshed, chaos and unrest,
did come to an end in the year succeeding the Fatima apparitions, on
Armistice Day, 11 November 2018. But 1917 itself had also been a spec-
tacularly horrible backdrop to Fatima in other respects as well, with the
outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the bloody Battles of Arras, Ypres
and Passchendaele.133
Wartime need for comfort and reassurance can be paralleled by peace-
time need for confirmation that deceased persons, revered in their lifetimes
for their sanctity, are indeed in Heaven, usually by means of formal can-
onisation of that person. This is particularly true of founders of religious
orders. For example, the canonisation cause was opened in France in 2016 by
Bishop Joseph de Metz-Noblat of Langres of Mother Marie-Adèle Garnier
(1838–1924): she founded in 1898 at Montmartre, Paris, a Benedictine
congregation of nuns, known formally as the Adorers of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus and colloquially as the Tyburn Nuns because of the presence of one
community’s convent near the old execution site at Tyburn in London. It
is claimed that on one occasion durng Mass Mother Garnier witnessed the
consecrated Host become visible bleeding flesh.134
The metamotif of blood thus looms large in all these accounts. From
Bolsena in 1263 and its primary blood paradigm, through the other blood
paradigms which we have adumbrated, into the present age, we find a con-
stant leitmotiv of life and power. For the believer, God is alive in the world
and a primary theophany at certain times of need takes the form of blood.
Within that foundational paradigm of wine > blood, exercised and energised
by every priest at every Mass in the eyes of the believer, there is an eternal and
ongoing redemption for which the lance of Longinus stands as precursor.135
Mechtild of Magdeburg in the thirteenth century powerfully and clearly sup-
ported this idea, stating that Christ’s wounds would continue to bleed until
the end of time until sin itself had ceased to be.136
Theologically and narratologically, then, blood is the arch-symbol, sign
and metamotif of eternal salvation. It is little wonder that its profanation,
or alleged profanation, in terms of the sacred species at Mass should have
engendered the profound horror of the pious believer in the Middle Ages,
and that a need to prove the reality of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist
to the sceptic and the doubter was omnipresent.
Such theological need, of course, opened the way for the incautious,
over-pious or just plain fraudulent to embellish the primary event as per-
ceived in its unadorned state with much myth and legend. One might create
the primary event of the ‘miracle’ in an outright medieval fraud,137 or, indeed,
in a modern one.138 Thus a certain South Korean Catholic named Julia Youn
Hong-sun received communion and then claimed that the Host had become
flesh which bled inside her mouth.139 She was later excommunicated.140
It is useful, finally, to sieve the blood miracle events adumbrated above
through our four ‘gradations of attitude’ of disbelief and scepticism, caution,
belief, and memory and memorialisation.
We have already stressed that the miracle, whether it was the Host
turning into flesh or suddenly dripping blood, was designed to be a catalyst
for the curing of doubt, doubt as to the reality of transubstantiation, doubt
which could afflict even the pious and the theologically learned.141 Equally,
however, firm faith might be the catalyst for a miraculous vision with
the wounds of Christ at its heart. A popular narrative recounts what has
become characterised as ‘St Gregory’s Mass’. According to this story, Pope
St Gregory I (r. 590–604)142 had a vision during Mass of Christ bearing
the marks of the passion, a vision which gave rise to numerous artistic
depictions such as that produced by Simon Bening in about 1535–40.143
In such paintings we see the blood from the wounds of Christ flowing into
the chalice, portraying what has been called ‘the quintessential Eucharistic
tale’.144 Narratologically, we have in this story a union of vision and the
appearance of chalice blood.
For Eamon Duffy, Pope Gregory I was possibly the greatest pope who
ever lived and certainly, the greatest in late antiquity.145 Gregory’s humble
monastic piety had led him to try to refuse the papacy when, as just a deacon
by rank, he was elected to succeed Pope Pelagius II (r. 579–90)146. It comes
as no surprise, then, to find such miraculous phenomena as ‘St Gregory’s
Mass’ associated with Pope St Gregory. Duffy puts it succinctly: ‘The piety
revealed in his Dialogues is colourful, receptive to miracles and marvels, readily
moved to awe’.147 In Gregory, vision, sacred blood and chalice merge in a
narratological whole, the metatheme of vision embracing neatly the twin
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topoi or metamotifs of blood and chalice; all are given a further dimension in
physical artistic expression by such as the artist Simon Bening.
Gregory’s devotion and piety were not of a sophisticated and intellectual
nature148 despite his acumen and huge practical abilities in a multiplicity of
areas.149 Temperamentally then, he would have been predisposed to vision
and miracle and inclined to belief in such phenomena like many adherents of
popular strains of Christianity, before and after him.150
Others, however, were not so sure. The 1451 decree of the papal legate sent
to Germany, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64), Archbishop of Brixen,
vehemently inveighed against and, indeed, forbade, the display and adoration
of ‘red hosts’ which were believed to be stained with Christ’s own blood.151
Nicholas was acutely aware of how ordinary people might be deceived152 and
hostile too, to the sale of indulgences153 and those pious devotions which were
centred on the alleged physical manifestations of sacred blood.154
It is clear that this Nicholas of Cusa attacked fraud, and perceived fraud,
wherever he encountered it. He was also one of three major fifteenth-century
scholars who questioned and demolished the authenticity of the so-called
‘Donation of Constantine’ which had previously been held to date from the
fourth century.155
Thus, pious acceptance and belief might feature in the hearts of the
faithful, high and low, but such attitudes were matched by senior hierarchs
like Nicholas of Cusa with profound doubt, scepticism and, indeed, disbelief.
Such phenomena as Hosts which turned to flesh and chalices which mani-
fested not wine but blood were held to belong to the domain of fraud. Their
alleged miraculous efficacy was likewise held to be fraudulent and, along
with the sale of indulgences and superstitions of all kinds, was, in the view of
Nicholas and other like-minded reformers, to be stamped out.
The ‘blood phenomena’ adumbrated above, whether in the chalice or
by means of liquefaction as with St Januarius, gradually became down the
ages the objects of doubt or, at the very least, caution, in the eyes of official
Catholicism. Popular belief and acceptance, still present in some quarters,
has given place to official scepticism, almost derision, among some hierarchs.
John Thavis quotes the Jesuit Professor Giandomenico Mucci as stating: ‘The
Vatican has never pressed for an investigation of this “miracle” [the liquefac-
tion of the blood of St Januarius] because there’d be a revolution in Naples.
In Naples they believe more in the blood of San Gennaro than in the Holy
Trinity.’156
Butler’s Lives provides a classic note of caution which pertains to the
present day. The comments are applicable to all the blood phenomena which
we have surveyed above, despite their somewhat old-fashioned articulation
and being couched within a particular Catholic faith tradition. The passage
occurs directly at the end of the entry for St Januarius:
Miracles recorded in holy scripture are revealed facts, and an object of faith.
Other miracles are not considered in the same light; neither does our faith
rest upon them as upon the former, though they illustrate and confirm it;
nor do they demand or admit any higher assent than that which prudence
requires and that which is due to the evidence or human authority upon
which they depend. When such miracles are propounded, they are not to
be rashly admitted; the evidence of the fact and circumstances ought to
be examined to the bottom and duly weighed; where that fails, it is part
of prudence to suspend or refuse our assent. Also if it appears doubtful
whether an effect be natural or proceed from a supernatural interposition,
our assent ought to lean according to the greater weight of probability, and
God, who is the author of all events, natural and supernatural, is always to
be glorified. If human evidence set the certainty of a miracle beyond the
reach of any doubt, it must more powerfully excite us to raise our minds to
God in sentiments of humble adoration, love and praise.157
However, perhaps it is memory and the human capacity for memorialisa-

tion which have kept alive, both in medieval and modern times, the ‘blood
miracles’ which we have surveyed. As we have seen, memory is an integral
aspect of the sacrifice of the Mass. The miraculous appearance of flesh and
blood from the bread and wine powerfully reinforces the theme of ‘divine
presence’158 in the world and, for the beholder, settles in a most startling and
dynamic way, the doubts of the doubter. The theme of wholeness is apparent
in the way the faith of the sceptic is ‘made whole’ once again on the one hand,
and apparent in the miraculous transformation of the bread and the wine into
flesh and blood in the eyes of the believer. The ‘veil of the sacrament’ is thus
removed for the beholder and Christ’s whole body and blood are dramatically
put on view.
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The motif of the water rituals which we discussed in a previous chapter

are replaced by the motifs of bread and wine, offered in sacrifice by the priest.
We have examined the metathemes of faith and doubt on the one hand, but
the metatheme of Church authority on the other is rarely slow in making
itself apparent when such alleged miraculous phenomena come to the public
gaze. As the custodian of ‘correct belief’, the Church might alternately involve
a Nicholas of Cusa, for example, and issue a condemnation; or it might
show its approbation; or, as in the case of the liquefaction of the blood of St
Januarius, it might prefer to preserve a discreet silence.159
4.3 The Writing in the Blood: Sufi Blood and Hallajian Passion
In this section we encounter two miraculous blood phenomena in which

writing appears in the blood which is shed. In the first instance, it is blood
shed freely, albeit involuntarily, as a result of extreme meditation and prayer.
An analogy is clearly the bloodflow of devoutly prayerful stigmatics like St
Francis and Padre Pio. In the second, the bloodshed is involuntary, inevitable
and the consequence of extreme barbaric torture.
The writing which appears in the blood proclaims both the sanctity of
the agent and the omnipresence of the Deity. In a very real sense, there is the
scribal intervention of a divine agency. The Sufi novice, whose story will be
recounted below together with that of the mystic al-Hallaj, produces from
his own body direct signs of the reality of God and may himself be accounted
a living sign in his own body. All this is true of al-Hallaj as well. Both bear a
sanguinary and all too real witness to the Qur’anic verse:
Soon will We show them Our Signs in the (furthest) regions

(of the earth) and in their own souls (Sa-nurīhim āyātinā
fī ’l-āfāq wa fī anfusihim).160
The Blood of the Sufi: Prayer >Blood

Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Tustari (818–96) ranks among the greatest Sufi
shaykhs of the ninth century ad.161 His name derives from his birthplace
Tustar in Khuzistan, Persia, but he died in exile in Basra in 896.162 He is
always associated with the permanent need for repentance,163 a factor which
precipitated his exile164 even though he tried to avoid theological polemic.165
Annemarie Schimmel characterises him as one who ‘retired into the

sweetness of his inner life and found there the peace that the disturbed outer
world could not give him’.166 She quotes the equally great Sufi of Baghdad,
Abu ’l-Qasim ibn Muhammad al-Junayd (d. 910), as praising him as ‘the
proof of the Sufis’,167 and she remarks on his ‘highly interesting’ theory of
saintliness: ‘He spoke of a pillar of light formed from the souls of those who
are predestined to become saints.’168
Alexander Knysh draws our attention to the primary emphasis that
al-Tustari placed on the practice of dhikr, the recollection of the Deity.169
The miraculous blood story which we shall shortly relate, at the centre of
which is Sahl’s disciple, powerfully illustrates this. Nile Green observes that
Tustari started the idea of associating dhikr with the heart, the latter being
the true seat of knowledge: its purification would let in the primal light of
God Himself.170
Sahl bequeathed no writings to posterity and so it was left for others to
collect and propagate what he had said and taught.171 One of these was ʿAli b.
ʿUthman al-Jullabi al-Hujwiri (d. 1073 or 1077), born in the Ghaznan suburb
of Hujwir, now in Afghanistan,172 who is famed for having expounded the
earliest Persian account of the Sufi path173 under the title of Kashf al-Maªjūb
(The Unveiling of the Hidden).174 In it he writes as follows:
[Sahl al-Tustari] used to bring his disciples to perfection in self-mortification

(mujāhadat). It is related in a well-known anecdote that he said to one of
his disciples: ‘Strive to say continuously for one day, “O Allah!O Allah! O
Allah!” and do the same next day and the day after that,’ until he became
habituated to saying those words. Then he bade him to repeat them at night
also, until they became so familiar that he uttered them even during his
sleep. Then he said: ‘Do not repeat them any more, but let all your faculties
be engrossed in remembering God.’ The disciple did this until he became
absorbed in the thought of God. One day, when he was in his house, a piece
of wood fell on his head and broke it. The drops of blood which trickled to
the ground bore the legend ‘Allah! Allah! Allah!’175
There is a dual intertextual resonance here with the Christian tradition.

Al-Tustari’s insistence on repentance, a topic repeated in al-Hujwiri’s
Kashf,176 recalls John the Baptist’s cry in the Judaean desert: ‘Repent, for the
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kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.’177 Metánoia (repentance, change of

mind) is at the heart both of the message of the Baptist and al-Tustari and,
indeed, that of Christ Himself: ‘There will be more rejoicing in heaven over
one sinner repenting than over ninety-nine upright people who have no need
of repentance.’178
Just as the Sufi novice’s concise but intense litany, repeating the name
Allah, brings forth blood, so too, in the Christian tradition, intense prayer and
meditation may produce the same, or even more dramatic, effects. We have
noted this in the case of famous stigmatics like the medieval St Francis of Assisi
and the twentieth-century St Pio (Padre Pio) of Pietrelcina. Christ’s agony in
the Garden of Gethsemani, where ‘his sweat fell to the ground like great drops
of blood’,179 provides another startling example. Michael F. Patella notes that
some people, when suffering from very extreme stress, may exhibit the signs of
what is called in medical parlance ‘hematidrosis’, that is, sweating blood, and
it is surmised by some that Jesus was actually subject to this condition in the
Garden as he prayed in terror to be excused from his forthcoming passion.180
Finally, we note, again from an intertextual perspective, the repetition
of a litany which evokes and embraces memory. In the Sufi novice’s case,
it was the remembrance and repetition of the name of the Deity Himself,
combined with an injunction from his master, in effect, to be still. Nicholson
paraphrases the extended passage from al-Hujwiri’s Kashf which we quoted
earlier:181 ‘“Now,” said he [the Sufi master], “Be silent and occupy yourself
with recollecting them.” At last the disciple’s whole being was absorbed by
the thought of Allah.’182
This whole passage powerfully resonates with the hesychasm of the
Eastern Christian Orthodox Churches with their emphasis on the silent
recitation of short litanies like the Jesus Prayer183 and on ‘stillness’ (Greek:
hesychia).184 Much of this was taken over into the Western Christian tradition
by the Benedictine monk John Main in his popular works on meditation.185
The Passion of al-Hallaj: Blood > Voice and Writing

The story which we have cited above about Sahl al-Tustari and his novice
assumes a further significance when we realise that the famous mystic Abu
’l-Mughith al-Husayn b. Mansur al-Hallaj (857/8–922) was initially a pupil
and disciple of al-Tustari. However, al-Hujwiri notes that, having been Sahl’s
pupil, al-Hallaj suddenly upped and left, without firstly seeking Sahl’s per-
mission, in order to join the circle of another great Sufi by the name of ʿAmr
b. ʿUthman Makki (d. 996).186
Later, we are told that he also left Makki, in the same way without
permission, and tried to become a pupil of the famous Sufi of Baghdad, Abu
’l-Qasim ibn Muhammad al-Junayd (d. 910) who refused to take him.187
Thereafter he was also refused by all the other Sufi shaykhs.188
Modern commentators have remarked on this early ‘flightiness’ (rest-
lessness?) of the young Hallaj and his somewhat cavalier attitude towards
authority.189 That magisterial expert on al-Hallaj, Herbert Mason, observes
that this series of flighty episodes, and the consequent reaction of the shaykhs
of the day, reflects both the desire for pupil loyalty by each shaykh and their
suspicions about Hallaj’s obviously impulsive nature and disinclination to
join any form of ‘established Sufism’.190
Al-Hallaj’s restlessness is evident in his wide-ranging travels; we find him
visiting Iran, Central Asia and India.191 Eventually, he ends up in Baghdad
where he is executed in a most brutal fashion in 922.192
Al-Hallaj’s most notorious saying, and the one for which he has been
variously praised, explicated or excoriated, was Anā ’l-Óaqq, a phrase which,
translated literally means ‘I am the Truth’. Schimmel’s rendition is more
emphatic: ‘I am the Absolute [or Creative] Truth [or the True Reality]’.193
In an extended passage in the Kitāb al-˝awāsīn (The Book of ˝ā’ Sīn),194
al-Hallaj wrote:
If ye do not recognise God, at least recognise His signs. I am that sign, I am

the Creative Truth (ana ’l-haqq), because through the Truth I am a truth
eternally. My friends and teachers are Iblis and Pharaoh. Iblis was threat-
ened with Hell-fire, yet he did not recant. Pharaoh was drowned in the sea,
yet he did not recant, for he would not acknowledge anything between him
and God. And I, though I am killed and crucified, and though my hands
and feet are cut off – I do not recant.195
Al-Hallaj proclaimed Anā ’l-Óaqq to the Sufi Abu Bakr al-Shibli (d. 946), an
erstwhile friend, in the al-Mansur Mosque.196 So the fundamental question
is this: what exactly did al-Hallaj mean? Was he saying that he had become
completely one with God?197
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In the Qur’an God is proclaimed as al-Óaqq thus: Allāh huwa al-Óaqq.198

The phrase has been variously translated as ‘God is the Reality’199 and ‘God is
the Truth’.200 Leaving aside the possibility suggested by one author that the
notorious allocution attributed to al-Hallaj may have been apocryphal201 – a
minority view – we are confronted by one of the most mysterious of the
‘ecstatic utterances’ (sha†aªāt)202 in Islamic mystical literature. Mojaddedi
concurs, characterising this as ‘the most notorious of all theopathic (ša†aªāt)
recorded in the history of Sufism’.203
So what exactly did al-Hallaj mean? Was he really claiming Divinity
for himself or was it the case that he wished to show that God was speak-
ing through him and using him as a mouthpiece? Carl Ernst, inter alia,
inclines to the latter view.204 There has been considerable division among
Muslim scholars from early times as to whether al-Hallaj was guilty of
blasphemy.205 Annemarie Schimmel draws our attention to the views of
the hostile opinion towards al-Hallaj propagated by the tenth-century
Baghdadi cataloguer and bookseller, Ibn al-Nadim (d. c. 990–8).206 He
wrote:
[Al-Hallaj] laid claim to every science, but nevertheless [his claims] were
futile [wa kāna ‚ifran min dhālika] . . . He was ignorant, bold, obsequi-
ous [wa kāna jāhilan, miqdāman, mutadahwaran] . . . Among his adherents
he claimed divinity, speaking of divine union [wa yaddaʿī ʿinda a‚ªābihi
al-ilāhiyya wa yaqūl bi ’l-ªulūl].207
For Schimmel this neatly ‘articulates the conventional reading of Óallāj’s

personality’.208
Beyond noting these views, however, this is not a debate into which I
propose to enter more deeply. What concerns us here with regard to our
major theme of blood miracles and blood > voice and writing is the startling
and miraculous aftermath of al-Hallaj’s bloody execution.
Before we move to this, two points may be stressed. It is true that many
of al-Hallaj’s contemporaries,209 together with several modern scholars, have
suggested that zandaqa (unbelief, freethinking, blasphemy)210 was the cause
of al-Hallaj’s execution. But many also realise that the politics of the age
played a major role as well.211 Secondly, it is salutary to note the emollient
verdict pronounced upon al-Hallaj by al-Hujwiri:
The Íúfí Shaykhs are at variance concerning him. Some reject him, while
others accept him . . . Others, again, suspend their judgement about him
. . . Therefore we leave him to the judgement of God, and honour him according
to the tokens of the Truth (ªaqq) which we have found him to possess.212
Al-Hujwiri’s deployment of the word ªaqq is intriguing and it is perhaps

significant that, in the translation by Nicholson cited above, the translator
chooses to capitalise his translation as ‘Truth’.
We turn now to the actual Passion of al-Hallaj, as narrated by the great
Persian mystic and poet, Farid al-Din Muhammad b. Ibrahim ʿAttar (d. c.
1190–1230).213 He is held to have played a major role in increasing the speed
by which al-Hallaj became a figure of veneration and praise.214
Two primary sources will be deployed and narrated here. The Ilāhī-
Nāmā (Book of God) of Farid al-Din ʿAttar portrays al-Hallaj on the gallows
having had his hands cut off. He proceeds to smear his face with the blood
which gushes forth. When he is asked why he does this and reminded that
the ritual ablution performed in blood renders the prayer invalid, al-Hallaj
replies that the discoverer of love’s secret must, perforce, carry out the ritual
ablutions required before prayer in blood.215 Here it is not a case of prayer
> blood in a miraculous manner but there is still a powerful association of
prayer and blood in this text from a narratological perspective.
It is, however, in ʿAttar’s Tadhkirat al-Awliyā’ (Memorial of the Friends
of God)216 that we find al-Hallaj’s passion delineated in full. The text tells
us that everyone agreed that al-Hallaj should be executed because he had
claimed to be ‘The Truth’.217 Some, however, do seem to have been aware
of the possibility that al-Hallaj was using ‘ecstatic utterances’ and drew
attention to a possible esoteric sense of what al-Hallaj had said. However,
al-Junayd had no tolerance for the possibility of such esotericism and was
vehement in his calls for al-Hallaj to be killed.218 That was the general view
which prevailed.
Accordingly, al-Hallaj’s hands and feet were amputated and his eyes were
gouged out. Before his ears and nose were cut off, al-Hallaj prayed, in words
intertextually redolent of Christ’s words on the cross in which he prayed to
the Father that his crucifiers might be forgiven because they did not know
what they were doing:219
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‘O God,’ he cried, lifting his face to heaven, ‘do not exclude them for the
suffering they are bringing on me for thy sake, neither deprive them of this
felicity. Praise be to God, for that they have cut off my feet as I trod Thy
way. And if they strike off my head from my body, they have raised me up
to the head of the gallows, contemplating Thy majesty.’220
Narratologically, from the perspective of miraculous blood > voice and writ-
ing, the next passage from ʿAttar’s Tadhkirat al-Awliyā’ is the most significant:
Even as they were cutting off his head, Hallaj smiled. Then he gave up the
ghost . . . From each one of his members came the declaration, ‘I am the
Truth’ . . . So they burned his limbs. From his ashes came the cry, ‘I am the
Truth’, even as in the time of his slaying every drop of blood as it trickled
formed the word Allah. Dumbfounded they cast his ashes into the Tigris.
As they floated on the surface of the water, they continued to cry, ‘I am the
Truth.’221
Writing and cries flow from blood. Here the narrative gives us a victim who
is at the same time a victim-celebrant, fully immersed in the celebration
and offering of his own death and martyrdom. Semiotically, the narrative
thus achieves a parallel, though only of a kind, with the sacrifice of Calvary.
Forgiveness for his torturers is sought as al-Hallaj’s blood is poured forth,
and while there is no soteriological dimension as in the classical Christian
interpretation of Christ’s death on the cross,222 the manner of al-Hallaj’s
death has led many scholars to draw comparisons between Jesus and this
Islamic mystic. Did he have the Christian narrative in mind as he prepared to
celebrate and undergo his own death?223
Further comparisons are possible as well, though they should be
treated more from a narratological perspective rather than a theological.
Just as Christ’s sacrifice on the cross in the Catholic Christian tradition is
re-presented, made present and memorialised on the altars at the celebration
of the Eucharist (and as the same sacrifice),224 so the martyrdom of al-Hallaj
in the modern taʿziya/taʿziyih (Miracle or Passion Play)225 in Iran is made
present to a modern audience today.
In a taʿziyih entitled Mansur Hallaj, Shams of Tabriz and Mulla of
Rum, a twentieth-century addition to the taʿziyih repertoire,226 al-Hallaj is
executed, blood pours forth from his throat onto the earth and the words
Anā ’l-Óaqq are formed in the blood.227 The mulla who has condemned
him collects up the blood which has been shed in a small flask and returns
home with it. Thinking that it is poison, the despairing daughter of the
mulla, who is paralysed, decides to commit suicide and drinks from the
flask. Instead she finds herself cured and later, pregnant, rather than dead
in consequence.228 The mulla comes to the realisation that the blood of al-
Hallaj must be miraculous and that al-Hallaj has been falsely and unjustly
condemned.229
The taʿziyih drama, then, piles miracle upon miracle as a result of the
flow of the blood of al-Hallaj. There is the primary miracle which we encoun-
tered in ʿAttar’s narrative of the appearance of the words Anā ’l-Óaqq in the
blood and voice of the martyr. But in this drama there is a triple miracle
as a result of the drinking of the blood: the afflicted daughter is cured; she
becomes pregnant by the blood without knowing how; and the mulla, who
has been so quick to condemn al-Hallaj, is persuaded by these miracles of the
innocence of the martyr.
When we turn to the attitude of the bystander towards the blood miracle
of Anā ’l-Óaqq, we find that the arena of disbelief and scepticism pertains
not to the reality of the blood miracle but the period preceding the miracle.
The bystanders – or, at least, some – doubt the very possibility of what
al-Hallaj is saying, choosing, wilfully or unknowingly, to misinterpret it as
a claim to divinity itself and thus grieviously blasphemous. As ʿAttar shows
in his narrative, however, some do exhibit caution, do accept the possibility
of an ecstatic utterance, and the idea that it might be God speaking through
al-Hallaj, using him as a mouthpiece to proclaim His Reality (Óaqq) to a
careless and unheeding humanity Al-Hujwiri’s statement cited above shows
the Sufi shaykhs of his own age running the gamut in their view of al-Hallaj
from rejection, through to suspension of judgement to acceptance.
The taʿziyih entitled Man‚ūr Óallāj to which we have referred shows all
types of disbelief, scepticism and caution morphing into a wondering belief as
the mulla beholds the effect of the draught of blood on his sick daughter. In
consequence, he proclaims the innocence of al-Hallaj and absolves him from
all blasphemy or free-thinking.
In this episode we discover an intertext which focuses on post facto belief:
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something, a dramatic event or even a miracle, occurs and belief follows indif-
ference or unbelief. Thus in the Christian tradition, the death of Jesus on the
cross is followed by the rending of the veil in the Temple, tombs opening, the
resurrection of many from the dead and an earthquake. The centurion and his
fellow guards, all traumatised by what they see, proclaim: ‘In truth this man
was son of God.’230 An obscure Roman soldier is thus brought to identify
divinity in wrecked humanity.231
In the case of al-Hallaj, ikon and possible mouthpiece of divinity,
ʿAttar’s account provides us with terrifying post-mortem signs as well: his
dismembered body cries Anā ’l-Óaqq; his ashes and his blood bear the same
message, even as the former float upon the Tigris.232 Thus the very blood and
ashes of al-Hallaj encapsulate a dynamic and physical memory of the Divine.
The role of memory and memorialisation has been the primary theme in
al-Hallaj’s life which is lived as a physical ikon or ‘memory’ of the divine
presence in the world. It is blood which creates a memory of wholeness as
the martyr seeks a complete and perfect purification in his ritual ablutions.233
After its execution, al-Hallaj’s body retains its memory of wholeness (that
is, the wholeness which comes from being a mouthpiece of the Divine) as
it delineates in blood, voice and ash the immortal wholeness of the Divine
through the phrase Anā ’l-Óaqq.234
The casting of his ashes into the River Tigris is an unritualised act of
despair and fear by the executioners. Here we do not have the motif of a
formal water ritual, connected with this great river, which memorialises an
action or miracle performed in the near or distant past in the history of al-
Hallaj himself, nor that of his compatriots and executioners. But we do have
an unforseen water miracle of another kind:
Now Óallāj had said: ‘When they cast my ashes into the Tigris, Baghdad
will be in peril of drowning under the water. Lay my robe in front of the
water, or Baghdad will be destroyed.’ His servant, when he saw what had
happened, brought the master’s robe and laid it on the bank of the Tigris.
The waters subsided, and his ashes became silent.235
From a narratological perspective, then, this is not the account of a

perennial water ritual. If ritual be sought in the narrative, it lies in the
manner of the narrative where the repeated emphasis on the phrase Anā
’l-Óaqq assumes an incantatory quality as al-Hallaj takes on the mantle of

God’s sublime mouthpiece, and blood gives rise to miracles in blood and
ash.
Al-Hallaj does not appear to doubt his mission. Whether self-chosen or
inspired, he knows what he is and proclaims loudly that he is the captive of
God and salvation’s sentinel.236 If he so wishes or rather, when he so wishes,
he looses the fetters of 300 of his fellow prisoners with a single miraculous
sign and cracks the walls of the prison with another.237 Miraculous signs thus
provide ample physical evidence of his miraculous ikonic nature to those
who will but look. God empowers him as the captive of God to subvert and,
indeed, transcend the authority and the power of the state as it is present in
Baghdad in its caliphs, wazirs, governors and judges.
The state’s power and authority, our metatheme here, with all its gory
executioner’s apparatus, overthrows al-Hallaj physically, but God, through
the blood and ashes of al-Hallaj, has the last word: Anā ’l-Óaqq.
Christian Narrative
From a narratological perspective, the metamotif of blood has a universal
significance in all traditions, whether it be in the Christian or the Islamic
traditions. The ‘blood of the martyr’ was a dominant motif in the early
Christian Church. Martyrdom was also associated with another universal
metatheme, love, extreme love of God. This was clearly emphasised by St John
Chrysostom (d. 407) in his Homily of praise on the holy martyrs Juventinus and
Maximinus who were martyred under Julian the Apostate: they so longed to be
united with God that they sought martrydom even in the absence of formal
persecution.238 Overwhelming love of God so drove the would-be martyrs
that they happily confronted severe torture and ultimate death.239 The motif
of blood is at the heart of this and, as we stressed earlier, the Catholic Mass
is considered by the believer to be a miraculous blood sacrifice which re-
presents the blood sacrifice of Calvary in bloodless form.240
Thus, while the basic outlines of the narratives of Bolsena and other
similar phenomena may be simple in style, albeit with occasional ornamenta-
tion and differences in detail, the whole universal metamotif of blood in the
Christian tradition is multifaceted in actuality and symbolism. Very impor-
blood | 115
tantly, this metamotif in patristic and hagiographical theology bespeaks

another metatheme, that of love for the Divine.
Repetition, too, plays a significant role as in the physical repetition
of the celebration of the Mass/Eucharist/Communion Service in the vari-
ous branches of the Christian Church and the narratological repetition
of the occurrence of ‘blood miracles’ from the Middle Ages to the pre-
sent. In terms of ‘type’ and ‘antitype’, Calvary is both prototype and type;
Eucharistic celebrations and Eucharistic miracles may be characterised as
antitypes. In the Christian tradition, then, an intertext may be perceived, at
the heart of which is the dominant metamotif of blood whose, albeit rare,
physical articulation may be in the ‘blood miracles’ which we have surveyed
above.
In the miraculous realm, the onlooker may ask who, then, is the real
agent or protagonist? Who really performs the miracle? Clearly, for the
believer, it is God Himself who acts at Bolsena and the other famous sites of
Eucharistic blood miracles. But it is by the agency of a priest and often, via
the agency of doubt. Doubt is the catalyst for the blood miracle and, as we
shall suggest in a short while, the elements of a possible paradigm are here.
Attitudes to the alleged miracle are usually more than just binary, ranging
from full belief and acceptance through a spectrum of caution and doubt to
total disbelief.
The doubting priest often serves as the narratological catalyst or ‘engine’
for the narrative of the blood miracle. The significance of the miracle lies in its
demonstration for the faithful of the reality of the sacrament and the sublime
power of God. In the light of all this, we may articulate the following simple,
anthropological paradigm:
Doubting priest > need for reassurance > ritual sacrifice > blood miracle >
restored belief.
By way of total ritual contrast, here with a huge emphasis on the metamotif
of blood, we may note that, whereas in the Christian sacrificial Eucharist,
the intention of the celebrant is to ‘bring’ Divinity down into the realms
of humanity and achieve a miraculous ‘closeness’ or even ‘union’ with the
Divine, in Polynesian religion the reverse is the case.
Alfred Gell puts it neatly:
Most important Polynesian ritual operated in precisely the inverse sense to

Christian communion, i.e. the intention was to cause the divinity to leave
(some part of ) the world, rather than to induce the divinity to enter (some
part of ) it.241
In consequence, rituals, perceived to have ‘miraculous’ or ‘magical’ proper-

ties of desanctification were performed for high-ranking Polynesian individ
uals.242 Thus, an element of the ‘miraculous’ entered both Christian Catholic
and Polynesian rituals; but the intention and intended consequence were
vastly different.
Islamic Narrative
For Islam too, blood has a powerful significance though not, of course, in any
sacramental sense. The metamotif of ‘the blood of the martyr’, in particular
for the Shiʿa, from the earliest days of the Battle of Karbala’ at which the
grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, al-Husayn, was killed, in ad 680, has
exercised a powerful hold on the Islamic Shiʿite imagination.243 It continues
to do so into our present age.
Memory has played a huge role: for more than a thousand years the
Shiʿa community around the world has celebrated the tragic death of al-
Husayn with huge emotion.244 Martyrdom, and its associated blood-letting,
has conferred on the Shiʿite community what has been termed ‘a whole
ethos of sanctification’.245 The soil of Karbala’ is regarded as sacred and
small cakes of its clay are held to have healing properties.246 Here it is the
clay of the former battleground which heals rather than water from a spring
or blood itself. But behind the clays of Karbala’ lies the blood itself of that
battlefield.
Numerous miraculous events are associated in Shiʿite Islamic tradition
with the death of al-Husayn. They have been usefully summarised by Veccia
Vaglieri and a few are noted here:
• The sky darkened or reddened.

• There was a rain of blood.
• An angelic gift of earth from Karbala’ became blood.
blood | 117
• Animals and fish wept at the news.

• The severed head of al-Husayn exuded perfume.
• Qur’anic verses were recited by the severed head.
• Those who had injured al-Husayn encountered eventual illness, tragedy
or disaster.247
If we compare the immediate cosmological phenomena which appeared on

the death of al-Husayn with the immediate aftermath of the death of Christ
on the cross in the Christian tradition,248 there is an obvious intertext: the
darkening of the sky, the eclipse of the sun, the sighting of the stars at midday
as al-Husayn died at the hands of his enemies create a miraculous cosmologi-
cal picture of the entire heavens in torment at the death of one of its favourite
sons.249 All this maps intertextually and narratologically onto the Gospel
accounts of the immediate aftermath of Christ’s death on the cross.
However, the Shiʿite accounts of the death of al-Husayn go beyond the
basic intertext adumbrated above. The Gospels do not portray the corpse
of Jesus in vengeful or healing mode as it is taken down from the cross and
placed in the tomb. There are no miracles of healing or vengeance.250 The
corpse does not speak.
Dramatically, from the narratological point of view, the reverse is the
case with the corpse of al-Husayn: the blood of the martyr has miraculous
properties as does his severed head. Blindness is healed by contact with that
blood; blindness is inflicted on al-Husayn’s murderers by dreams of that
blood.251 And while the head of al-Husayn might be perceived by some to be
analagous to the dead body of Jesus, lying in the arms of his mother Mary as
depicted in so many pietàs,252 the Islamic tradition departs from any intertext
that might be built on such facile imaginings by portraying the head of al-
Husayn miraculously reciting verses from the Qur’an.253
We see from all this that blood, particularly for Shiʿite Islam, has a
universal aspect, articulated in the physical form of martyrdom, which gives
birth to a plenitude of multifaceted narratives. For the Sunni narrations we
saw that al-Hallaj joyfully embraces death and the fervour of the Sufi novice
produces writing in blood on the ground. The overriding topos here is the
metatheme of love of the Divine and the metatheme of the desire to be one
with God. This metatheme of a perceived actual ‘identification’ with the
Divinity yields the overarching metamotif of blood. Love produces blood

and that love is literally written out in blood in the case of the Sufi novice.
The multifaceted nature of this simple paradigm and its intertextual nature is
immediately evident if we compare with the narration in John Chrysostom’s
homily on the martyrs Juventinus and Maximinus to which we alluded ear-
lier. In all this, then, there is a repetition of the metatheme of love and the
metamotif of blood, the latter a source of miracle and frequent wonder, awe
or fear.
The concept of martyrdom also has a universal and intertextual dimen-
sion. It is powerfully articulated in Professor Mahmoud Ayoub’s magisterial
and seminal volume, Redemptive Suffering in Islam. In this he takes care
to distinguish what he means by redemption and distinguish it from any
Christian definitions and theology.254 For him the two are quite distinct.
Acknowledging that ‘all suffering can be in some way redemptive’,255
that the Shiʿa regard the passion and death of al-Husayn as ‘a source of salva-
tion’,256 and that ‘redemption in Shīʿī piety must be understood within the
context of intercession’,257 Ayoub goes on to state succinctly that redemption
broadly signals ‘the healing of existence or the fulfillment of human life’.258 In
a nutshell, for him redemption is ‘fulfillment through suffering’.259
The narratology of suffering, then, as we have seen, may well involve the
metamotif of blood. That blood may be the product of love and the whole
may be clothed in a miraculous dimension and aura. We might even hazard
that, for the purposes of our narrative investgations and analysis, love is the
type of which miraculous blood assumes the role of antitype.
Of course, the whole idea that the sacrifice of the Shiʿite imams, and
in particular the sacrifice of al-Husayn might be perceived as a ‘surrogate
suffering [which] saves mankind from the impact of God’s justice in all its
severity’260 should not be pushed too far as we try to establish a narratological,
or even theological, intertext.
Halm draws attention to Henri Corbin’s idea, cited and approved by
Ayoub, that we may characterise the imamology of the Shiʿa as a species of
‘Islamic Christology’.261 Halm accepts the closeness of the two concepts of
‘surrogate suffering’ but insists that we really must not obscure the very real
differences between the two traditions:262 Islam, whether in its Sunni or Shiʿi
forms, has no concept of original sin in the Christian sense: ‘The passion of
blood | 119
the Imams fits only the punishment incurred by the believer for individual
wrong.’263
Our narrations, whether they be those about the Sufi novice, al-Hallaj or
al-Husayn, show, once again, that the chief protagonist is God. These figures
are all agents of the miraculous, vessels as it were, which disclose and confirm
the power of God via these miraculous phenomena which we have outlined.
The catalysts, or ‘engines in the narrative’ in each of these cases are extreme
love of God combined with a desire or intention for union of some kind with
Him or, at the very least, a place in Paradise beside Him.
The significance of each miracle or martyrdom, articulated in diverse
productions of blood, to an often hostile umma, is that the love and desire
which motivate Sufi and martyr alike, are worthy of respect and belief that
the Divine Reality which they seek is true.
5
Wood and Stone
5.1 A Proto-miracle: the Ark of Gilgamesh and Noah
In 1850 Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817–94), famed as the scholar who
discovered Nineveh and lauded as one of the founders of the study of the
archaeology of the Near East,1 discovered a pile of cuneiform tablets in the
palace of the Assyrian King Sennacherib (r. 705–681 bc) at Kouyunjik near
Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq.2 Layard was unable to read cuneiform
and also slightly unaware of the true nature of the extraordinary treasure trove
which he had discovered, although he did regard them as ‘precious’, and he
sent them off to the British Museum.3
What he had in fact discovered in the tablets were survivors from the
Royal Archival Library of Assyria, characterised as history’s first proper library,
which had been organised by King Ashurbanipal of Assyria (r. 668–627 bc).4
It was left to a scholar named George Smith to translate and bring to light
from the trove of the tablets some of the great Babylonian epic which we
know today as The Epic of Gilgamesh.5
Professor Andrew George quotes E. A. Wallis Budge’s description of
Smith’s palpable excitement as he began to read the Gilgamesh Deluge tablets:
He said: ‘I am the first man to read that after two thousand years of
oblivion.’ Setting the tablet on the table, he jumped up and rushed about
the room in a great state of excitement and, to the astonishment of those
present, began to undress himself!6
The reaction might have been excessive, but it was certainly forgivable since
it is clear that George Smith had uncovered a work which can be ranked as
one of the greatest in world literature: it is one which, with its twin themes of
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wood a nd stone | 121
‘fear of death’ and the search for immortality, couched within an archetypi-
cal narrative of a huge primordial flood, has enchanted and resonated with
scholars, great poets and ordinary people alike since the first ancient record of
those themes on those cuneiform tablets.7
Before we proceed further, it is worth stresing here that, in this section,
‘miracle’ will be precisely defined as a direct intervention by a deity or angel in
the affairs of humanity. The novelist Jeanette Winterson concurs: ‘A miracle
is an intervention that cannot be accounted for rationally,’8 that is, by a
human reason that takes no account of a divine dimension.
Thus, in what follows, as we trace the Gilgamesh, Genesis and Qur’anic
accounts of the Storm, Deluge and Flood, the miracle is not perceived here
to lie in the actual physical occurrence of the Storm, Deluge or Flood, nor
in the subsequent calming of those phenomena. All that could have occurred
perfectly naturally according to the laws of nature: many peoples globally
adhere to, and pass on, belief in a great primordial flood.9 It is likely that all
their Flood narratives are actually reflective of a single global cataclysm.10
The miracle lies in the direct intervention by deity or angel in the laws
of nature; one or the other commands the wind and the waves, directs the
building of an ark of refuge and salvation and even assists in the building of
that ark. The salvation ensured and assured for Noah and his family, together
with their livestock, is the direct result of a miraculous divine intervention in
the view of the Gilgamesh, Genesis and Qur’anic naratives.
Jeffrey John also reminds us that we need to seek the meaning in any
miracle rather than becoming fixated on the question of whether it actually
happened, or happened in the way that the ancient narratives would have us
believe.11
Regardless, then, of its possible historicity, this allows us to consider
miracles from a literary as well as a theological perspective. As Jeffrey John
neatly puts it: a miracle may be defined as ‘a literary creation with a theologi-
cal purpose’.12 Thus the story of the feeding of the five thousand theologically
aims to inform us that the figure of Jesus is to be considered as ‘a new Moses’
and shows, narratologically both an intertext and a typology with the Old
Testament Moses and the production of manna in the desert.13
By all this I wish to stress the narrative dimension of miracle stories
where a deity or an angel may assume the role of a kind of deus ex machina,
a dimension which, to my mind, is at least as important as the theological,

bearing in mind the orientation of, and emphasis on, narratology in this
volume of mine. Throughout, of course, we will also continue to main-
tain the phenomenological and anthropological approach with which we
began.
We may identify three main protagonists in The Epic of Gilgamesh: firstly,
there is the eponym of the story itself, King Gilgamesh, born of a goddess and
ruler of Uruk according to legend but lacking the charism of immortality.14
Uruk was an old and great city in the southern regions of Babylonia.15 Then
there is Uta-napishti who ranks as a Babylonian equivalent of the biblical
Noah. He ruled the kingdom of Shuruppak, was not drowned in the Deluge
and was later given the gift of immortality.16 Shuruppak was another old city
which was to be found between Uruk and Nippur.17 Finally, there is Ea who
is identified as ‘the god of the freshwater Ocean Below’.18
Gilgamesh’s story embraces a long journey whose goal is to track down
his ancestor, Uta-napishti, who holds the secret of eternal life which he has
gained from the gods, having been preserved from destruction during the
great Deluge. In Tablet XI we learn that Gilgamesh finds him and asks how
he discovered this eternal life.19 Uta-napishti then relates to him the famous
proto-Flood story.
The gods decide to send down a great Flood over the earth. Ea bids Uta-
napishti to build a boat in which to save himself, and gives precise directions
about the dimensions of the boat.20 The construction of the boat in the Epic
is described in some detail.21 Property, silver and gold, livestock and family
are loaded and a miraculous provision of bread and wheat is promised from
the Sun God.22 The boat is sealed and a great storm arises, frightening even
the gods at the resulting Flood.23 Many are drowned.24
On the seventh day the storm and the Flood come to an end.25 Doves
and swallows are sent out searching for dry land but to no avail.26 Finally, a
raven is dispatched which does not return, indicating that land and food have
been discovered.27 In thanksgiving Uta-napishti offers sacrifice to the gods.28
Ea castigates his fellow gods for causing the Deluge.29 In recompense for his
sufferings during the great Flood, Uta-napishti and his wife are made gods
and thus receive immortality and eternal life.30
Gilgamesh returns to his city of Uruk, unsuccessful in his quest for
immortality. As with all men, death will seize him in the end.31 He is left feel-
ing despairing and utterly hopeless, wishing that he had not encountered Uta-
napishti after all.32 Tablet XI is truly and mournfully ‘Immortality Denied’.33
Later we read in the Sumerian poem of Bilgames (that is, Gilgamesh)34 that
our hero, after his death, is made a judge in the Underworld where the dead
reside.35 Here he will govern and judge.36
The destiny of Gilgamesh has thus been to be an earthly king but never
to achieve the sort of eternal life he craved and for which he set out on his
long journey, seeking the immortal Uta-napishti.37 Yet, of course, an eternity,
an immortality of sorts, has been gained, albeit not one of his choosing as he
presides as judge in the Land of the Dead.
The narrative of Gilgamesh, and the related narratives of Noah (variously
Noe and Arabic Nuh) and his ark (fulk) in the Old Testament Book of
Genesis and the Qur’an embrace a common paradigm which may broadly be
delineated as follows:
Divine decision, will or wrath > divine authority and command > boat-
building and its dimensions > help by word (or supernatural advice) > and/
or deed (assisted by angels/men) > storm and flood > calm > testing the
waters with birds > miraculous salvation > thanksgiving and sacrifice.
It is true, of course, that the endings of the Gilgamesh Epic and the Old
Testament/Qur’anic narratives are quite different. Genesis portrays a frac-
tured relationship between God and man which is restored in the aftermath
of the Flood.38 However, Gilgamesh goes home disappointed, deprived of his
longed-for immortality. It is Uta-napishti who gains this in the Gilgamesh
Epic and, as we have noted, it is he who is the equivalent of Noah in the
Babylonian myth. Noah himself in the Old Testament Genesis account is not
endowed with immortality and dies at the extreme age of 950.39
Our paradigm adumbrated above may be characterised as illustrating an
ancient ‘proto-miracle of salvation’. It is achieved in a boat, ark or fulk made
of
• ‘resinous wood . . . reeds and pitch’ (Genesis)40

• ‘ropes of palm fibre . . . pitch . . . tackle’, with ‘the carpenter carry-
ing [his] hatchet, the reed-worker carrying [his] stone, [the shipwright
bearing his] heavyweight axe’ thus signalling the use of wood and reeds
(Gilgamesh)41
• ‘broad planks and caulked with palm-fibre’ (Qur’an).42
All our texts thus portray a very material ark (fulk),43 boat or ship (safīna)44
made of wood which is also, miraculously, a sign45 and ‘ship of salvation’.46
In summary, the Flood/Deluge narratives in our three linked traditions
– Gilgamesh, Old Testament and Qur’an – coalesce in a single narrative
of divine will, decision or wrath (the catalyst), followed by a miraculous,
supernatural intervention, assistance and ultimate salvation.
Tablet XI of Gilgamesh does not tell us about the reasoning of the gods
when they strike the earth with the great Deluge47 but the Genesis and
Qur’anic accounts are in no doubt. In a very powerful verse in Genesis, which
must be interpreted judiciously,48 God, seeing the prevailing wickedness and
corruption on earth, threatens to exterminate the human beings whom he has
created and states his regret at this creation.49 In the Qur’anic Sura of Nuh,
the warnings brought by that prophet are rejected: the people disobey Nuh
and persist in the worship of false gods.50
The wrath of God/the gods is thus unleashed in each tradition, and divine
authority and power are epitomised in terrifying commands. In Gilgamesh,
Adad, the god of storms is portrayed ‘bellowing’ in ‘a dark cloud of black’.51
In Genesis, God’s commands and addresses are encapsulated within a chiastic
narrative52 whose most powerful sentiment reads: ‘I am now about to destroy
[the human beings] and the earth.’53 In the Qur’an, Nuh actually prays for
the unbelievers (al-kāfirīn) to be wiped out54 and God drowns the rejecters
of His signs in the great Flood.55 Noah and his people enter an ark under
the divine command and authority of a deity variously named Ea, Yahweh,
Allah.56
In the Flood narrative the miracle of salvation is twofold: God directly,
and miraculously, saves the just; and the devastating Flood spares Noah and
his family. This ark, as we have seen, in each of the three traditions under
discussion – Gilgamesh, Old Testament and Qur’anic – has been built to
precise measurements and dimensions: these are fulsome in their detail in the
Gilgamesh and Genesis accounts but less so in the Qur’an.57
Miraculous supernatural agency is often at work. There are miraculous,
divine, precise directions as to the composition of the ark in Genesis.58 There

is miraculous, divine, direct supervision and inspiration as Nuh builds his
ark in the Qur’anic account.59 And Ea’s concern for the physical salvation of
Uta-napishti in Gilgamesh is all too evident in his boatbuilding commands:60
the boat should have a protective roof and be of equal length and breadth.61
Gilgamesh portrays Uta-napishti being aided in the boatbuilding by carpen-
ters, reed-workers, shipwrights, young and old, rich and poor alike.62
The Genesis account does not detail the labourers and builders of the
ark in detail but concentrates on those who enter.63 The same is true in the
Qur’anic narrative, which prefers to stress the post-mortem eternal salvation
of the believers.64 However, a further touch is added in the Shiʿite tradition
in which the angel Gabriel helps Nuh to build his ark.65 We shall elaborate
further upon the role of the angel at the end of this chapter. Here it is
sufficient to note with Mahmoud Ayoub the gentle agency of Gabriel as
he provides Nuh with a blueprint for the construction of the ark and the
necessary nails.66 In the Shiʿite tradition Ayoub powerfully demonstrates that
the whole Flood narrative is typologically linked to the future 680 Battle of
Karbala’, thereby linking all of human history in a massive intertext with
this seminal battle.67 Agency in shipbuilding may thus be divine or angelic
depending on one’s tradition or source. The fundamental Flood narrative is
multivalent and dynamically intertextual.
The actual Storm, Deluge and Flood are described in some graphic detail
in the Gilgamesh narrative,68 but the Genesis account is much sparser though
still deeply powerful with its references to the bursting forth of springs, the
opening of heavenly sluices and the dense rainfall over a period of forty
days.69 The Qur’anic narrative is much more restrained,70 with perhaps the
following brief verse figuring as its most evocative description of the Flood:
And We caused the earth to gush forth with springs. So the

waters met (and rose) to the extent decreed.71
Birds with which to test the levels of the water and the possibility of land are
sent forth from the ark in both the Gilgamesh and Genesis narratives,72 but
this detail is absent from the Qur’anic account whose references to Nuh and
the Flood are altogether sparser and more concerned with the theological
concept of the salvation of those who believe in God. Again, a sacrifice of
thanksgiving is offered in the Gilgamesh and Genesis accounts, but this detail
is also absent from the Qur’an.73
It is in the post-Qur’anic myth of Nuh that we find further examples
of the miraculous agency and intervention of both God and angel, together
with an elaboration of the basic Qur’anic account. Thus, in such accounts, it
is God who dictates the exact dimensions of the ark to Nuh,74 while Gabriel
gives instructions to Nuh as to how he should build the ark.75 This post-
Qur’anic tradition elaborates on the sparse narrative of the Qur’an itself and
provides some exotic detail about the appearance of the ark whose various
features resemble, respectively, a peacock, vulture, dove, the tail of a cock,
falcon and eagle.76 Here, then, the bird motif is associated with the shape of
the ark rather than, as in the Gilgamesh and Genesis accounts, with birds
being sent out to seek out food and possible landfall.
However, the latter is not totally absent from the post-Qur’anic tradition.
In the narrative of the twelfth-century folklorist al-Kisa’i, a dove (ªamāma)
and a raven (ghurāb) are deployed to inspect and test the retreating waters.77
Here, too, we learn how high the waters rose at their peak: some believe that
they achieved a height of fifteen cubits above the tallest mountain in the
world while others give the much higher figure of eighty cubits, indicating a
massive inundation which few could have survived.78
Such authors also give the angels a leading and dynamic role in the Flood
story. Before the catastrophe begins, the medieval historian Abu ’l-Hasan
al-Masʿudi (c. 896–956) tells us that Gabriel brings Adam a box or coffin
(tābūt) containing the remains (rimmatuhu) of Adam, presumably for safe-
keeping in the ark during the Deluge.79 Intriguingly, al-Kisa’i differs over
the contents of the box: for him it contains Adam’s carpentry tools (ālāt
al-nijāra).80
The actual great Flood begins when God commands Gabriel to have the
waters released and to strike them with the ‘Wing of Anger’ (janāª al-gha∂ab);
Gabriel does so and thereby releases the great cataclysm.81 Meanwhile, other
angels raise the Kaʿba to the sky above the earth to save it from the unleashed
Flood.82 Fear of this impending Flood (al-†ūfān) so terrifies the formerly
White Stone of the Kaʿba that it becomes black from fear, thus assuming
its present designation of ‘the Black Stone’ (al-ªajar al-aswad).83 These last
details are of some significance in any consideration of the building of the
Kaʿba because of the diversity of opinion as to who was actually the first
builder of that structure. For al-Kisa’i at least, as he indicates here and earlier
in his narrative, the Kaʿba was in existence before the age of Ibrahim and
Ismaʿil. For him it is Adam who is the first builder of the Kaʿba.84
H. W. F. Saggs prefers to call the Gilgamesh story and, by extension,
all the Flood stories ‘an epic rather than a myth because its main partici-
pants are predominantly human rather than divine in their characteristics’.85
Regardless of whether one agrees with this assessment or not, it is clear that
the Flood narratives reflect for the theist, on a global and cataclysmic scale,
the consequences of a radical breakdown in the relationship between God/
the gods and created humanity as a result of sin. It is, to use a term which was
originated by Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) and developed by Michel
Foucault (1926–84), a massive epistemic break86 which can only be healed
by a global punishment whereby that relationship is once again established.87
We have little cause to disbelieve or doubt that, in antiquity, a great
Flood of some kind did take place. There is an abiding memory in most tradi-
tions of such a flood88 and memory has played a major role in the preservation
and, indeed, transmission, of the Flood traditions. This memory goes back
to a Flood story which predates even the Gilgamesh Epic.89 Could it be, as
Eric Cline tentatively suggests, that this story finds its real origin in ‘a folk
memory of the end of the Ice Age’, albeit infused with much ‘mythology’?90
It certainly reflects a cataclysmic reality.
Ovid in his Metamorphoses delights in transmitting an account of a major
Flood, inflicted by the gods91 featuring Deucalion, Promethius’ son, who
plays the role of Noah in Greek mythology.92 It is highly likely that there
is a common source for both the biblical narrative of Noah and the Flood
of Deucalion.93 Myth mixes with reality, however: it has been confirmed,
for example, that a king by the name of Gilgamesh actually existed,94 albeit
highly mythologised.95
A common source theory, then, for all the Flood narratives is generally
accepted by scholars,96 but two final questions remain where there is not
so much agreement: what exactly was the Flood and where did it occur?97
Secondly, short of a miracle, it would be fascinating to learn with Saggs
‘how Noah managed single-handed to build a ship of about the tonnage
of the QEII’.98 We may, in what follows, survey some suggestions as to the
s olution to our first question. The answer to the second query as to how Noah
managed to build such a huge ship does indeed belong to the realms of the
miraculous: here the supernatural in the shape of the Divine or helpful angels
like Gabriel seem to play a prominent role.99
Some have tried to tie the great Flood to the myth of Atlantis,100 suggest-
ing that part of Atlantis once lay where the modern island of Malta lies today,
and that the Mediterranean Sea as we know it is the result of a primeval
inundation.101 Others as early as Aristotle rejected the Platonic account of
Atlantis as pure myth, unreflective of any reality and deliberately recounted
as such.102 Thus Johansen warns: ‘Those who are tempted to read the Atlantis
story as a historical document need to bear in mind the extent to which it
has been constructed by Plato to suit his own philosophical purposes.’103
Opposing this, yet others have linked the volcanic eruption on Santorini in
antiquity, and the ensuing destruction, with the myth of Atlantis.104
If Atlantis ever actually existed, this last identification is worthy of some
consideration since Plato’s Timaeus actually refers to the destruction of
Atlantis inter alia by ‘floods’ (kataklusmān).105 ‘And the island of Atlantis was
similarly swallowed up by the sea and vanished.’106 Many ancient authors did
accept Plato’s account as true.107
Other candidates as original sources for the great Flood narrative are the
two great rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates in what is modern Iraq. The
NJB is quite dogmatic about this, noting that the Flood narrative in Genesis
draws on folk memories of catastrophic floooding in the Tigris and Euphrates
valley, later magnified by tradition into a global event.108 Contrasting with
this, Morven Robertson holds that the only candidate for the location
of Atlantis which accords with the antique data is the Po Valley and the
Venetian plain.109 For him the city was inundated by the sea and destroyed
in consequence of catastrophic natural phenomena which occurred as the
Bronze Age came to a close.110
Underlying all these accounts and hypotheses is an acceptance of, and
belief in, the historicity of a great Flood event which occurred in antiquity
combined with scholarly differences and caution as to the exact origins,
causes, nature and location of that Flood. It is accepted, furthermore, that
the whole narrative has become steeped in myth and legend.
When we examine the role of memory as the vehicle of the metamotif
of the Flood and Storm narratives, we find numerous familiar themes and
motifs. The Flood story bespeaks the theme of the universal desire for whole-
ness in terms of a search for salvation. In the Genesis and Qur’anic accounts it
is physical salvation from death by drowning that is sought. In the Gilgamesh
account there is a quest for immortality, reminiscent of the Alexander Cycle
and Alexander’s search for the Water of Life which bestows immortality.111
The theme of wholeness, that is, of the intrinsic ‘goodness’ of man which
makes him ‘whole’,112 is embodied in the goodness of those like Noah who
are saved in the ark. The universal memory of a great Flood transmits the
memory of that goodness to a later age and, as we have seen, reconstitutes the
fractured links between God and man.
The theme of a divine presence in the world is common to all three
accounts: Gilgamesh, Genesis and the Qur’an. God/the gods keep a keen eye
on the human world and are dismayed when corruption appears and seeks
to destroy the link between God and man which is clearly cherished by the
Divine. Man forgets the latter at his peril. Though these gods might indulge
later in an almost ritual destruction of the earth by water, the motif of an
actual water ritual is replaced in our narratives by the motif of the measuring
and cutting of wood, followed by that of sacrifice at least in the Gilgamesh
and Genesis accounts.113
These sacrifices both confirm the metatheme of the authority of the
Deity and exhibit a renewed faith in the power and future benevolence of that
Deity who powerfully promises, following a pleasing sacrifice,114 that ‘never
again will I curse the earth because of human beings’.115
This metatheme of the power of God/the gods is an important one.
While nature might precipitate a storm, flood or deluge at any time, the
‘water miracle’ in the Gilgamesh, Genesis and Qur’anic accounts lies in the
theme of divine intervention: God commands the Flood to start rather than
leaving terrestrial nature to follow its own path in its own time. What is
interesting, however, here, narratologically from the perspective of divine
power is the fact that in the Genesis and Qur’anic accounts God is portrayed
as omnipotent,116 but in Gilgamesh, as Cook emphasises, the metatheme of
divine power appears to have limits: the gods actually exhibit terror when
they see the uncontrollable Flood which they have unleashed.117 Nonetheless,
the semiotics of storm, deluge and flood in our three texts manifest the very
real miraculous power,118 whether infinite or limited, of the Divine coupled

with a theodicy which, at least in Genesis and the Qur’an, insists on punish-
ment for corruption and sin by means of such terrifying phenomena.119
5.2 Ark of the Covenant: the Virgin in the House
This section and that which follows it might loosely be characterised together
as A Tale of Three Arks and a Cube. We identify here an ‘ark paradigm’ which
merges spirituality, metaphor and actual buildings and which, in terms of
basic semiotics, bespeaks loci of protection, salvation and later, in the case of
the Kaʿba (Arabic for cube) and the Little House at Walsingham, pilgrimage.
The shape of our paradigm is simple and reveals three arks morphing into
these two great pilgrimage shrines and centres:
Noah’s Ark > Original Ark of the Covenant > Mary, robed with the sun >
Mary, the New Ark of the Covenant > Walsingham, the House of Mary >
the Kaʿba.
Miracles of one kind or another are associated with each. The topos or
metamotif of a ‘protective ark’, whether it be a structure which houses Flood
refugees, or God’s commandments, or assumes the shape of an apocalyptic
Co-Redemptrix,120 or a cube which signals the circumambulation of the
angelic hosts round the throne of God in Heaven,121 links the miraculous
and the mundane, the angelic co-builder and the human constructor.
The original Ark of the Covenant, of course, was built by Moses and the
Israelites at the express command of God as a housing for the ten command-
ments.122 Intertextually, as with the Noachic ark, this most sacred Ark of the
Covenant is made of wood, in this instance ‘acacia wood’.123 Here we have a
literal, material housing for God’s commands. In Islam too, the Qur’an tells
us that the Ark of the Covenant (al-tābūt) associated with Moses is also a
sign of God’s divine authority and kingship (āyat mulkihi) as well as sakīna,
a word traditionally translated as ‘calm’, ‘tranquillity’, ‘security’.124 This ark
is borne by angels.125
The word sakīna is significant here. It may also be translated as ‘imma-
nence of God, presence of God’,126 and this rabbinically derived definition
will resonate with many of the narratives which we have surveyed thus far and
which we will survey and analyse in the future.127 For ancient Judaism, the
Ark was all-important, signalling as it did the very presence of God among
the people of Israel.128
When we turn to the Christian tradition, we find Mary being revered as
the New Ark of the Covenant.129 Indeed, she has been lauded from earliest
times as ‘Ark’.130 Thus the deacon St Ephrem (c. 306–73), famed as one of
the great doctors of the early Syrian Church131 who rejoiced in the title of ‘La
Lyre du Saint-Esprit’,132 called Mary ‘the sacred ark, whereby we are saved
from the deluge of sin’.133
St Ambrose (340–97), the initially reluctant Bishop of Milan and bap-
tiser of St Augustine of Hippo (c. 354–430),134 wrote as follows:
The prophet David danced before the Ark. Now what else should we say the
Ark was but holy Mary? The Ark bore within it the tables of the Testament,
but Mary bore the Heir of the same Testament itself. The former contained
in it the Law, the latter the Gospel. The one had the voice of God, the other
His Word. The Ark, indeed, was radiant within and without with the glitter
of gold, but holy Mary shone within and without with the splendour of vir-
ginity. The one was adorned with earthly gold, the other with heavenly.135
Elaborating on the same theme, Chrysippus of Jerusalem (c. 405–79), a

writer on Church matters and custodian of the Holy Cross in the Jerusalem
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, lauded Mary in the following words:
An ark truly royal, an ark most precious is the ever-virgin Mother of God,
an ark which received the treasure of entire sanctification. Not that ark
wherein were all kinds of animals, as in the ark of Noe, which escaped the
shipwreck of the whole drowning world. Not that ark in which were the
tables of stone, as in the ark that journeyed in company with Israel through-
out the desert; but an ark whose architect, inhabitant, pilot and merchant,
companion of the way, and leader, was the Creator of all creatures, all
which He bears in Himself, but by all is not contained.136
A modern scholar, Marina Warner draws attention to Luke’s implicit typo-

logical association in his Gospel, of Mary with the Ark of the Covenant in the
vocabulary he deploys in his account of the Annunciation.137 Just as the angel
Gabriel tells Mary that she will be overshadowed by the power of God in the
Gospel of Luke, so we find in the Book of Exodus that the ‘Tent of Meeting’,
which contained the Ark of the Covenant, is overshadowed by a cloud from

which the majesty of God fills the Tent.138
The theme of Mary as ‘Ark of the Covenant’ has been devoutly and end-
lessly repeated. We find it again, for example, in the Catechism which also,
intriguingly, links the whole ‘Ark of the Covenant’ topos with a particular
pair of verses in the Book of Revelation:139
Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of

the covenant could be seen inside it . . . Now a great sign
appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing
on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.140
A pre-twelfth-century format of the Bible without chapter divisions allows an

identification of the woman as ‘Mary, the Ark of the Covenant’,141 but this
identification is not shared by all142 and there are certainly other possibilities
as well.143
A popular Marian Litany vaunts Mary as Foederis arca (Ark of the
Covenant)144 while a simple prayer book, designed for the use of pilgrims to
Walsingham, characterises Mary as ‘the Ark of God’s own promise’.145 This
same prayer book lauds Mary in the following terms: ‘With her “yes” she
opened the door of our world to God Himself; she became the living Ark
of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us and pitched
His tent among us.’146 A Walsingham Litany identifies her as the ‘Woman
clothed with the sun, Woman crowned with stars’147 in a clear reference to the
apocalyptic vision of John.148
These latter references to Walsingham and its prayers, resonant as they
are of our overall intertext of the Ark and the Book of Revelation of John,
are cited here deliberately; for Walsingham and its miraculous milieu is the
substance of this present section which surveys and analyses the miracles
which have flowed from ‘the Virgin in the House’.
The little village of Walsingham in Norfolk became the proud possessor
in the early Middle Ages of what was to become one of the most popular
shrines to the Virgin Mary in the whole of England,149 rivalled perhaps only
by Canterbury, and with a fame that placed it among the great pilgrimage
shrines of medieval Europe, like Santiago de Compostela and Rome and
even beyond, like Jerusalem.150 It became famed too, as a site of miraculous
healings and rejoiced in the title of ‘England’s Nazareth’.151 Of these four

great shrines of Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago and Walsingham, the latter was
the only one specifically dedicated to the Virgin Mary.152
This metamotif of the shrine at Walsingham as ‘England’s Nazareth’ was
particularly important, theologically and narratologically for Walsingham.
The title occurs towards the end of the famous 1465 Pynson Ballad,153 to
which we will allude in more detail:
In the is belded newe nazareth a mancyon.154
Stella A. Singer, in a powerful article, has argued that the location of the
shrine at Walsingham, and what she terms its ‘allegorization of place’,155
constituted a major threat to the later Tudor regime. It was beyond the centre
of Tudor power in Westminster. She observes that the threat of Walsingham
lay in its sanctity of place, its ‘devotional geography’ which could not be
easily ruled from that centre.156 In addition, East Anglia in the Middle Ages
was not always the most quiescent and subservient of areas politically157 and
this would certainly have been a major factor in the eventual dissolution and
destruction of the Walsingham shrine in August 1538.158
Before this latter event, however, Walsingham had been visited by
the high and the low, the scholarly and the ignorant.159 King Henry VII
(r. 1485–1509) came to Walsingham on pilgrimage in 1487, two years after
his victory over Richard III (r. 1483–5) at the Battle of Bosworth Field.160
His son, Henry VIII (r. 1509–47), characterised by Gillett as ‘an ardent
devotee’, came too.161 It has been suggested that the devotion of the latter
monarch may have been the need to pray for a longed-for male heir.162
These visits by Henry VIII were immortalised in a three-volume Victorian
novel by one Agnes Strickland (1806–74), published in 1835 and little
known today: it went by the somewhat ponderous title of The Pilgrims of
Walsingham; Or Tales of the Middle Ages: A Historical Romance.163 Perhaps
most notable among all the scholars who visited the pre-Reformation Shrine
at Walsingham was the great humanist Dutch scholar, Desiderius Erasmus
(1466/9–1536), who came to Walsingham in 1509 and 1511.164 He wrote
a famous and moving prayer to mark his visits,165 despite his scepticism,
intellectual snobbery and dislike of some aspects – especially the more
superstitious – of the shrine.166
A Context for Miracles

We may briefly identify five major historical phases in the history of the
shrine at Walsingham, a village which, it might be noted, comprises the two
joined villages of Great Walsingham and Little Walsingham.167
1. Pre-1061 This is the period five years before the Norman Conquest. The
present shrine, in Gary Waller’s words, has ‘multiple stories’168 which are of
particular fascination in view of this present volume’s emphasis on narratol-
ogy. Waller hazards that Walsingham may well have been a spiritual, pos-
sibly pagan, locus well before the building of the famous Christian shrine.169
He notes that the area had been settled by Iron Age peoples, Romans and
Anglo-Saxons,170 and emphasises that some have noted in the Pynson Ballad
a linking of Walsingham to an origin prior to 1066.171
2. 1061: The Year of the Lady Richeldis de Faverches In 1061, five years
before the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest, a certain aristocratic
widow named Richeldis de Faverches, who lived in Walsingham, had a vision
or dream. Commentators differ as to the exact nature and interpretation of
what she experienced. Was it a dream, a vision or even a threefold vision?172
The Pynson Ballad tells us that it was the last:
This visyon shewed thryse to this devout woman.173
It continues:
In spyryte our lady to Nazareth hir led.174
Richeldis is shown in her vision the Holy House of Nazareth and commanded
to build a replica in Walsingham. The lines cited above then continue:
And shewed hir the place where Gabryel hir grette.

Lo doughter consyder to hir oure lady sayde.
Of thys place take thou suerly the mette
another lyke thys at Walsyngham thou sette
unto my laude and synguler honoure.
All that me seke there shall find sucoure.175
The Pynson Ballad then goes on to detail how the final site was chosen, the
way the building was moved by angelic hands and the miraculous cures
which ensued at the shrine. We shall survey each of these important topoi in
a short while.
This Pynson Ballad is a primary feature in the whole visionary narrative.
It is the hinge on which so much of the later legend turned and from which
so much of the later myth developed.176 The tradition holds that a narrative
of the Walsingham vision was recorded in the Pynson verse Ballad in about
1465.177 A unique printed four-page copy of this twenty-one-verse ballad is
to found in the Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge.178 It was
published in the last decade of the fifteenth century,179 but was composed,
as classically accepted, in about 1465.180 We don’t know the name of the
author, but the work takes its name from Richard Pynson, who printed it in
the age of the Tudors.181
Gary Waller and others have queried the dating of the foundation of
the actual shrine, placing this in the middle of the twelfth century rather than
the commonly and traditionally held dating of 1061, and thus cast doubt
on the traditional dating of the Pynson Ballad.182 Waller stresses that this
ballad is a unique source for the foundational narrative of the Holy House
and there are no other sources prior to Pynson which provide a miraculous
account of this House’s beginnings.183 It is clear that, whatever the individual
beliefs of the academic historian or the pious pilgrim, the whole history of
Walsingham has become embellished with diverse ‘invented traditions’.184
Here, then, is an aspect of that scepticism and caution to which we will allude
again shortly when we consider the various attitudes of both scholar and
pilgrim to the perceived phenomena of Walsingham.
3. The Heyday of the Holy House By the beginning of the fifteenth cen-
tury Walsingham had developed into a major national shrine. It was not just
a question of wealth; the shrine had embedded itself in the very spirit and
psyche of the English people from every part of the country.185 Even if the
appeal of Canterbury as a pilgrim shrine might be said to have waned some-
what by the beginning of the fifteenth century, the shrine at Walsingham
(together with the great European shrines and Jerusalem) preserved its
appeal for the pious pilgrim186 right up to the time of the Dissolution of the
Monasteries and the destruction of related shrines.187
Milieu and context, plague and historical calamity all played their role
in bolstering the appeal of shrines such as Walsingham.188 The outbreak of
rebellion brought Henry VII to pray at the shrine.189 The protection of the
Virgin Mary at Walsingham from disasters such as the fourteenth-century
Black Death might be sought in pilgrimage to Walsingham.190 Such vicis-
situdes as this terrible plague were often perceived as signs of God’s anger and
people therefore went on pilgrimage in an effort to avert that anger and bathe
in His mercy.191 Pilgrimage involved penance192 and judicious suffering was
a means whereby sinful man could not only cleanse himself from his sins193
but also turn away God’s wrath and preserve the supplicant from the much
greater suffering of the plague.
4. Dissolution, Desecration and Destruction Against a backdrop of such
intentions and the manifold hopes for succour, cures, miracles and safeguard-
ing from other diseases and harm at a shrine which was admittedly, by the
time of the Reformation, clothed in a potent garb of legend, myth and tradi-
tion, the 1538 dissolution, ensuing desecration and destruction of the shrine
at Walsingham came as an immense shock to the people of England.
This shock is most dramatically and dynamically captured in the
Elizabethan poem, attributed with some reservations194 to Philip, Earl of
Arundel (d. 1595), on ‘The wracks of Walsingham’. Its last two moving
verses read as follows:
Weep, weep O Walsingam,

whose dayes are nightes,
blessings turned to blasphemies,
holy deedes to dispites.
Sinne is where our Ladye sate,
Heaven turned is to helle;
Sathan sitte where our Lord did swaye,
Walsingam, oh, farewell!195
The end came in 1538. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was taken
from the shrine and burned by Thomas Cromwell’s reformers at Chelsea.196
On 4 August 1538 the royal commissioner, Sir William Petre, took the sur-
render197 by Prior Vowell in the Chapter House of the Priory.198 The Priory
and Holy House were torched, the treasury was sacked and its contents
were despatched to Cromwell.199 Centuries of pilgrimage were brought to an
abrupt end.
5. The Great Revival H. M. Gillett encapsulates what happened next in

a succinct but powerful phrase: ‘For three centuries Walsingham slept.’200
The revival came in the nineteenth century, inter alia partly as a result of that
century’s general interest in antiquarianism and archaeology,201 partly as a
result of the English Roman Catholic revival202 and partly as a result of the
Anglo-Catholic movement in the Church of England.203 The latter, which
became characterised as the Oxford Movement, may be said to have reached
its zenith on 15 October 1931, when Walsingham witnessed the opening of
a new Anglican shrine.204
Figures such as Fr Alfred Hope Patten (1885–1958) loom large in the
history of the Anglican revival in Walsingham.205 From the installation in
1922 of a statue of Mary in the parish church through to the translation of
that statue in 1931 to the newly built Holy House, whose dimensions and
measurements matched the pre-Reformation original, Hope Patten’s devo-
tion and hopes for a revival were ubiquitously manifested in physical form.206
On the Roman Catholic side an Anglican convert to Rome, Charlotte
Boyd (1838–1906), in the closing years of the nineteenth century, pur-
chased the Slipper Chapel at Houghton St Giles, very close to the village
of Walsingham, and began to have it restored.207 This was the origin or
rather, rebirth, of an eventual Catholic shrine at Walsingham where today
two shrines of Our Lady of Walsingham, Anglican and Catholic, compete for
the attention of the pious pilgrim.
After an initial lack of interest by the Catholic community in this Slipper
Chapel project and shrine, a Catholic guild by the name of the Guild of Our
Lady of Ransom208 in 1897 organised the first formal Catholic pilgrimage
to be made to Walsingham since the destruction of the original shrine; one
of the participants was Charlotte Boyd who was to die nine years later in
1906.209 On 27 December 2015 the Catholic Slipper Chapel Shrine was
raised to the status of a minor basilica by Pope Francis.210
The twin shrines in Walsingham reflect precisely a Christian Church
which has been divided upon itself since the Reformation.211 The gradual
healing of such divisions, however – a spiritual healing rather than a miracu-
lous physical healing – was reflected in the visit by the then Archbishop
of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, in 1980 to the Catholic Slipper Chapel
where he offered prayers that Christianity might once again be united.212
The gesture served to remove some of the centuries-old mutual suspicions

between the two Churches.213
Today, pilgrimages of all kinds come to Walsingham. Pilgrims travel by
car, coach and even on foot. The medieval traditions of the latter have not
been forgotten. One of the most famous of the walking pilgrimages, which
goes from London to Walsingham, is the annual event undertaken by a group
known simply as the Walsingham Walkers. This walk was inaugurated, and
led for many years, by the redoubtable Mgr Laurance Goulder (d. 1969) in
1952. It has continued into the present century in an adapted form, and oft
altered routes, under different leadership with varying numbers of committed
walkers.214
Attention has been drawn here to this particular, well-documented walk
since it has, from its earliest days, mirrored a medieval ascetical tradition of
‘hard pilgrimage’, attempting to duplicate, insofar as has been possible, the
ancient pilgrim routes to Walsingham and embracing the foot-weary hard-
ships of the road together, at least in its early days, with overnight accom-
modation of the most rudimentary kind.215
In 1897, on the occasion of the blessing of a statue of Our Lady of
Walsingham, the then reigning Pope, Leo XIII (r. 1878–1903) famously
observed: ‘When England goes back to Walsingham, Our Lady will come
back to England.’216 The first part of his observation has certainly proved
prophetic for the phenomenon of pilgrimage has brought England back to
Walsingham in our own age as a result of an increase in Marian devotion in
part of the Anglican Church and much of the Catholic Church. The twin
shrines are not embraced primarily as sites for potential miraculous healings
in the same way that Lourdes is visited today. For such phenomena and hopes
we must return to the Middle Ages.
The Miraculous Milieu

Our previous excursus, which explored the historical background to the
Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, was necessary because it provides the
fundamental context within which miracles associated with Walsingham
in medieval times were narrated and flourished. The shrine at Walsingham
became a shrine of and for miracles.217 This is powerfully stressed in
the Pynson Ballad:
And syth here our lady hath sheyd many myracle

innumerable nowe here for to expresse
to suche as visyte thys hir habytacle
ever lyke newe to them that call hir in dystresse.
Foure hundreth yere and more the cronacle to witnes
hath endured this notable pylgrymage
where grace is dayly shewyd to men of every age.218
From the traditional Walsingham narrative we may identify four miraculous

topoi: (1) the metatheme of the vision; (2) the theme of angelic help; (3) the
motif of the miraculous springs of water; (4) the metatheme of miraculous
healings.
1. The metatheme of the miraculous triple vision of the Lady Richeldis has
at its heart a miraculous supernatural instruction to build.219 The Holy
House is thus built by heavenly authority. As Pynson puts it:
In spyrte our Lady to Nazareth hir led

and shewed hir the place where Gabryel hir grette.
Lo daughter consyder to hir oure lady sayde
of thys place take thou suerly the mette
another lyke thys at Walsyngham thou sette.220
2. The theme of miraculous help by angels is one to which we draw particular

attention and on which we place considerable emphasis since it is a theme
common also to the building of Noah’s ark and the Kaʿba in the Islamic
tradition as well as to the narrative of another great Marian shrine, that of
Loreto near Ancona in Italy in 1291.221
In the case of the latter, tradition holds that the house of the Virgin
Mary in Nazareth was actually transported by angels to Loreto.222 The
scene of this miraculous transportation has been beautifully captured in
the mid-sixteenth-century painting of The Translation of the Holy House
of Loreto by Vincenzo Pagani.223 In this painting, against a blue maritime
backcloth in which a ship sails in the distance, three winged angels bear a
simple one-storey structure aloft. Above the house hovers the Virgin and
child and the painting is captioned: ‘In civitate iustitia domus mea’.224 All
may be said to form a dynamic intertext with angelic help as the narrative
‘glue’.
Pynson details a double miracle here: the Lady Richeldis, seeking a
site on which to build, is shown two spots of land which have remained
dry while elsewhere
All this a medewe wet with dropes celestyall

and with sylver dewe sent from hye adowne.225
This was the result of a ‘myracle of our lady’s grace’.226

The Lady Richeldis chooses one of the two dry spots and attempts to
build on it, but is unable. She has, apparently, chosen the wrong one.227
But in the night, angels move the house to where it is intended by the
Virgin Mary to be. This movement of the house by angels is the second
part of the double miracle:
Oure blyssed lady with hevenly mynystris

Hir sylfe beynge here chyef artyfycer
areryd this sayd house with aungellys handys
and nat only reryd it but set it there it is
that is two hundred fote and more in dystaunce
from the fyrste place bokes made remembraunce.228
3. Part of the foundation narrative of many sites which later become the
focus for pilgrimage is the phenomenon of miraculous springs.229 This
is certainly true of Marian shrines.230 Such gushing springs are endowed
with miraculous charisms.231 This leitmotiv of the miraculous appearance
of a spring or well with healing powers resonates strongly with the narra-
tive of the well of Zamzam in Mecca and the spring at Lourdes. Now it
has been emphasised that the Pynson Ballad does not mention the sudden
miraculous appearance of water at the command of the Virgin Mary.232
However, Erasmus does make reference to such a miraculous story: ‘They
saye that the fowntayne dyd sudenly sprynge oute of the erthe at the com-
maundement of our lady.’233
4. It was, of course, the metatheme of miraculous healings from the waters
of Walsingham that dominated so much of the medieval narrative of
Walsingham. We start again, for our narratological ‘evidence’ with Pynson:
Many seke ben here cured by our ladye’s myghte

dede agayne revyved of this is no dought.
Lame made hole and blynde restored to syghte.
Maryners vexed with tempest safe to port brought,
defe wounde and lunatyke that hyder have fought
and also lepers have recovered have be
by oure lady’s grace of their infirmyte.234
The Ballad goes on to tell us that a pilgrimage to Walsingham could also

exorcise one from demonic possession as well as ‘gostely temptacion’,235 that
is, the frustration of evil temptations.236 In such wise does the medieval repu-
tation of Walsingham’s waters for such healing miracles join that shrine to an
intertext of such healings stretching from Lourdes to Mecca.237
Scholars have noted with interest the Christocentric nature of most of
the healings mentioned in the above verse with its New Testament echoes.238
Equally interesting is the inclusion in the list of a reference to Mary as a
refuge, protector and safeguard of sailors from storms at sea.239 There are dis-
tinct echoes here of Mary’s famous antique designation, included in antiphon
and hymn, as Stella Maris, Star of the Sea.240
When we turn to a consideration of critiques of, and attitudes towards,
the shrine at Walsingham, and the miracles claimed for that shrine, under
our usual fourfold paradigm of disbelief and scepticism, caution, belief and
memory and memorialisation, we find that they are neatly subsumed in or, at
least, paralleled by, Gary Waller’s own tripartite list of ‘adulation and rever-
ence, skepticism and revulsion’.241 We have seen this first facet, adulation
and reverence, in much of our narrative coverage of the origins, heyday and
later renewal of the shrine at Walsingham. Loyalty and adherence to what
Walsingham represented persisted long after the destructive events of the
Reformation.242
Erasmus’ scepticism and cynicism, especially with regard to the Virgin’s
milk allegedly preserved in a phial in the shrine at Walsingham, usefully illus-
trate the fact that legend and myth had become inextricably woven into the
main Walsingham narrative.243 The hostility of the reformers who tore down
the shrine provides ample evidence of disbelief in that shrine, its miracles
and all that the shrine stood for in the way of traditional Marian devotion.
Fundamentalist Protestants have evinced a similar hostility and disbelief into

our own era.244
The role of memory and memorialisation cannot be disentangled from
the Walsingham story. The theme of a ‘divine presence’ in the world was
underlined by the miracles which occurred at the shrine.245 The theme of a
wholeness remembered was to be seen in the sick and the lame miraculously
healed at the shrine. The motif of water as a ritual artefact of healing was
present in the shrine wells. Metathemes of faith and doubt are illustrated in
the faith of the believer and pious pilgrim which coexisted beside the intel-
lectual scepticism of Erasmus, while the doubt of the reformer during the
Reformation spawned hatred and destruction.
Over all hung the metatheme of a Marian injunction and authority to
build, later supplanted in a most brutal fashion by the memory of a king
whose henchmen unleashed a nationwide injunction to destroy monastery,
convent and shrine.
Yet memory continued to play a key role. The memory of Walsingham,
as we have noted, continued after the Dissolution.246 There is today – even
though Walsingham is no longer set in a miraculous landscape – a continuity
of the past into the present in both Anglican shrine and Roman Catholic
minor basilica.247 Just occasionally the memory of the past intrudes into
the imaginations of the present as when, in the 1930s, two nuns beheld
two figures near Walsingham whom Hope Patten identified as Erasmus and
Colet.248
5.3 The Angels of the Kaʿʿba
Muhammad reconquered his native city of Mecca in 630.249 The Kaʿba was
purified of the idols it housed. Muhammad circumambulated the Kaʿba
seven times on his female riding camel. Then, his biographer Ibn Ishaq
(d. 767) tells us that he demanded the key to the Kaʿba from ʿUthman b.
Talha. He entered and found therein a dove constructed from aloes wood
(ªamāma min ʿīdān). He smashed this idol with his own hands and flung
it outside.250
The famous traditionist al-Bukhari (810–70) tells us that there were 360
idols round the Kaʿba and that pictures of Ibrahim and Ismaʿil, with divining
arrows in their hands, were carried out of the Kaʿba.251 It has been suggested,
however, that the number of 360 idols may be a fantasy252 and the figure
given probably represents a large quantity.
Thus began Islam’s cleansing and reclamation of what swiftly became its
central focal point for prayer and pilgrimage, the Kaʿba.
Gerald Hawting reminds us that there are only two references by name
to the Kaʿba in the Qur’an253 but a diversity of other vocabulary serves to
indicate the same cube-shaped structure.254 One of the key verses, which
contains one of these alternative words used in the Qur’an for Kaʿba, that is,
al-Bayt (literally, the House), runs as follows:
And remember Abraham

and Ismaʿil raised
the foundations of the House
(al-qawāʿid min al-bayt)
(with this prayer): ‘Our Lord!
Accept (this service) from us:
For Thou art the All-Hearing,
the All-Knowing.’255
While this seems to indicate that Ibrahim and Ismaʿil were the first builders
of the Kaʿba, some ambiguity in interpretation of related Qur’anic verses
was recognised from the early centuries of Islam onwards according to which
Adam might have pride of place as the first builder of the Kaʿba.256 The two
views are encapsulated in the narratives of al-Kisa’i and Ibn Kathir respec-
tively. Both make reference to miraculous angelic help and both view the
Kaʿba as the product of divine authority.
In al-Kisa’i’s account, God commands Adam to build the Kaʿba. Adam
is provided with angelic help in its construction.257 A little later the angel
Gabriel is commissioned to teach Adam the rites proper to the pilgrimage
(manāsik al-ªajj).258 Many years later Hajar and Ismaʿil chance on the Kaʿba
and find that it is broken into a myriad of pieces because of the Noachic flood
(ka-annahu ribwa min āthār al-†ūfān).259
Ibrahim is commanded to rebuild the Kaʿba but he is perplexed as to
what its dimensions should be. God therefore sends a cloud and indicates
that the foundations of the Kaʿba should not be larger than the perceived
dimensions of that cloud.260 As was the case with Adam, the angel Gabriel is
then called upon to teach Ibrahim and Ismaʿil the rites of the ªajj (thumma
ʿallamahumā Jibrīl al-manāsika).261
What has developed then, is a literary topos whereby the Kaʿba has been
built in antiquity by Adam, destroyed or very badly damaged in the great
Deluge, and then rebuilt by Ibrahim and Ismaʿil. This has been repeated by
diverse classical and modern commentators.262
This narative is attractive but its reliability was questioned even in early
Islamic history.263 Ibn Kathir, for example, was in absolutely no doubt that
there was no evidence in the hadith literature for the Kaʿba having been built
before the life of Ibrahim.264 That being the case, however, did not prevent
miracles being associated with this building of the Kaʿba by Ibrahim and
Ismaʿil.
In a section of the narrative which resonates powerfully, and forms an
intertext, with the Walsingham narrative, God orders Ibrahim and Ismaʿil to
build the Kaʿba, but they confess that they do not know where its location
should be. So God sends a wind, shaped with two wings and a serpent head,
called al-Khajuj which sweeps and clears an area around the old foundations
of an original first Kaʿba (fa-kanasat lahumā mā ªawla al-kaʿba ʿan asās
al-bayt al-awwal). Here at least Ibn Kathir seems to contradict his earlier
statement and acknowledge that there was an earlier Kaʿba prior to that built
by Ibrahim and Ismaʿil.265 They follow the outlines of these old foundations
with their pickaxes and dig out a new foundation for the Kaʿba.266
It is not only the miraculous and divinely sent wind which assists. Angelic
help is not far behind. Ibrahim asks Ismaʿil to fetch the Black Stone (al-ªajar
al-aswad) to incorporate in the building. Ismaʿil finds it in a corner and asks
his father who brought it to them. Ibrahim replies: ‘Someone a lot more
energetic than you!’ (Man huwa ansha† minka!).267 This mysterious figure has
been identified as the angel Gabriel.268
The Kaʿba, whether built firstly by Adam, or initially built by Ibrahim
and Ismaʿil as supposed by many,269 thus breathes the air of miracles in its
construction, divine and angelic. Down the generations it has inspired awe
and admiration from countless pilgrims. Thus the Andalusian traveller Ibn
Jubayr (1145–1217),270 visiting Mecca in 1183, likened the Kaʿba to ‘an
unveiled bride who is solemnly led in procession to the Paradise of Delight’.271
The later Maghribi traveller Ibn Battuta (1304–68/9 or 1377)272 was similarly
awestruck in 1326 and deployed a similar bridal image, no doubt influenced

by the earlier work of Ibn Jubayr.273
Later Victorian and twentieth-century travellers were no less impressed
by their first sighting of, and visit to, the Kaʿba. The great Victorian explorer
Richard Burton (1821–90) was unable to suppress his awe in 1853:
None felt for the moment a deeper emotion than did the Haji from the
far-north [himself]. It was as if the poetical legends of the Arab spoke truth,
and that the waving wings of angel, not the sweet breeze of morning, were
agitating and swelling the black covering of the shrine.274
Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867–1963), during her visit to Mecca in 1933,

was no less impressed, though her vocabulary was slightly more restrained:
approaching the Kaʿba she describes it as ‘the goal for which millions have
forfeited their lives and yet more millions have found their heaven in behold-
ing it’.275
For Cobbold, as for Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta, the Kaʿba, miraculously
constructed, is truly the House of God on earth, a real symbol of the celestial
Paradise which awaits the believer, adorned in one corner by the famous
Black Stone which Cobbold vividly characterises as ‘the corner-stone in the
Divine order of the Universe’.276
Narratologically, in our consideration of the Kaʿba, and building on all
that we have surveyed above, two vital topoi deserve our attention: the role of
the ikon and the role of the angel. Both will now be considered here.
The Ikon in the Kaʿba

The presence of an image of Mary and Jesus (Maryam and ʿIsa) in the Kaʿba
at the time of the conquest of Mecca by Muhammad in 630 is attested by
diverse authors, classical and modern.277 The image is variously characterised
in the Islamic Arabic sources as a sūra278 (picture, figure or statue)279 and a
timthāl280 (statue, scultured image).281. It was an image which was clearly
ornamented or decorated in some way (muzawwaq).282 Oleg Grabar suggests
that it may have been executed by a non-Arab or have been a piece ‘of local
folk art’.283
Al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi do not tell us what kind of ikon it was, nor give
it a name. There is hardly any real description except in one significant place:
‘I perceived in it [the Kaʿba] a decorated image of Mary [and] sitting in her

lap was her son Jesus [similarly] decorated’ (Adraktu fīhā timthāl Maryam
muzawwaq, fī ªijrihā ʿĪsā ibnuhu qāʿid muzawwaq).284 We are told also that
there was ‘the picture of the angels’ (‚ūrat al-malāʾika) on the interior wall of
the Kaʿba.285 Another text reads ‘the pictures [or images] of the angels (‚uwar
al-malāʾika)286 in the plural.
It is highly likely that this was a Byzantine ikon, a possible by-product
of trading links, and there is one pictorial candidate which fits the meagre
description above: the ikon in the Kaʿba might have been an early version of
what is characterised today as the ikon of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. I
stress here that this is a possibility only: there is no hard evidence.
The most notable example of this ikon dates from 1495. It had originally
been located in a Cretan church where even then its age was acknowledged,
and it is to be found today in the Church of Saint Alphonsus belonging to
the Redemptorists in Rome.287 The Orthodox Church knew this ikon as ‘the
Virgin of the Passion’ or ‘the Virgin of the Thumb’ and considered it to be ‘a
theological variant of the Hodegetria’.288
In this famous picture, which is indeed richly ornamented in all repro-
ductions, the Virgin Mary is shown with Jesus seated on her lap. Two angels
show to the infant the instruments of his future passion and a sandal is seen to
drop from the child in fright. His face is turned away from Mary as he beholds
the two archangels, Michael on the left holding the spear, sponge and crown
of thorns and Gabriel on the right holding the cross and nails.289 Legend has
it that the original of the ikon now in Rome in the Chiesa of San Alfonso was
painted by St Luke but this is, perhaps unsurprisingly, disputed.290
As we have already noted, the information provided in the Arabic sources
about the ikon of Mary and Jesus found by Muhammad in the Kaʿba is
tantalisingly meagre. If it was not an early example of the ikon of Our Lady of
Perpetual Succour (or Help), it could well have been a glykophilousa (sweetly
kissing) ikon in which Mary is portrayed in a loving pose with the infant291
or another hodegetria (the one who shows the way).292 We are not told in the
Arabic sources whether Jesus’ face in the Kaʿba ikon faced away from Mary
(as is traditional in the ikon of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour) or, as in so
many other ikons, was represented facing towards the Virgin.293
Nonetheless, the presence of this picture in the Kaʿba should not really
astonish us, given the contemporary Christian presence in Arabia and the
ubiquity of trade. Furthermore, from early times to the present day Christians
have portrayed Mary in a variety of forms. Anthropologically, what she holds
in such representations is of interest, whether it be the child Jesus confronting
the instruments of the passion (as in the ikon we have been discussing of Our
Lady of Perpetual Succour) or a knotted cord or rope, as in the picture of Our
Lady Who Unties Knots, in the Church of St Peter Am Perlach in Augsburg.
In the latter, the depiction of the child Jesus is replaced by one of angels.294
In all cases, however, in whatever form and in whichever place, whether
the Kaʿba in Mecca in late antiquity, the Chiesa of San Alfonso in Rome or
the Church of St Peter Am Perlach in Augsburg, the pictures and ikons of
Mary have always signalled the proximity of the divine presence in the world.
Indeed, theologically, in the Catholic Christian tradition, they connote Mary
as a prime instrument for intercession and salvation but, in the Protestant tra-
ditions, as a sign of division since such traditions reject the Marian doctrines
of the Catholic faith. The motivation of whoever placed or painted the ikon
of Jesus and Mary in the Kaʿba is unknown. If that person were Christian,
however, the picture might possibly have signalled or represented some kind
of ‘divine presence’ in the same way as the idols of Hubal and Manat for the
pagans of Mecca, and served as a focus for veneration and intercession. The
alternative, of course, is that it was placed there as pure decoration.
What we can identify and analyse much more easily is the contemporary
historical milieu in which this ikon of Jesus and Mary in pre-Islam came to be
found in the pagan Kaʿba in the first place, alongside a variety of other ‘gods’
and ‘goddesses’. As we have noted, the Meccans had endowed the latter with
supernatural and intercessory powers and thus worthy of veneration295 (and
later destruction by Muhammad).296 In the same way, some Marian ikons
and pictures down the ages have been endowed with miraculous charisms of
supernatural interventions, healings and the granting of heartfelt desires.297
But how was it possible that in the same pre-Islamic Kaʿba, pagan idols and
a Christian picture both shared a sacred space and, individually, signalled a
kind of ‘passport’ to the Divine via intercession and veneration?
Christianity broke early onto the Syro-Arab, Mesopotamian and Arabian
scenes. There was ample opportunity for knowledge of, and contact with,
Christianity. J. Spencer Trimingham draws attention to St Paul’s statement
in the Epistle to the Galatians: ‘Instead, I went off to Arabia, and later I came
back to Damascus.’298 He probably went south to the lands of the Nabataean
Arabs.299 Gradually Christianity in one form or another became known in
pre-Islamic Arabia. Trimingham claims, however, that it never established
deep, permanent long-lasting roots,300 but Robert Hoyland disagrees: he sug-
gests that between the fourth and the sixth centuries ad Christianity became
well established in parts of Arabia.301
In this period there were two major conduits for knowledge about
Christianity for the non-Christian Arab: there was trade with Christians to
the north of the Peninsula and there was the enduring war between Sasanian
Zoroastrian Persia and Christian Byzantium. The Qur’an makes an impor-
tant primary reference to the latter in its thirtieth Sura, Sūrat al-Rūm,302 a
chapter name variously translated as ‘the Chapter of the Byzantines’,303 ‘the
Chapter of the Greeks’,304 ‘the Chapter of the Romans’305 and ‘the Chapter of
the Roman Empire’:306
Alif, Lām, Mīm,

The Roman Empire [al-Rūm]
has been defeated –
in a land close by [fī adnā al-ar∂].307
The last line in this Qur’anic quote is significant in its indication of awareness
of the proximity of Christian Byzantium to Arabia in the age of Muhammad.
Of course, the Christian Byzantine Empire was not the only large
Christian territory adjacent to Arabia: Ethiopia/Abyssinia with its
Monophysite brand of Christianity lay just across the waters of the Red Sea to
the south-west of Arabia.308 The Abyssinians invaded the south-west of Arabia
in the third century and established their rule over this area for some time. It
is highly likely that Christianity reached this area in consequence of this inva-
sion, resulting in the baptism of the King of the Himyarites in around 360.309
Arabian Najran, too, became a centre of the Christian faith310 and, indeed,
the focus for a notorious massacre of Jewish opponents in 523.311
Aside from individual countries and regions, individual Christians occa-
sionally figure prominently in the Islamic narrative. Tradition holds that it
was a Coptic Christian who erected a flat roof supported by six pillars of
wood over the pre-Islamic Kaʿba sometime around the beginning of the
seventh century.312 The Christian Yemeni ruler, Abraha, marched on Mecca

in about 570, the year in which the Prophet Muhammad was born.313 The
future mission of the young Muhammad was identified by a Christian monk
named Bahira.314 Muhammad’s initial revelations were confirmed to Khadija,
Muhammad’s wife, as worthy of acceptance by her Christian cousin, Waraqa
ibn Nawfal.315
Finally, we note the intriguing statement of Uri Rubin: ‘Christians as
well may have venerated the Kaʿba, towards which some of them reportedly
used to pray.’316 Was this because they knew about the images of Jesus and
Mary in that Kaʿba? It is impossible to know.
Whether through country, region or person, then, Christianity was
well known in Arabia in the age of Muhammad, even if not always under-
stood and articulated in the strictly Chalcedonian fashion of 451.317 The
Qur’an is certainly familiar with Christian theology, aspects of which like
Trinitarianism,318 the Sonship of God319 and the death of Jesus on a cross320
are strongly rebutted, though in one part at least, there is an emollient accept-
ance of Christians and their right to practise their faith.321
The Kaʿba, the Ark and the Throne: an Angelic ˝awāf

The figure of Mary provides a major intertextual link: she links the Ark of the
Covenant of the Old Testament with the New by being identified as the New
Ark of the Covenant. She links the Kaʿba in Pre-Islam as a kind of pagan ‘ark’ –
albeit temporary – by being represented as part of an image of Jesus and Mary
in that Kaʿba. We thus have before us an intertextual and narrative paradigm
which might usefully be represented in diagrammatic form as follows:
(Jewish) Ark of the Covenant > (New Testament Apocalyptic) Mary as

New Ark of the Covenant > (Pagan) pre-Islamic Kaʿba as ‘ark’.
In each case the Ark is a symbol of the sacred. In the Old Testament nar-
rative, the Ark, beautifully furnished, contains the tablets of the Law, the
Decalogue.322 Evoking the realms of the supernatural and the miraculous,
models of ‘winged creatures’ made out of gold form part of the ‘mercy seat’
which is to be placed on top of the Ark.323 The NJB identifies these angelic-type
figures as corresponding to the karibu of the Babylonians: these were spirits
in half-human, half-animal shape whose task was to guard the entrances to
prominent structures like palaces and temples and were generally identified
as sphinxes in the Bible.324 But there is another possible identification for
what the NJB translates as ‘winged creatures’:325 they may be identified with
the cherubim,326 with the seraphim, one of the brightest of the traditional
Dionysian ninefold order of angels;327 they could be represented with the
head of a human, the wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, protecting the
heavens, and with the Ark serving as a kind of earthly throne for Almighty
God.328 In a mode reminiscent of the Islamic angelic †awāf round the Kaʿba,
to which we will shortly allude, the cherubim circle the throne of God in
the terrifying vision of the prophet Ezekiel.329
Thus we see that the topoi or motifs of angels and physical thrones form
a narratological and integral part of the Jewish Ark.330 That angelic aspect is
true of Mary’s antique designation as the New Ark of the Covenant331 and the
Islamic Kaʿba, and the motif of the angel and Mary is embedded, too, in the
Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse, of St John.
Textually, the theme of Mary and the angelic is a constant narratological
topos.
The Book of Revelation opens with an angelic revelation to John.332
He is commanded to write to the angels of seven churches.333 There are
seven angelic trumpeteers.334 In a very powerful verse the text tells us that
by the throne of God stand ‘four living creatures’: each has six wings and is
characterised as being a mass of eyes.335 The NJB identifes these supernatural
beings as having responsibility for the material world.336 They are fiery angels
who go by the name of ‘watchers’ (merkabah) and whose origins may well lie
in ‘the Jewish idea of the cherubim’.337 Later in the text we learn that Mary,
the New Ark of the Covenant, ‘robed with the sun, standing on the moon
. . . [wearing] a crown of twelve stars’,338 is confronted by a fearsome dragon
but this beast is overthrown by the Archangel Michael and his angels339 and the
dragon goes off to vent its anger elsewhere.340
Elsewhere, the intertextual association of Mary and the angelic is made
just as explicit in the Annunciation to Mary of the forthcoming birth of
Jesus by the angel Gabriel in the Gospel of Luke and Sūra Maryam in the
Qur’an.341
We have suggested that, in the pre-Islamic period, the Kaʿba may be
said to have functioned as a kind of pagan ‘ark’, filled as it was with diverse
‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’, together with images of Jesus, Mary and angels. Its
purpose, of course, was quite different from that of the Old Testament Ark.
Mary is thus one intertextual link to some of what we have surveyed. Another
primary narratological link from the Kaʿba to the Ark of the Old Covenant
to Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant is the motif of the angel. Mary links
the pre-Islamic Kaʿba to the Old and New Arks; however, it is the motif of
the angel, as we shall show below, which links the Islamic, purified Kaʿba to
these two Arks.
In the Islamic tradition we encounter the Islamic Kaʿba, inter alia, as a
metaphor for the Divine Throne,342 situated on earth directly beneath the
Throne of God in Heaven;343 as the closest place on earth to Heaven;344 as ‘the
navel of the earth’ (surrat al-ar∂)345 as well as the highest place on earth,346
indeed, as the centre of the entire universe;347 and as a marker of the place
where the angels at God’s command bowed down to Adam.348
Above all, the Islamic tradition holds that the Kaʿba is a place where the cir-
cumambulation (†awāf ) of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca deliberately replicates
the circling of the angels in Heaven of the Throne of God.349
Such a replication of the angelic circling was performed by Adam.350
Ibn Kathir tells us that there is a heavenly Kaʿba called al-Bayt al-Maʿmūr
(the House Inhabited)351 which is entered each day by 70,000 angels who
go there to worship God.352 Once again we see this association of the angelic
and a Kaʿba, whether it be a divine archetype or one constructed on earth by
human hands, albeit with angelic help or advice.353
The Kaʿba, its celestial and earthly archetypes and prototypes, its con-
struction and its builders, have given rise to much legend, myth and embel-
lishment to the extent that it is difficult to disentangle sacred reality from
sacred fiction. Some caution or, perhaps better, ambiguity is apparent even in
the early narratives. A particular aspect of this revolves around the immediate
or later destruction of the ikon of Jesus and Mary in the Kaʿba by the Prophet
Muhammad.
According to one report in al-Waqidi’s narrative, the Prophet com-
manded that all the pictures in the Kaʿba should be erased except the image
of Ibrahim. (Even this is commanded later to be erased.) But an immediately
succeeding account shows Muhammad seeing the ikon of Maryam (Mary)
and placing his hands on it (thumma ra’a ‚ūra Maryam fa-qad wa∂aʿa yadahu
ʿalayhā). But the command that follows is to preserve the picture of Ibrahim
but erase all the others.354
There is a double ambiguity here: there are conflicting and contradictory
commands about the projected fate of the image of Ibrahim. Secondly, the
Prophet’s action in placing his hands on the ikon of Maryam goes unexplained.
Was he singling out this ikon for immediate destruction or, as Hillenbrand
suggests,355 attempting to preserve it, for reasons known only to himself? In
al-Azraqi’s acccount, the Prophet also places his hand on the ikon of Maryam
and all the images in the Kaʿba are erased except that of Maryam.356
It is clear that there are two conflicting traditions here.357 Geoffrey
Parrinder comments: ‘Whether this story is true or not, there is no doubt
that the Prophet showed the utmost respect for Jesus and his mother.’358
Furthermore, despite hugely differing theological views on the nature of
Jesus between the Christian and Islamic traditions, the Qur’an also shows a
profound respect for both these figures;359 however, we note the later hadith
prohibition on the representation of the human form,360 a prohibition which
would certainly have covered Jesus and Mary.
Once more, in terms of the ways in which attitudes and critiques of
the Kaʿba narrative of the ikon have developed, it is memory which plays a
dominant role. The theme of a divine or supernatural presence in Heaven
and in the world is heralded and signified by the angelic presence around
the celestial Kaʿba and Throne of God, and the angelic facilitation of the
building of an earthly Kaʿba. It was further reinforced, at least for pre-Islamic
Christians, by the presence in the Kaʿba of the ikon of Jesus and Mary.
The motif of the pilgrimage water rituals, whereby the miraculously copi-
ous and healing waters of Zamzam are drunk361 in proximity to the Kaʿba,
serves to reinforce the metatheme of the faith of the pious pilgrim for whom
the Kaʿba – miraculously inspired and built – represents an ultimate metath-
eme of Islamic authority for monotheism as it was purged of its idols by
Muhammad and dedicated monotheistically to the one God. In this manner
the previous polytheistic ‘inhabitants’ of the Kaʿba were deprived of the
charisms and symbolism of any ‘divine’ authority.
The earthly Kaʿba embodies the theme of a memory, and memorialisa-
tion, of wholeness whose archetype is the celestial Kaʿba. The memory of
the ikon of Jesus and Mary, long since destroyed or, at least, removed from
the Kaʿba, serves as a reminder of the prosopographical and prophetic links

between Islam and Christianity as well as the fact that this latter religion is
accorded the status of Ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book).362 In Islam Jesus is
not divine but he is still revered as a great prophet.363
When we come to consider the narratological and comparative arena for

wood and stone, and their association with the realms of the miraculous, five
universal topoi immediately stand out from our earlier analyses: angels, flood
stories, houses or arks as shrines for the Divine and/or supernatural, memory
and pilgrimage.
It is well known and appreciated that the word ‘angel’ derives from the
Greek angelos meaning ‘messenger’ or ‘envoy’.364 The gods in most theis-
tic traditions have their messengers whether they be divine like the Greek
Hermes365 or without the charism of divinity like the Christian and Islamic
Gabriel (Jibril).366 Such angels are signifiers of the supernatural and, by the
will or explicit command of God, they can perform miraculous deeds which
may take the form, as we have seen, of facilitating the building of a structure
dedicated to the Divine. Each theistic religion appears to have its Ark, House
or Shrine in which the Divine may be said to be ‘housed’ or, at least, remem-
bered and venerated.
Such shrines trigger memories of the Divine and in or near their sacred
precincts miracles may be enacted for the supplicant or visitant. The latter
may perform a specific pilgrimage to such sites and shrines which enfold and
preserve, corporeally in terms of ornament, and spiritually in terms of wor-
ship and prayer, the memory of the Divine for a, perhaps, sceptical pilgrim
who seeks reassurance, if possible by means of a miracle, that there is a God.
Shrines and foci for pilgrimage like the two Christian shrines at Walsingham,
the Chiesa di San Alfonso in Rome with its miraculous picture of Our Lady
of Perpetual Succour, and the Islamic Kaʿba all breathe the universal air of
the sacred, the supernatural and, on occasion, the miraculous.
In the ubiquitous and almost universal flood stories which so many world
traditions preserve, we find certain narratological common elements: the
wood and stone dwellings of a sinful world are destroyed in a great Deluge
and Flood by a wrathful God. But there is a miraculous salvation for an elect
few in a wooden ark. The good are saved and free again, once the storm has
abated and the flood waters have subsided, thus allowing the survivors to
build in wood and stone once more.
In all this, as we have so frequently stressed, the role of memory in the
narration is key. Shrines are a direct reminder of the presence of God for the
believer. Miracles performed at such shrines reinforce the faith of the believer
and cancel the doubts of the sceptic. Flood stories are dynamic reminders of
an Almighty God who can be provoked to anger.
Memories of a devout past may also be made present in early modern
fictional narratives as in the once highly popular fiction of Agnes Strickland
(1806–74) whom Gary Waller characterises as ‘Walsingham’s Victorian
Chaucer’,367 following her own self presentation.368 Her 1825 novel The
Pilgrims of Walsingham369 was intended to do for Walsingham what Chaucer’s
Canterbury’s Tales did for Canterbury’s shrine of St Thomas à Becket.370
The novel presents a fictional narrative of an actual historical visit by
King Henry VIII and his Queen, Catherine of Aragon, to the Shrine of
Walsingham. This is perceived as a place of miraculous fulfilment if the
waters of its famed wells are drunk. As Agnes Strickland puts it in her charac-
teristically ‘cloying elevated style’:371
When all orthodox ceremonials had been performed at our lady’s shrine,
the pilgrims proceeded to the ‘Wishing Wells’ with eager alacrity, each
devoutly persuaded of the efficacy of the potent draught in procuring the
heart’s dearest wish. King Henry was the first who approached this far-
famed fount of hope, where, kneeling he swallowed an overflowing bumper
of the water, and wished with all the energy of his soul that a son might be
born unto him, who might live to succeed him on the throne of England.
This wish was fulfilled in the person of the early-lost Edward the Sixth.372
Katherine of Aragon is about to make the self-same wish but then changes
her mind and prays instead that her daughter Mary might become queen, a
prayer later answered on the accession to the throne of Mary I (r. 1553–8).373
In the narrative of Strickland the ‘holy wells’ are transformed into
‘Wishing Wells’, becoming a source of miraculous power and fulfilment to
those who drink their waters.374 In Strickland’s fiction the miracles are appar-
ent and fulfilled in the birth of Edward VI (r. 1547–53) and the accession
of Mary in 1553. The devotion of Henry VIII to Walsingham, no doubt

sustained by his urgent need to pray for a son and heir, has not escaped the
notice of more recent novelists. Philippa Gregory in her novel Three Sisters,
Three Queens refers to a visit by Henry to the shrine at Walsingham in which
he prays that Our Lady will bless his Queen Katherine with a child.375 When
Katherine does become pregnant again, one of the heroines of Gregory’s
narrative, Princess Mary, attributes this to that previous pious intercession to
Our Lady of Walsingham.376
Memory must also surely play a role in the strange alleged sighting of
the ghosts of Erasmus and Colet near Walsingham in the 1930s.377 Simon
Coleman charaterises this vision as ‘a meta-commentary’ linking the old and
revived shrine.378 The glorious past is given vivid immediacy in the present.379
A ‘private vision’ validates a very ‘public shrine’ in a fusion of ‘imagination,
history and reconstruction’.380
Finally, we note the dynamic and all-powerful role of memory in the
rituals (manāsik) of the Islamic pilgrimage, whether in the evocation of the
actions of Ibrahim, those of Hajar and Ismaʿil or the Farewell Sermon of
Muhammad. The ªajj can truly be said to be memory itself.381
The narratives of wood and stone, and thus Ark and Shrine, are mul-
tifaceted. They differ in detail but, as we noted earlier, they have many
similarities and links. In a sense they may all be considered as ‘frame stories’
whose purpose is to provide an individual locus for the sacred. We have
noted the Marian links between Mary as the New Ark, Walsingham and the
Kaʿba. We have noted the angelic links between Noah’s Ark, the Ark of the
Covenant in the Old Testament, Mary as the New Ark, Walsingham and
the Kaʿba. The identification and marking out of sacred ground may differ
from text to text. Thus the Walsingham Pynson Ballad gives us two acres
of dry land in the middle of a dew-covered meadow while al-Kisa’i presents
a divine cloud which indicates the acceptable dimensions of the projected
Kaʿba.
The building of the initial shrine at Walsingham is facilitated by miracu-
lous means and involves an actual process of building. By contrast, the Holy
House at Loreto is physically moved by angels from Nazareth to Loreto in
Italy.382 But both Walsingham and Loreto articulate a sense of the sacred,
however the buildings are believed to have appeared originally. As such,
miracles flow from them to simple pilgrim, supplicant and Pope, such as Paul
II (r. 1464–71), alike.383
Specific differences adorn the narratives of Atlantis, Gilgamesh and Noah
(Nuh), but each is united by the metamotif of water and Flood together with
the metatheme of initial destruction of the many followed by the ultimate sal-
vation, by divine intervention, of the few. It is clear that there is an intertext
to be detected in all the shrine narratives as well as the Flood stories, which
are linked by such motifs as angels, arks and shrines which we have surveyed.
These themes and motifs repeat themselves in different ways down the
ages. The initial visits by Erasmus and Colet to Walsingham in 1511 and
1514 are ‘re-envisioned’ in their apparition in the 1930s.384 The Shiʿa link,
or rather ‘back-project’, the Battle of Karbala’ in 680 to the Flood of Noah:
the Ark is severely shaken in the Deluge and Noah is informed that this is
because the Ark is sailing over the location of Karbala’ where, in the distant
future, al-Husayn will be martyred.385 Ayoub concludes that ‘in this way all
of history enters into sacred history by participating in its central event’.386
Repetition may be envisaged, too, in another form from a narratological
and, indeed, theological perspective, and that is the identification of types
and antitypes. The Atlantis narrative is the type for the Gilgamesh and
Judaeo-Christian-Islamic antitypes of the Flood. The Ark of the Covenant in
the Old Testament may be characterised as the type for which Mary, the New
Ark, and the Islamic Kaʿba are the antitypes. All contribute to the possible
formation of intertextual paradigms such as
Walsingham > Kaʿba (as a temporary pagan ‘ark’ in pre-Islam)
as a shrine paradigm. This in turn may be elaborated as follows:
Old Testament and Islamic Arks > Mary as New Ark of the Covenant
> Mary whose picture is in the Kaʿba > Kaʿba > Walsingham as Marian
Shrine.
The protagonists or catalysts are a triad of God, an angel and/or Mary, either
acting individually in time and space, or on their own. The consequences of
their actions may inspire belief or incredulity according to inclination, time,
desire and religious background but the significance of supernatural actions
in terms of shrine building and pilgrimages to those shrine dwellings of wood
and stone may be measured in terms of monetary gain on the one hand and
an enduring sense of the Divine on the other. Above all, there is a hope that
such wood and stone structures may yield miracles.
The catalysts may be a Flood, which brings cleansing and redemption, a
vision, such as the Pynson Ballad tells us was seen by the Lady Richeldis, or
the actions of ‘ordinary’ human beings like Hajar and Ismaʿil which likewise
result in Islam’s major focus of pilgrimage.
Of course, not all wood and stone structures in the Christian and Islamic
traditions are associated with the realms of the miraculous. Not all are para-
digmatically or intertextually linked. However, those which we have surveyed
and analysed demonstrate that through water, flood, wood, stone, angel and
human, the divine presence in both these traditions manifests itself in diverse
ways and through the occasional perceived miracle, sustains the believer and
bewilders the sceptic.
6
Cosmology
6.1 Proto-miracles: the Standing of the Sun and the Moon
Judaeo-Christian
I n the Old Testament Book of Joshua, the people of Israel, led by Joshua,
make a treaty with an important town called Gibeon. The Gibeonites are
then besieged by an alliance of their enemies, but Joshua comes to their aid.1
He implements an astonishing cosmological pact between Israel and God in
which he is able to command the sun and the moon: Joshua tells the sun to
stand still above Gibeon and commands the moon to do the same over the
Vale of Aijalon. The sun and the moon obey, with the sun not setting for
nearly the entire day.2 The power exhibited is, of course, God’s but Joshua
here performs as an instrument of divine power.
J. R. Porter notes that the sun god, Shamesh, may well have been wor-
shipped in the sanctuary at Gibeon and locates the origins of the theme of
the stilling of the sun and the moon in an ancient poem which had originally
been directed to the astral deities of Canaan but was now deployed by Joshua
in his address.3
The NJBC stresses that warfare narratives frequently feature cases in
which the Divine suddenly exerts a magisterial control over the elements4
and that biblical poetry often gives us instances where astral phenomena like
the sun and the moon join forces with God to fight on the side of Israel.5 The
NJBC adds that, for some at least, we are in the presence of a real miracle and
not just a solar eclipse: it believes that the various attempts to interpret what
happened as such an eclipse are ‘misguided’.6
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cosmolog y | 159
Islamic
Joshua does not appear by name in the Qur’an. However, scholars have
identified possible references7 of which perhaps the most intriguing is the
identification of Moses’ ‘companion’, ‘servant’ or ‘youth’ (fatā) with Joshua
as Moses seeks ‘the junction of the two seas’ (majmaʿ al-baªrayn) in the Sura
of the Cave.8
In the Islamic account of Ibn Kathir, who cites what is clearly an Old
Testament source (dhakara ahl al-kitāb), Joshua (Yūshaʿ) b. Nun crosses the
River Jordan with the Israelites and arrives at the city of Jericho (Arīªā), a
well-fortified and heavily populated city. He lays siege to it for six months
after which, one day, his army encircles the city, blowing trumpets and shout-
ing ‘God is most great’, thereby precipitating the total collapse of the city
walls.9
Again we see a powerful divine agency at work in this capture of the
city of Jericho. Then miracle builds upon miracle: Joshua invokes God and
asks Him to prevent the sun setting and the moon rising until the conquest
of Jericho is accomplished. This is done by God.10 Ibn Kathir confirms his
narration by citing a hadith from Ibn Hanbal to the effect that only once in
human history has the sun ever been prevented from setting and that was for
Joshua (Inna al-shams lam tuªbas illā li-Yūshaʿ. . .).11
In the account of al-Kisa’i there is an additional, intermediate agency of
an angel: the angel whose task it is to guard the sun is ordered by God to hold
the sun still in one place until Joshua’s battle is over.12
The reason that Joshua wishes to prolong the daylight hours is that the
Sabbath is approaching, the start of which would mean that the battle had to
stop as an aspect of Sabbath Day observance. It has been suggested that there
is a clear Haggadic influence in the text here.13
In both the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic narratives we are confronted
with the shared metatheme of celestial phenomena being commanded by a
human agent, albeit with the power originating in a divine source. There is,
to use Islamic pilgrimage terminology, a wuqūf or ‘standing still’ on a cosmic
scale over the cities where this ‘standing still’ takes place – Gibeon in the Old
Testament, Jericho in the accounts of Ibn Kathir and al-Kisa’i. Different
cities are thus the witnesses to this miraculous astral phenomenon in the
Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions.
However, in the Old Testament, it is the fall of the City of Jericho which
assumes central stage in Joshua 6. Here we find parallels with the Islamic
account in the Old Testament narrative’s themes of a blowing of horns, a
war cry and the encircling of the city of Jericho.14 To use Islamic pilgrimage
terminology once again, there is a kind of proto-†awāf or circumambulation
which contributes to the ritual – and miraculous – destruction of the walls of
the city of Jericho. In addition, and unlike the narratives of Ibn Kathir and
al-Kisa’i, the Ark of the Covenant features prominently in the circumambula-
tion of the walls of the city of Jericho.15
In all these narratives, then, we may identify several major themes and
motifs, some held in common between the two traditions and others not. There
are the miraculous themes of the ‘standing still’ of the sun and the moon, and
the circumambulation of the walls with its miraculous consequences. There
are the motifs of trumpet and ark, both of which signify divine presence and
ultimate divine agency. Trust in God, miracle and ritual merge in one dynamic
whole whose terrestrial, terrifying consequence is truly on a cosmic scale.
Joshua in both the Judaeo-Christian and the Islamic narratives is beset
by neither disbelief nor caution when confronted by the cities of Gibeon and
Jericho. He believes in God and the power of God who has already delivered
the Israelites into the Promised Land. The memory of divine presence in the
world, and the overarching authority of God, marches with – indeed, is sym-
bolised by – the motif of the ark itself in the Judaeo-Christian narrative. In a
similar way, many centuries hence, the Kaʿba would symbolise for Muslims
the presence and authority of God in and over the world.
6.2 The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima
For the more devout among the Catholic community in Portugal, 2017 was
a momentous year. It was the centenary of a series of visionary events – the
apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three little shepherds (os três pastorinhos)
– which occurred at the Cova da Iria near the village of Fatima16 and which
precipitated in the course of time the construction of one of the world’s
most famous pilgrimage shrines, rivalling Lourdes, Rome and Jerusalem.
Of particular interest for this volume is the date of 13 October 2017, for
that date marked the hundredth anniversary of what became known as the
Miracle of the Sun.
cosmolog y | 161
The Visionary Milieu: Portugal 1917

It is no exaggeration to say that the visionary experience of the three peasant
children at Fatima – Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta – took place against a
background of global, national, personal, political and religious chaos and
disorder.17 The first of the six major apparitions of the Virgin Mary occurred
on 13 May 1917; the last, which embraced the Miracle of the Sun, was
on 13 October 1917.18 The backcloth to all this celestial experience was
stark: globally, the First World War was still raging. On 31 July 1917 the
Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) began.19 In March 1917 Tsar Nicholas
II (r. 1894–1917) was overthrown and on 16 April 1917 Lenin entered
Petrograd together with Leon Trotsky. The Russian Revolution had begun.20
Nationally in Portugal the turn of the nineteenth century into the twen-
tieth witnessed the assassination of one monarch, Carlos I (r. 1889–1908),
the eventual withdrawal of the last Portuguese king, Manuel II (r. 1908–10)
to England and a revolution on 5 October 1910 which turned Portugal into
a republic.21 Religiously the Republican revolutionaries manifested a massive
anti-Catholic and anti-clerical hostility.22
Lucia, ten years old at the time of the apparitions, was born on 22 March
1907; her then nine-year-old cousin Francisco was born on 11 June 1908;
and seven-year-old Jacinta was born on 11 March 1910.23 From a personal
and individual perspective, poverty, debt and the spectre of war were con-
stants in their young lives.24 These, then, were children from families under
pressure, but children who would later be canonised as saints.25
Perspectives and emphases vary among commentators as to an appropri-
ate contextualisation – historical and social – of the phenomenon of Fatima.
They range from the consoling and the sympathetic to the slightly cynical to
the secular. Thus Chris Maunder, noting the age of extreme turbulence into
which the visionaries had been born and in which they lived, with Portuguese
men dying during the war in Western Europe, stresses the consolation that
the visions of Mary would have brought, locally and nationally, especially
with Mary’s promise that this war was coming to an end.26 The Great War
did end in 1918, but with a harvest of 10,000 dead and wounded Portuguese
soldiers from the battlefields of Europe.27
For Norman Davies the apparitions may be characterised as opportune.
He observes, in a not unsympathetic but slightly cynical note, that on 3 May
1917 the reigning Pope, Benedict XV (r. 1914–22) had asked for some
sign of peace from Mary and this was followed after only ten days by the
phenomenon of Fatima.28 Miri Rubin perceives Fatima as a reaction against
modernity,29 and Marina Warner concurs. For her the visionary experiences
stood in stark opposition to official atheism.30 As with other major Marian
apparitions, most commentators agree that the miraculous events of Fatima
accord with no known science nor logic.31
In what follows, as elsewhere in this volume and following Chris
Maunder32 (but contrary to the usage of Anselmo Borges),33 I make no
distinction between the words ‘apparition’ and ‘vision’. Both, in addition,
because of their related circumstances and associated phenomena, are held to
belong to the realms of the miraculous and thus are included here.
The Angel of Peace

In the classical Fatima narrative miraculous vision precedes miraculous vision.
Marvels are attached to both. A threefold angelic vision precedes a sixfold
Marian series of visions. In the first, Holy Communion is miraculously given
to the visionaries by the angel; in the second, the sun is seen to dance by more
than 70,000 people.
Before all this, however, there is a silent visitation. Narratologically, the
events at Fatima develop slowly, step by step, gradually introducing all the
dramatic elements of what will become a series of miraculous visitations into
the everyday lives of the children, usually in a manner calculated not to terrify
them.
One day in 1915 the children start to pray the rosary but their eyes are
suddenly caught by an extremely white, almost transparent, figure floating
above the trees. The children are frightened but they continue with their
prayers and the figure eventually disappears. Lucia later tells her mother that
the figure looked like someone with a sheet wrapped round them.34
However, the Fatima story begins properly – and verbally – in early or
mid-1916 with the first apparition in a series of three of an angel who identi-
fies himself as ‘the Angel of Peace’, and who serves, as it were, in the narrative
as a kind of precursor to the Marian apparitions which will follow.
The three children have been playing among the rocks near the village of
Aljustrel when they see this angel who identifies himself and teaches the chil-
cosmolog y | 163
dren a short prayer. In a second apparition in mid-2016 the angel demands

prayer and sacrifice. But it is the third apparition of the angel, as summer
turns to autumn, which is the most dramatic and extraordinary. The angel
appears bearing a Host and chalice, with blood dripping from the former
into the latter, and gives the children communion. They are left delighted but
physically exhausted in the days that follow.35
This is how Lucia described that first full encounter with the Angel of
Peace:
After having taken our lunch and said our prayers, we began to see, some
distance off, above the trees that stretched away towards the east, a light,
whiter than snow, in the form of a young man, transparent and brighter
than crystal pierced by the rays of the sun. As he drew nearer, we could dis-
tinguish his features more and more clearly. We were surprised, absorbed,
and struck dumb with amazement. On reaching us, he said: ‘Do not be
afraid. I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me.’36
Here, as in so many of the miraculous accounts which we have surveyed, the

figure of the angel is a recurring – almost essential – motif in the fabric of
the narrative. These angels in the miracle stories are not always provided with
names, though, of course, in both the Christian and Islamic traditions and
their miracle stories, the name of Gabriel/Jibril figures large. In the Fatima
narrative the angel does identify himself in the second angelic apparition as
‘The Angel of Portugal’37 and Guardian Angel of that country. Some com-
mentators also identify him with the Archangel Michael.38
The Lady of Light

On 13 May 1917 the first of the now world-famous six Marian visions to the
three young shepherds occurred. These were clearly the events for which the
precursor Angel of Peace had been preparing the children. Mary appears to
the children radiantly clad in dazzling white. She tells them not to be afraid,
says that she is from Heaven and asks them to come to the same place on the
thirteenth day of every month at the same time over a period of six months.
In the course of the succeeding apparitions, messages of prayer for peace,
repentance, reparation, sacrifice, conversion, suffering, future salvation and
damnation, praying the rosary, a terrifying vision of Hell, the need for the
consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, together with three

notorious ‘secrets’, are given to the three children. These constitute metath-
emes in the whole narrative which, in terms of its prophecies, becomes an
eschatological tour de force. Then, in the July, August and September appari-
tions, Mary promises to perform a great miracle in order to persuade all to
believe.39 This is the famous Miracle of the Sun and it lies at the heart of the
Fatima narrative.
The Miracle of the Sun

Just as the ‘standing’ (wuqūf ) at ʿArafat on the ninth day of the Islamic
month of Dhū ’l-Óijja is the climactic day of the pilgrimage, full of expec-
tation and sacred promise of future salvation,40 so the ‘standing’ of the
huge crowd who accompanied the three children to the Cova da Iria on
13 October 1917 inaugurated the climactic event in the children’s spiritual
journey and visionary experience. It has been estimated that approximately
70,000–100,000 people assembled with the children in eager expectation of
witnessing a miracle, news of the promise of which had spread like wildfire.
Some had come to sneer and mock, to confirm their scepticism or athe-
ism. Others were motivated by curiosity; yet others by a deep piety which
yearned confirmation by a supernatural event.
The sun was seen to tremble, spin and whirl, change colour, ‘dance’ across
the sky and then hurl itself, zigzaging, towards the earth and the now terrified
crowds.
None of the three children witnessed what became known as the Miracle
of the Sun. Instead, they were granted a vision of St Joseph with the child
Jesus together with the Virgin Mary appearing consecutively as a woman in
white robes, mantled in blue, then as Our Lady of Sorrows and finally as Our
Lady of Mount Carmel.41
For the three children that day was special and memorable, not for the
Miracle of the Sun which they did not see, but for the appearance of St
Joseph, the child Jesus and the Virgin Mary in various garbs, together with
the final messages brought by Mary: she identified herself in this last appari-
tion as ‘the Lady of the Rosary’ and commanded the building of a chapel in
her honour on the site of the apparitions. She forecast the end of the First
World War and urged repentance. Then, in Lucia’s own words, ‘opening her
cosmolog y | 165
hands, she made them reflect on the sun, and as she ascended, the reflection
of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself . . .’42
Lucia and her two cousins may not have witnessed the Miracle of the
Sun but thousands of others did. They included the massive assembly of
people – atheists, sceptics and believers – at the apparition site itself as well as
observers up to twenty-five miles away.43 It was seen and commented upon,
inter alia, by the father of two of the little seers, Jacinta and Francisco, who
was known as Ti-Marto but whose full name was Manuel Pedro Marto.44
Another witness was Professor Dr Almeida Garrett, Professor of Natural
Sciences at Coimbra University.45 The fact that all were able to gaze at the
sun without discomfort, blindness or even slight injury hugely impressed and
intrigued another witness to the actual event, Domingo Coelho, an eminent
eye specialist.46 An English non-Catholic, later convert, also witnessed the
Miracle of the Sun and recorded her impressions.47
However, of all the witnesses to this event, perhaps the most amazed were
the journalists of the secular anti-clerical Portuguese press. Several had come
to sneer, to disprove and to indulge a profound scepticism about the claims
of the children.48 The most astonishing thing about their reports was their
general attempt at some objectivity and factuality, whether they appeared in
Portugal’s largest circulation newspaper, Diario de Noticias (Daily News), with
its report on Monday, 15 October 1917,49 the secular Lisbon newspaper, O
Dia, reporting on 17 October 1917,50 or the Republican, anti-Catholic gov-
ernment newspaper, O Seculo (The Century), which reported on 15 October
1917. This latter newspaper had sent its journalist Avelino de Almeida to
the site of the final apparition and he had witnessed the Miracle of the Sun,
about which he then wrote in such an unrestrained fashion that he incurred
the wrath and hostility of the Lisbon authorities.51 The front cover of the
edition of O Seculo on Monday, 15 October bore the now-famous picture of
the three children standing in an uncomfortable-looking group, appearing
quite severe.52
Almeida’s lengthy article was not just factual and objective in terms of
what he saw, but almost enthusiastic. He wrote:
Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was biblical as they
stood bareheaded, pale with fright, eagerly searching the sky, the sun
t rembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws – the
sun ‘danced’ according to the typical expression of the people . . . [This]
naturally made a great impression, as people worthy of belief assured me, on
the freethinkers and others without any religious conviction who had come
to this now famous spot on the poor pastureland high up on the serra.53
Aftermath: Developing a Modern Eschatology

Donal Anthony Foley claims that a major significance of the events of Fatima
was that it served to revivify Catholicism in Portugal after years of atheistic
hostility and persecution.54 Politically and religiously, the atheistic and anti-
clerical republic was followed by the 1928–68 dictatorship of Dr Antonio
de Oliveira Salazar (1889–1970) which, while being pro-Catholic,55 fostered
and encouraged a highly traditional form of Catholicism in Portugal which
looked askance at more liberal expressions of the faith like the reforms of the
Second Vatican Council (1962–5).56
For many believers, however, the primary significance of Fatima was
‘apocalyptic’ and ‘eschatological’.57 At the heart of the modern eschatology
for many devotees of Fatima lay the now-famous notion that the Virgin
Mary, during her six apparitions to the three children, had entrusted to them
three secrets. The existence of the three secrets, whether revealed or hidden,
confirmed and justified the faith of the believers both in their own Catholic
faith and the reality of the apparitions themselves.
It is not the task nor the intention of this volume to examine and delve
into the theories, counter-theories and conspiracy theories about these secrets,
so many of which revolve around the command of the Virgin to the children
that Russia should be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart. Suffice it to say
that the whole subject of these secrets has spawned a veritable literary indus-
try, some of which is grotesque, and much of which belongs to the realms of
speculation, fantasy and fantastic prophecy, rather than to the realms of the
possibly miraculous or, at the other end of the spectrum, ordinary reality.58
What is perhaps of greater interest, especially from an anthropological
perspective and the primary focus of this volume as it surveys the realms
of the miraculous, is to examine the various attitudes of a range of people,
scholars and organisations towards Fatima and its much-vaunted Miracle of
the Sun. We will do this through the lens of our critical paradigm, deployed
cosmolog y | 167
several times already, in which critiques and attitudes are examined under the
four headings of disbelief and scepticism, caution, belief, and memory and
memorialisation. The latter aspect will identify, narratologically, the leading
themes and motifs in the Fatima story.
The phraseology of David Birmingham in his Concise History of Portugal
epitomises the scholarly distance of those who reject the events at Fatima as
real and miraculous. He refers to ‘the mystical cult of Fatima’, the evolution
of a ‘myth’ and mentions ‘pilgrims’ in the same sentence as ‘the supersti-
tious’.59 Elsewhere there is a scathing reference to ‘the magical powers of
Fatima’.60
Fr Professor Anselmo Borges of the Portuguese Missionary Society
accepts that the children of Fatima had some kind of religious experience,
but he draws attention to the missionary activities of priests contemporary
with the children who went around preaching frightening sermons on Hell
and the penalties of sin; he notes the framing by the children of their vision-
ary experience in ‘childhood terms’: in consequence, he rejects the traditional
acceptance and interpretation of the claimed miraculous phenomena, espe-
cially its ‘proof miracle’, the Miracle of the Sun. For him, the thousands of
observers of the latter had some kind of ‘collective vision’ but it was not ‘a
real fact’. Otherwise there would have been an explosion of the entire solar
system. No one in the rest of Europe witnessed this Miracle of the Sun.61
Bob Thiel is just as dogmatic but he speaks from a scriptural perspective.
One should not believe in alleged apparitions of Mary for none are forecast
in the Bible. For him, the phenomena of Fatima are entirely unscriptural.62
From a scientific perspective Richard Dawkins confessed himself unable to
explain the Miracle of the Sun and ‘how seventy thousand people could share
the same hallucination’,63 and he thus aligns himself, scientifically, with the
theological doubts of Borges64 and the scriptural doubts of Thiel.
The opponents of their views, who accept the Miracle of the Sun as
a reality, reject the idea of a collective hallucination or ‘mass hysteria’ by
those at the Cova where the apparitions took place and observers up to
twenty-five miles away.65 Instead, they propagate the idea of a supernatural
‘solar phenomenon’.66 Devotees of Fatima reject, too, the idea put forward
by Fr Stanley Jaki to the effect ‘that ice-particles in the clouds in the region
of the sun may well have acted to refract the rays of the sun and break them
up into the colors of the rainbow’,67 thereby confusing the great mass of
spectators.
Chris Maunder in his volume, Our Lady of the Nations, toys with the
idea of children’s play and their fantasies, factors which would certainly have
predisposed outsiders to look with profound suspicion on the stories of the
children and the messages which they claimed came from the Virgin Mary.68
It is interesting that the oldest child, the ten-year-old Lucia, herself at first
doubted the true source of her visions.69
Theologians too have expressed deep misgivings about some aspects of
the apparitions.70 Now Catholic Church authorities themselves, both in the
past and in the present, have been extremely wary about giving credence to
claims of miracles and apparitions. It has been stressed that claims to having
experienced such phenomena belong to the realms of private revelation as
opposed to ‘public revelation’; the latter is said to have ended with Christ in
the New Testament.71 Private revelations form no part of the deposit of faith
and no Catholic, nor anyone else, is obliged to believe in them.72 Nonetheless,
it is accepted that on very rare occasions throughout history, the Virgin Mary
may show herself in a vision to certain people, but all claims to such visionary
experiences are to be treated with the utmost caution, especially since the
Second Vatican Council.73
Claims to such experiences are not dismissed out of hand. Over the years
the Church has established a series of guidelines and parameters against which
all claims of apparitions are to be judged.74 A subtext to all such investigations
is that it is acknowledged that private revelations may actually reinforce the
faith of the believer.75 As knowledge of the spiritual anthropology and sociol-
ogy of alleged apparitions has grown, however, together with a deepening
awareness of the frequent context of such apparitions as one of Church ‘strug-
gle for existence’,76 Church caution about apparitional claims has increased.
This has particularly been the case in the claims about the phenomena of
Medjugorje:77 the Catholic Church has long been formally silent about the
Marian apparitions alleged to have occurred there notwithstanding claims of
miracle events, both physical and spiritual. Keith Tester has noted that the
apparitions throughout history which the Church has actually accepted, and
whose cult have been promoted, are often those which ‘tend to be friendly to
the ecclesial concerns of the day’.78
cosmolog y | 169
In the case of Fatima, after a lengthy official silence, Bishop Correia da

Silva of Leiria issued a statement in 1930 which concluded:
We hereby:
1. Declare worthy of belief, the visions of the
shepherd children in the Cova da Iria, parish of Fatima, in
this diocese, from the 13th May to 13th October, 1917.
2. Permit officially the cult of Our Lady of Fatima.79
In addition, the Bishop accepted as a reality – albeit ‘unnatural’ – the phe-

nomenon of the Miracle of the Sun.80
There has never been a shortage of people who believe in and accept the
miraculous phenomena and revelations of Fatima. These range from the three
children, the O Seculo correspondent, the mass of witnesses to the Miracle
of the Sun through to countless pilgrims in our own age who flock in large
numbers to Fatima as they do to Lourdes.81 The Fatima narrative has been
endorsed by popes and written into the liturgical calendar.82 Pope John Paul
II (r. 1978–2005) in particular had a special and personal devotion to Our
Lady of Fatima because he believed that its secrets referred to the attempted
assassination of him in 1981.83 In another Fatima miracle he also held that
the bullet designed to kill him had been miraculously deflected within his
body to a non-fatal area by the Virgin of Fatima herself.84
For the believer all was confirmed by miraculous cures.85 For Donal
Anthony Foley the Miracle of the Sun was ‘the greatest miracle’ in the history
of the Church since the time of Christ.86
Attention has already been drawn to the fact that apparitions often tend
to occur in areas where the Church is under threat or persecution. Portugal
in 1917 provided an ideal context in which the latter was present and where
there was a need felt by many for the theme of ‘divine presence’ to reassert
itself in an atheistic and secular milieu. In the Fatima apparitions that divine
presence was not replaced by Mary. Careful study of her apparitions, together
with those of the angel, show that she acts as a simple conduit to the Divine.
From a narratological and paradigmatic perspective, we can say that,
consciously or unconsciously, Lourdes, the archetype, is ‘remembered’ by
Fatima which, in turn, is ‘remembered’ in our own age by the phenomena at
Medjugorje. The ‘present’ of Fatima harks back to the ‘past’ of Lourdes and
the ‘future’ of Medjugorje. Indeed, Eduardo Torres notes that ‘the Fatima
phenomenon looked like a re-edition of Lourdes’; it was ‘a crowd event’ like
Lourdes.87
The contemporary Portuguese press in 1917 was not slow to draw the
analogy. One newspaper actually talked of ‘the re-edition of the Lourdes
miracle’.88 Comparisons were drawn, too, between Lucia of Fatima and
Bernadette of Lourdes.89
The paradigm which we have identified finds its culmination at
Medjugorje. Just as Fatima embraces features of Lourdes, so Medjugorje
embraces features of Fatima, most powerfully in the motif of a spinning
sun.90 Mary is alleged to have told Mirjana and the other Medjugorje children
that her actions at Medjugorje were a completion of those at Fatima.91
The theme of a memory of wholeness for the Catholic faith here assumes
a dual aspect. Lourdes and Fatima signal a need to return to wholeness, via
prayer and repentance,92 of the faith in a world which is perceived to have lost
sight of God. Medjugorje for the believer signals a completion of the mission
of the Virgin which is made ‘whole’ by the final messages transmitted at that
site.
It is true that at Fatima the motif of water, which figures so powerfully
in the Lourdes narrative as well as that of Hajar and Ismaʿil, is largely
absent. It is replaced by the motif of light and, in particular, the metamotif
of the sun. However, the metathemes of faith and doubt are present in the
Fatima narrative, as in that of Lourdes, and again, what we might term
‘anthropological tools of validation’ are deployed to convince the disbeliev-
ing, the doubting and the sceptical. The primary validating tool deployed at
Fatima for the apparitional phenomena was, of course, the Miracle of the
Sun.
It is perhaps no accident that papal authority for, and confirmation of,
the Fatima story was reinforced many years later in the twentieth century by
Pope Pius XII (r. 1939–58), who himself witnessed the ‘dance of the sun’
from the Vatican gardens on 30 October 1950, two days before he solemnly
defined the dogma of the Assumption.93 The witnessing of the sun miracle
by Pius XII was interpreted by him as divine approbation for his proclama-
tion of this dogma of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven just as Lourdes
served, many years earlier, to represent a similar kind of approbation for the
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definition in 1854 of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary by

Pope Pius IX (r. 1846–78).94
Behind all this stands the metatheme of Church authority. Miracles and
miraculous apparitions or visions may appear to transfer a seat of earthly
temporal and spiritual power and order to a higher celestial sphere. They
may thus represent a threat to a worldly or otherwise-occupied episcopacy
and hierarchy. They may represent a threat, too, to a secular or atheistic
state which seeks a maximum control over the lives and even thoughts of its
citizens in a sometimes Orwellian fashion.
However, at other times, and after due discernment as we have noted,
private revelation – which can be accepted or rejected at will by the faithful
– may be considered a useful adjunct to faith by an anxious hierarchy as it
seeks to extirpate heresy or incalcate ‘correct’ belief in a sometimes credulous
flock.
6.3 The Splitting of the Moon in the Qur’an
The Qur’an readily discloses a world of āyāt (signs, miracles).95 This Arabic
word has a diversity of meanings.96 Its first Qur’anic usage was as a sign of the
power of Almighty God as He showed Himself at work in his creation and
the course of history; later it came to mean ‘a miraculous sign apt to prove
the truth of the prophetic message’ and, later, a simple Qur’anic verse.97
These signs or miracles are created by God both in ourselves and on the
furthest reaches of the perceptible universe.98 To the latter category belong
the stars, the sun and the moon. These celestial phenomena as they appear in
the Qur’an are alternatively endowed with, or articulated by, what might be
termed ‘gentle’ and ‘violent’ verbs. Thus
The Sun runs his course for a period determined . . .

And the Moon – We have measured for her
mansions (to traverse).99
So I do call to witness the ruddy glow of sunset; the
Night and its Homing; and the Moon in her Fulness.100
Furthermore I call to witness the setting of the Stars.101
Thus the Qur’an pictures the sun, the moon and the stars running the course
pre-ordained for them by God: their associated verbs are ‘gentle’ and betoken
regularity and order. These are powerful celestial phenomena and, as such,
they may be used for emphasis in powerful and dynamic oaths. For example:
By the Sun and his (glorious) splendour; by the Moon

as she follows him.102
The exact exegesis of such ‘celestial’ oaths has been regarded as problematic.103
However, we may note in passing that the sighting of the New Moon marks
important dates in the fast of Ramadan and the month of pilgrimage.104
When we turn to the vocabulary of the Last Day in the Qur’an, and
its associated cosmology, a much more violent set of verbs comes into play
betokening a complete breakdown of the natural order. Thus a picture is
painted of a time
when the stars become dim, when the heaven is cleft

asunder (furijat).105
When the sun (with its spacious light) is folded up;
when the stars fall, losing their lustre.106
When the sky is cleft asunder (infa†arat); when the
stars are scattered.107
It is this appalling violence of the Last Day that, according to one interpreta-
tion, is the context for the Miracle of the Splitting of the Moon. According
to another, equally popular interpretation, this miracle was performed by
the Prophet in his lifetime to demonstrate the truth of his message to the
unbelievers and simply recorded briefly thereafter in the Qur’an. However,
this idea that the Qur’anic reference is specifically to a miracle performed by
Muhammad is more strongly supported in the tafsīr and hadith literature108
than by the bald Qur’anic citation.
We shall refer to both interpretations in what follows. Suffice it to say
that the Arabic verbs furijat and infa†arat, both of which Yusuf Ali renders as
‘cleft asunder’, may be said to belong to the same family of ‘verbs of violence’
as the Arabic verb inshaqqa which we shall see the Qur’an deploys in its very
brief reference to the splitting of the moon: all bespeak the same rupture of
the natural order.109 The ‘familial’ nature of these verbs is also emphasised by
Yusuf Ali who chooses to render inshaqqa also as ‘cleft asunder’.110
Our primary text for the narration of the Miracle of the Splitting of the
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Moon comprises a single half verse in the Qur’an111 in its fifty-fourth sura
which is entitled Sūrat al-Qamar (Sura of the Moon). The Arabic verse reads
as follows, together with Yusuf Ali’s translation:
Iqtarabat al-sāʿa wa-’nshaqqa al-qamar.

The Hour (of Judgement) is nigh and the moon is cleft asunder.112
While the first part could clearly be interpreted as a reference to the Last
Day and Last Judgement, as many commentators and translators suggest, it
is the second half which specifically concerns us here, although the first part
could clearly be interpreted as providing the context for the escatological
interpretations.
All translators are agreed on the sense of the Arabic verb inshaqqa which
is rendered variously as
• cleft asunder113
• (the equally archaic) rent in twain114
• split115
• split asunder116
• split apart117
• split open118
• cleft in two119
• has been cleaved.120
Badawi and Abdel Haleem concur and their own preferred translation of
inshaqqa is ‘split in two’.121
It is clear that the Qur’anic verse signals something profoundly miracu-
lous and terrifyingly eschatological. Narratologically, the reference to the
splitting of the moon shares in the semiotics of violent apocalypse and is
distinct, semantically, from much of the more ‘serene’ or ‘gentle’ Qur’anic
vocabulary of the sun, moon and stars as they are delineated in God’s careful
ordering of the universe.
The Qur’anic exegete Ibn Kathir is a major source for the consideration
of the splitting of the moon as a mighty miracle worked by the Prophet
Muhammad himself. Drawing on various narrative chains he relates how
the Prophet was talking to a group of people at Mina near Mecca before the
hijra and he was challenged to perform a miracle as a sign (āya) that he was
truly a prophet. The Prophet then pointed at the moon which was seen to
divide into two parts which then came to rest over each side of Mount Hira’.
He tells them to take careful note (ishhadū!) of what he has done but several
of those present dismiss what they have seen as magic or an optical illusion.
Nonetheless, just as the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima is seen by people some
distance from the main site of the apparitions, so too it is claimed that travel-
lers outside Mecca have witnessed the splitting of the moon as well.122 This
then, according to Ibn Kathir and his sources and chains of transmission,
represents the ‘reason for the revelation’ (sabab al-nuzūl ) of Q.54:1 with its
reference to the splitting of the moon.
Some accounts of the miracle and eschatology of the splitting of the
moon are briefer than those collected and collated by Ibn Kathir. They may
be stark in their simplicity. Thus, the two classical exegetes known as Jalalayn
(the two Jalals) – Jalal al-Din al-Mahalli (1389–1459) and Jalal al-Din al-
Suyuti (1445–1505)123 – wrote as follows:
The Hour has approached means the Day of Judgement (al-Qiyāma) is near.
The moon has split means that it has split into two halves.124
Jalalayn do, however, provide a useful exegesis of the verse which follows
Q.54:1. This verse reads as follows:
But if they see

a Sign [āya], they turn away,
and say, ‘This is
(but) transient magic’ [siªr].125
Those who see are identified as the ‘unbelievers of the Quraysh’ (kuffār
Quraysh) and the ‘sign’ (āya) is no mere sign but a ‘miracle’ (muʿjiza) wrought
by the Prophet.126
Jalalayn thus give us the most rudimentary of definitions. Their exegesis
provides elementary information but there is no elaboration of the basic
statement provided in the first verse of the Sura of the Moon such as we find
in Ibn Kathir. Chains of transmisssion are also absent as is any attempt to
harmonise the two sections of this first verse.
The evidence of that great collector of tradition, al-Bukhari, is equally
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scant and factual rather than interpretive. The people of Mecca, during
the actual life of the Prophet, request a sign/miracle (āya) from him
and so he shows them the splitting of the moon (fa-arāhum inshiqāq al-
qamar), advising them to take note and be witnesses to others of what has
happened.127
However, perhaps of greater interest in terms of order of importance is
the listing by al-Ghazali of Prophetic miracles in Book 20 of his magnum
opus The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Iªyā’ ʿUlūm al-Dīn). In a listing of
forty-five Prophetic miracles performed by Muhammad, al-Ghazali places the
splitting of the moon in pride of place as number one. The text is brief and
without commentary or any genuflection towards the idea that this miracle
of the Splitting of the Moon might also have an eschatological dimension as
well as, or instead of, the popular interpretation as a Prophetic miracle.
This very important listing occurs in a chapter whose title might loosely be
translated as ‘An Illustration of the Miracles and Signs of the Prophet which
demonstrate the veracity of the Revelation he received’ (Bayān muʿjizātihi wa
āyātihi al-dālla ʿalā ‚idqihi):
God violently interrupted the natural order via Muhammad several times:
[for example] when he split the moon for him in Mecca when Quraysh
asked him for a miracle (āya).
Fa-qad kharaqa Allāh al-ʿāda ʿalā yadihi ghayr marra; idh shaqqa lahu al-
qamar bi-Makka lamā sa’alathu Quraysh āya.128
What is significant here is not just the prime position given by al-Ghazali
to this miracle in his listing of Muhammad’s miracles but the stress on the
agency of God as the true performer of the miracle. This is a stress absent
from some of the other texts we have reviewed above.
Al-Ghazali’s listing includes food and water miracles, together with
miraculous cures, and thus inserts itself into, and resonates with, the general
arena of the miraculous with its diverse, intertextual dimensions, both Islamic
and Christian. As we have already seen, there are also food, water, prophetic,
eschatological and cosmological miracles in the Christian tradition.
Al-Ghazali stresses in the middle of his listing that knowledge about such
matters as miracles and signs and their workings cannot be gained through the
usual channels or by divination and soothsaying, but only via the instruction
of God and his revelation (bi-iʿlām Allāh taʿālā lahu wa waªyihi ilayhi).129
Miracles are said to confirm revelation and prophethood and al-Ghazali
thus works and writes within a great tradition.130 What is perhaps unexpected
is the primacy given to the Miracle of the Splitting of the Moon in his listing.
The classical doctrine that Muhammad did not perform miracles, apart
from being the conduit of the revelation of the Qur’an, has been gener-
ally recognised down the ages.131 The Qur’an itself is at pains to stress the
absolute humanity of Muhammad.132 In addition, he is neither a poet nor a
soothsayer (kāhin).133 The Qur’an stresses the utter omnipotence of God but
He does refrain from performing miracles through the agency of Muhammad
since the opponents of the latter would still remain unconvinced about the
messages and revelation which he brought.134 Other scholars have suggested
that the idea that Q.54:1 refers to a miracle wrought by the Prophet himself
before he made his famous hijra to Medina in 622 belongs more to the realms
of folklore rather than actuality. For such scholars, the attribution of the
splitting of the moon to Muhammad is to accept a later tafsīr of the Qur’an
which has no basis in reality and for which contemporary evidence is entirely
lacking. The essence of Q.54:1 is a forthcoming apocalyse of some kind.135
This latter idea that Q.54:1 is a reference to a future event which will
occur in escatological time, for example on the Last Day, is shared by many
exegetes.136 However, at least one, while acknowledging the possible subjec-
tive nature of what might have been perceived by Muhammad’s interlocu-
tors, suggests that the reality was a strange kind of eclipse of the moon which
deceived all who witnessed it into thinking that some kind of miraculous
event had occurred.137
The NJB emphasises that genuine prophets will always be able to work
miracles and signs in the name of the Deity whose revelation and messages
they transmit.138 Miraculous signs betoken authority and confirm mission
and prophethood.139 Narratologically, Q.54:2, in which it is stated that mira-
cles or signs will be interpreted by the unbeliever as mere magic, may be said
to participate in what might be termed a universal, scriptural ‘rejection of
the sign paradigm’. This paradigm has two aspects: a sign may be given by
God but rejected by the unbeliever; or the request for a sign may actually be
refused, sometimes with some asperity.
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As we have already stressed, the Qur’an inhabits and discloses a world

which manifests the signs of God to all,140 but it is also certainly aware that
signs and miracles may be rejected by an unbeliever141 or interpreted as mere
magic by the cynical onlooker or scoffer.142 In the New Testament Jesus
shows himself well aware of the former. The words and deeds, articulated and
performed in the name of the Father, bear witness to the truth of what he says
but those who are not part of his flock reject them.143
As we have seen, the Quraysh challenge Muhammad to produce a mira-
cle and he obliges, according to this interpretation, with the splitting of the
moon. But when, in the New Testament, Jesus is asked for a sign by various
people, Jesus berates their lack of belief and opaquely indicates that the only
sign they will be given is his future resurrection.144 Thus, according to the
paradigm, a sign may or may not be given, it may be delayed and, even if
it is given, it may not be received and accepted. This latter attitude of total
disbelief or profound scepticism is a fundamental element of the paradigm
and, as we have seen, played a major role in the Lourdes and Fatima narra-
tives as well as the fiction of Émile Zola. Other interpretations for strange
and incomprehensible phenomena may be sought as well in the realms of
meteorology or sorcery and magic.145
However, not all modern commentators have rejected out of hand the
idea that the Splitting of the Moon was a Prophetic miracle. Some have been
more cautious and, in modern parlance, ‘hedged their bets’, by providing
both views and, sometimes, just allowing the readers to make up their own
minds. Thus Nasr’s Study Quran provides both explanations, though it does
give more space to the idea that this splitting of the moon was a Prophetic
miracle.146
The modern Qur’an scholar, Muhammad al-Ghazali, also cites both pos-
sible interpretations but does note that what he characterises as ‘the apparent
message’ of Q.54:1 is eschatological and refers to the destruction of the
universe on the Last Day.147
Yusuf Ali’s own caution leads him to suggest three possible explanations.
He introduces the idea of metaphor and allegory and suggests a possible
applicability for all three of his interpretations: the moon may well have
appeared cleft in two to the Prophet and those around him; the past tense
deployed in the Qur’anic text could very well denote the future eschatological
event of the Last Judgement; the verse may even bear a metaphorical
sense.148
Despite all this, however, popular devotion to the figure of the Prophet
has frequently transcended the classical view that the Prophet did not work
miracles. The Study Quran, despite being totally even-handed in its treatment
of the two possible main interpretations of Q.54:1, does nonetheless note
that most commentators do perceive these initial verses of Sūrat al-Qamar as
indicating a Prophetic miracle.149
Hussein Abdul Raof interprets the splitting of the moon literally with
no overtones of metaphor or allegory, though he is careful not to attribute
the agency of the miracle directly to the Prophet himself. The subtext here
is clearly that it is God who splits the moon as a dynamic confirmation of
Muhammad’s prophethood.150
However one interprets Q.54:1, it is clear that the text has a profound
eschatological significance and implication, if only because of the reference
in the very first words to al-Sāʿa, the Hour, that is, of the Last Judgement.
In this it shares in the eschatological cosmology of the Miracle of the Sun at
Fatima. That latter event terrified the onlookers and presaged a day when, in
the words of the New Testament, ‘the sun will be darkened, the moon will
not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens
will be shaken’.151 The splitting of the moon in the Qur’an, the signs of the
Last Day both in the New Testament and the Qur’an, and the Miracle of
the Sun at Fatima may all thus be held to belong to the same eschatological
intertext.
In the Miracle of the Splitting of the Moon, of course, from a narrato-
logical perspective, the primary motif is the moon itself. This motif assumes
an added significance in the modern exegesis of the Turkish scholar Harun
Yahya (b. 1956). He accepts the splitting of the moon as a Prophetic miracle
from God,152 thus aligning himself with numerous other exegetes, classical
and modern, but he goes far beyond that in his interpretation. For him the
first landing by men on the moon in 1969 was forecast by Q.54:1.153 He sees
further evidence of this by an analysis of the words in this first verse according
to their abjad values. For him these yield the date 1969.154
All this illustrates the capacity of this verse to be interpreted in a mul-
tiplicity of ways down the centuries while placing the motif of the moon in
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primary position and underlining the idea that the Qur’an is a universal text
for past, present and future ages.155 In his exegesis, however, Yahya ignores
the eschatological dimension of Q.54:1, especially its first words, and chooses
to concentrate on the Miracle of the Splitting of the Moon, expounded with
a highly modern tafsīr as we have seen. Nor do he, and other believers in
the reality of the Miracle of the Splitting of the Moon, explain the lack of a
dramatic physical impact on the rest of the celestial and terrestrial universe.156
The same criticism may be levelled at the phenomenon of the Miracle of the
Sun at Fatima. Here, as elsewhere in this volume with its primary phenom-
enological and anthropological orientation, it is not our task to assess the
reality, actuality, fabrication or falsity of an alleged miraculous narrative.
What is of primary interest is the narrative itself with its multiple articula-
tions, pathways and covert or overt intertext.
The theme of the memory of divine presence in the world is overwhemingly
present in the operation of the miracle. The Divine confirms the a uthority of
the prophethood of the messenger by miracles. The stress may be on the ulti-
mate agency of God Himself, operating through His messenger, or it may focus
simply on the works of the prophet whose actions may inspire awe for himself,
terror at the miracle and, ultimately, an acknowledgement that God works in,
and manifests His divine presence through, the agency of His prophet.
The prophet brings a message, for example the message of the Qur’an,
which in the case of Islam is the completion of all revelations and thus makes
final and whole God’s revelation to mankind down the ages.157 All this is
confirmed in popular belief by such miracles as the Splitting of the Moon.
As with the Fatima narrative, the motif of the water ritual is replaced by the
metamotif of light, in the case of Q.54:1 the light of the moon.
As we have seen, the metatheme of faith and doubt is much in evidence.
The scribes, pharisees and crowds in the New Testament beg Jesus for a sign
to confirm their wavering faith or squash an ever-present doubt. The Quraysh
beg Muhammad for a sign in confirmation of his messages and to allay their
fears and doubts. Muhammad then, according to the popular interpretation
of the bare bones of the Qur’anic narrative in Q.54:1, takes control or, rather,
God takes control through him. Muhammad’s authority, message, mission
and prophethood are established in front of the Quraysh with the Miracle of
the Splitting of the Moon.
We may conclude this section with a brief look at the comparative

eschatologies of Fatima’s Miracle of the Sun and the Qur’anic Splitting of
the Moon. Fatima has a dimension which may be said to embrace a past,
present and future eschatological paradigm. The same is true of the Qur’anic
narrative. The phenomena of Q.54:1 look back to a past of previous divine
destructions on earth like the flood of Noah and the devastations wrought on
the peoples of Salih and Shuʿayb.158 They remind mankind in the present of
God’s power and majesty by the actual splitting of the moon, if we follow the
popular exegesis. They are associated in the one verse with the future Last Day
and the end of the world. Indeed, one way of looking at this verse about the
splitting of the moon is to say that this is an eschatological event in present
time, that is, the Age of Muhammad, brought forward from the future159
by the presence and prophethood of Muhammad. In this interpretation the
future scheduled event mystically occurs in the present.
In another interpretation the splitting of the moon is yet to happen.
Commentators note that the perfect form of the verb inshaqqa (to split, be
cleaved) could be read with the future sense of ‘will be cleaved’160 in line
with the Qur’anic usage of a past tense indicating the future.161 However one
chooses to translate, what is clear is that in this verse, past, present and future
merge in an eschatological and miracle-infused paradigm.
The events of Fatima encapsulated a message of repentance and conver-
sion from sin in order to avoid future dire punishments from God. Some
Fatima scholars are of the opinion that still not enough has been done by
mankind in the way of repentance and conversion to avoid a future devastat-
ing chastisement.162 The Miracle of the Sun according to such commenta-
tors was designed to confirm the reality of the apparitions and the messages
transmitted by the Virgin Mary during the apparitions.
The overall context of Q.54:1 in Sūrat al-Qamar bespeaks a similar ethos
of warning and punishment and thus we can say that the theme of potential
punishment, both temporal and eschatological, is at the heart of the mes-
sages of Fatima and the splitting of the moon narratives. Sūrat al-Qamar
warns that those who oppose the Prophet, like those who preceded him and
opposed previous prophet-warners, will be severely punished. This is what
happened to the people of Noah and Thamud, Lot and Pharaoh.163 Salvation
will be for the righteous.164
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Any listing then, of comparative themes in the Miracle of the Sun and
the Splitting of the Moon narratives will include those of war, punishment,
sin, conversion, repentance, reparation and the ultimate triumph of good
over evil. Embedded in the narrative is the metamotif of light in its various
individual motifs of the sun and the moon.
Both the Fatima and the Qur’anic narratives signal the universal metatheme
of salvation and the eschatology which frames that final judgement, parousía
and salvation. The cosmological metamotifs front a narrative whose funda-
mental themes include repentance and metánoia.165 The sun and the moon
are universal signs of God’s power and miraculous creative benevolence on
earth. His signs are all around, without in the universe and within men’s
very souls.166 They are part of the whole universal order of the earth and,
as such, give the earth hope and life.167 As we have seen, the destruction of
such celestial bodies will be universal signs of the end of time, the Last Day
and a final judgement which will consign part of humanity to eternal bliss in
Paradise and part to eternal damnation in Hell.
The narratives of the sun at Fatima and the moon at Mina near Mecca,
in their similar and multifaceted dimensions, may thus be said to frame the
fundamental soteriological narratives of Islam and Christianity, different in
essence though these are. Salvation history for the Christian is mediated via a
Divine Redeemer; salvation history for the Muslim is mediated via a Divinely
Revealed Text, the Qur’an. But both soteriologies are characterised by a
similar eschatology whose details may awe and terrify. The respective miracles
of sun and moon are witnessed in both cases not just by the visionaries – the
three children of Fatima on the one hand and the Prophet Muhammad on
the other – but by the crowd as well. Indeed, the motif of the crowd who
are present at such phenomena, whether they be the Quraysh, the scribes
and pharisees asking for a sign from Jesus or the huge crowds at the Fatima
Miracle of the Sun, is significant.168 By their presence they further validate
the miracle which is universalised rather than being perceived as an individual
hallucination, fantasy or fraud. The miracle is now ‘owned’ by the crowd
and is no longer the solitary preserve of the agent of that miracle, whether
considered to be Divine or human.
At Fatima and Mecca present and future merge in a terrifying whole as

cosmology seems to make present in the narrative the terrors and judgements
of the future Last Day. The entire universe in both cases seems to be brought
into play to emphasise, as it were, the need for repentance as an adjunct to
salvation and to threaten the destruction of body and soul in Hell for the
unbeliever.169
We have already identified diverse themes and motifs from the narratives
of the sun and the moon at Fatima and Mina near Mecca. Common is the
theme of the power of God as He works a miracle via the presence, request or
even, agency, of the Virgin Mary (Fatima) or Muhammad (Mina). Common
too, as noted several times, is the metamotif of light as it derives from both
the sun and the moon, as is the theme of each miracle as a confirmation
of messages conveyed to visionaries and prophet. Both miracles feature the
theme of the ‘violence’ of this confirmation as the moon splits and the sun
dances in the sky to the terror of the beholders.
At Fatima the Miracle of the Sun is preceded overtly by celestial injunc-
tions to themes of reparation, repentance and ultimate salvation but also a
possible damnation, as we see in the terrifying 15 July 2017 apparition at
which the Fatima children are shown a vision of Hell.170
At Mina the much shorter Qur’anic text implicitly warns, but already
accepts, that many will reject the sign and miracle shown to them with
consequent damnation.171
The narratological trope of an eschatological intertext in which moments
can be identified where past, present and future seem to merge can be
broadened further if we include in its fabric other miracles attributed to
Muhammad together with the large number of apparitions of the Virgin
Mary alleged by the devout down the centuries.172 That larger intertext dis-
covers its impetus and origins in the eschatological warnings to be found in
the New Testament and the Qur’an. Here numerous types and antitypes of
warnings, eschatological signs and miracles and celestial phenomena build
upon and reflect each other. In all, the aspect of the arch-protagonist is rarely
absent, creating a dual agency in which God, the true agent of the miracle,
acts covertly or overtly through his earthly prophet.
As we have seen, the narratives allow a variety of attitudes to the miracle
which is claimed: there are those who believe on seeing, those who disbelieve
cosmolog y | 183
even though they see, and those who disbelieve regardless. In both the Sun
and Moon narratives above, we have surveyed attitudes of disbelief and scep-
ticism, caution and belief. The significance of the claimed miracle remains the
same, however, as emphasised several times already: it is to instil, foster and
strengthen belief and confirm celestial revelations, whether those revelations
belong to the public (Qur’an) or private (Fatima) arena. But in the process,
the narratological catalyst of the miracle which is designed to foster such
belief presents a nature which is perceived to be ‘broken’ or ‘altered’: the
moon splits; the sun dances.
7
Envoi
D ifferent scholars in their diverse disciplines – theological, anthropologi-

cal, historical or other – favour different taxonomies whereby to classify,
assess and interpret the phenomena of their chosen specialisms. Clarity of
understanding is, or should be, the telos of all such divisions and complex
taxonomies can be the foe of clarity. By ‘drilling down’ as in the magiste-
rial work of Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, a lucid taxonomy may
profoundly illuminate the anthropological, theological or other endeavour.1
Thus Lonergan, for example, in his own quest for theological clarity and
illumination identifies ‘eight functional specialities in theology, namely, (1)
research, (2) interpretation, (3) history, (4) dialectic, (5) foundations, (6)
doctrines, (7) systematics, and (8) communications’.2
Throughout this volume we have adopted (1) a phenomenological and
anthropological perspective, and constructed (2) a simple taxonomy of mira-
cle narratives comprising food, water, blood, wood and stone and cosmology,
while (3) deploying an elevenfold narratological sieve as a critical tool by
which to identify major themes, motifs, metathemes and metamotifs. Islamic
and Christian miracle traditions have been surveyed and analysed in tandem,
thereby highlighting similarities, analogies and differences.
Thus our elevenfold narrative sieve interrogated its material from the per-
spectives of universality, multifacetedness, similarities and differences in con-
tent, themes and motifs, repetition, types and antitypes, intertextuality, the
protagonist, attitudes to the miracle, significance of the miracle and, finally,
the narratological catalyst which furnishes the ‘engine’ of the narrative.3
Each chapter has begun with what I have termed a ‘proto-miracle’ before
outlining a key pair of Islamic and Christian miracle narratives focused upon
a single anthropological topos. The miracles chosen in all three sections are
184
envoi | 185
designed neither to be inclusive nor exclusive. Each chapter concludes with

an assessment ‘in the narrative arena’. Attitudes surveyed in the text to puta-
tive miracles include those of the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’. Memory and
memorialisation play a massive role in most of the miracle narratives which
have been treated in this text.
The final taxonomy with which we shall conclude this narratological
investigation into the realms of the miraculous in the two traditions of Islam
and Christianity comprises a trio of this role of memory and hope together
with the theme of Divine Presence.
Every miracle – real, perceived, alleged, false or invented in the eyes of the
observer or interlocutor – partakes of the field of memory. It is built from ele-
ments which have gone before.4 This is not just the case with the Eucharistic
miracles in the Christian tradition which we have surveyed, though these may
cetainly be said to be archetypes of memorialisation in narrative theory as it
pertains to liturgy in particular and theology in general.
Memory, all memories, may directly reflect, or unconsciously model, past
events, persons and structures. The metathemes of the power of God, healing
and the agency of Jesus, Mary and the Prophet Muhammad, together with
the metamotifs of angels and light as dynamically articulated and displayed
in the miracle narratives which we have analysed, constitute an interlocking
intertext of memory and memorialisation.
Memory may thus justly be accounted a metatheme par excellence in any
consideration of the narratology of miracles.
Above all, narrative itself is memory. In the context of the miraculous,
the memory of the past is encapsulated and enshrined in the present miracle
– real or alleged – which in turn may signal a future salvation. Memory in the
narrative of the miraculous thus embraces a past, present and future.
Every miracle narrative is also a narrative of hope, regardless of its actual-
ity in the present world or merely in the mind of the visionary. This is because
every miracle, fundamentally, seeks to bolster, confirm or even just initiate,
faith of some kind or another.5 Hope is present, for example, in searches such
as those for Atlantis or the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.6
Some might say that in such endeavours it would be the discovery of such
ancient places and artefacts that would constitute the miracle for the myth
would be transmuted into an astonished reality. Hope is thus sustained by
the metatheme of historical memory and both are integral to the domain of
the miraculous.
In these miraculous realms, the final metatheme on which we will focus
is that of the divine presence in the world which is exhibited so powerfully
in the miracles surveyed in this volume. This divine presence reflects the
real agency of the miracle both theologically and narratologically. For the
believers a miracle is a species or aspect of actual theophany. For the sceptics
it is a symbol of theophany to which they cannot relate. Miracles are divine
signs or signals which point to a world beyond this world and to which all
are summoned in Christianity and Islam. That summons, of course, may be
freely accepted or freely rejected.
George Bernard Shaw once famously remarked that ‘a miracle is an event
which creates faith’.7 He went on: ‘That is the purpose and nature of miracles.
Frauds deceive. An event which creates faith does not deceive: therefore it
is not a fraud, but a miracle.’8 For Shaw, it was ‘life itself’ which was ‘the
miracle of miracles’.9 Naratologically, the description or proclamation of a
miracle at the very least creates a space for reflection.
I will leave the last word to St Augustine of Hippo (354–430)10 as we
consider the meaning and significance of miracles and also their narration.
For in the latter they are multifaceted and multivalent:
Let us interrogate the miracles themselves . . . Let us not delight ourselves
with the mere outside, but also explore its depth. This [miracle] which we
admire on its outer side, hath something within . . . If we were anywhere
inspecting a fair piece of writing, it would not be enough that we should
praise the writer’s skillful hand, that he formed the letters even, equal and
graceful, unless we should also read what he by them would make known to
us; so, he who does but look at the thing done in this miracle, is delighted
by the beauty of the deed, and moved to admiration of the Artificer; but he
who understands does, as it were, read it.11
For the phenomenologist and anthropologist, as for the believer to whom

Augustine addresses the above words, the realms of the miraculous constitute
a world of signs which phenomenologist and believer alike may ‘read and
understand’, albeit in very different ways.12
The Qur’an succinctly concurs.13
notes | 187
Notes
Notes to the Foreword
1. See the stunning catalogue of the exhibition, Corry et al. (eds), Madonnas and
Miracles.
2. Ibid., p. 1.
3. Ibid., esp. pp. 137–55.
4. See the Programme leaflet, Seeing is Believing. For further details of this leaflet,
see Bibliography: Workshop.
5. Netton, Islam, Christianity and Tradition; Netton, Islam, Christianity and the
Mystic Journey.
6. Lonergan, Method in Theology.
7. Ibid., p. 226.
8. The key elements, units and sources of this taxonomy derive principally from
Abbott, Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, esp. pp. XV, 1–2, 28, 95–9, 236,
237, 240, 242, 243, 256–61; RENT, pp. 186–8, 299–300, 322–3, 597–9; and
Barthes, ‘Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives’, esp. pp. 51–3.
9. Mayblin, ‘The Lapsed and the Laity’, p. 504.
10. Thiselton, ‘Biblical Interpretation’, p. 292; Brown, ‘Issues’, p. 285.
11. See Bultmann, ‘New Testament and Mythology’, p. 5; Bultmann, Jesus Christ
and Mythology, esp. pp. 15, 37–8, 61; Nagasawa, Miracles, p. XV.
Notes to Chapter 1
1. Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–2; Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 1.

2. Basinger, ‘What is a Miracle?’, p. 32 and passim; see also Twelftree,
‘Introduction’, p. 3.
3. Basinger, ‘What is a Miracle?’, p. 32 and passim; see also Twelftree,
187
4. Larmer, ‘The Meanings of Miracle’, p. 36 and passim; see also Twelftree,

5. Larmer, ‘The Meanings of Miracle’, p. 50; Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, p. 3.
6. Larmer, ‘The Meanings of Miracle’, p. 50; Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, p. 3.
7. Augustine, Contra Faustum (Against Faustus), 26.3 (my emphases). For this
Latin text see Sancti Aureli Augustini, CSEL, Vol. XXV, Sect. V1, Pars 1: De
Utilitate Credendi . . . Contra Faustum, p. 731. (I am indebted to Professor
Morwenna Ludlow of the Department of Theology and Religion, University
of Exeter, for help in locating this text). For the translation quoted here, see
Teske (trans.), Answer to Faustus, pp. 389–90. See also Pannenberg, Systematic
Theology, Vol. 2, p. 44; Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, p. 9; Brown, ‘Issues’,
pp. 275–6.
8. Soanes and Stevenson (eds), COED, p.911, s.v. ‘miracle’.
9. Ibid.; see Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?, pp. 334–5.
10. Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints, p. 73 n. 49 (my emphases). For more on Ibn
al-ʿArabī, see Netton, Allāh Transcendent, pp. 268–306.
11. Swinburne, Is there a God?, cited in Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 82. See also
Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 30.
12. Dawkins, The God Delusion, pp. 116–17. See also Brown, Cult of the Saints,
pp. 13–15. For the original text from Hume, see Hume, An Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding, Chapter X, ‘Of Miracles’, p. 83. See also Nagasawa,
Miracles, pp. 19, 71–83.
13. Lonergan, Method in Theology, p.222.
14. Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 57.
15. Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, p. 248 cited in Cottingham, Why
Believe?, p. 80. For a survey of Jesus’ miracles, see Blackburn, ‘The Miracles of
Jesus’, pp. 112–30.
16. Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection, p. 226 and passim.
17. Ibid.
18. Crean, A Catholic Replies, p. 53.
19. In addition to the works cited above by Swinburne, Dawkins, Dennett and
Crean, we may note the following, admittedly small, selection from a volu-
minous body of relevant literature: Darwin, On the Origin of Species; Browne,
Darwin’s Origin of Species, esp. pp. 77, 104; Cornwell, Darwin’s Angel; Crean,
Letters; Flew, There is a God; Hahn and Wiker, Answering the New Atheism;
Leonard, Where the Hell is God?; Markham, Against Atheism; McGrath and
McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion?; McGrath, Dawkins’ God; Poole, The ‘New’
notes | 189
Atheism; Ward, The God Conclusion; Ward, Why There Almost Certainly is a
God.
20. See Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, pp. 200, 224; ibid., Vol. 2, p. 44.
21. See McGrath, Dawkins’ God, pp. 149–51;Ward, The God Conclusion, p. 139.
22. See McGrath, Dawkins’ God, p. 154.
23. See Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, pp. 9, 13; Larmer, ‘The Meanings of Miracle’,
p. 50; Benedicta Ward, ‘Miracles in the Middle Ages’, p. 150; Del Colle,
‘Miracles in Christianity’, p. 239; Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Vol.
1, pp. 200, 206. See also Q.41:53. We may compare this list with that of
Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 17.
24. See Plato, Phaedo, 65e–66a in Plato, Last Days of Socrates, pp. 126–7. For the
original Greek text, see Plato, Phaedo, ed. Rowe, p. 34. See also Gosling, Plato,
Chapter X, ‘Complaints about the Senses’, pp. 158–75; Hare, Plato, pp. 37,
46.
25. McLaughlin, ‘Perception’, pp. 665–6. See also Lawrence-Mathers and Escobar-
Vargas, Magic and Medieval Society, pp. 53, 78–9, 125–6.
26. See Dubler, ‘ʿAdjā’ib’, EI2, Vol. 1, pp. 203–4.
27. Wehr, Dictionary, s.v. ‘karāma’, p. 822; Macdonald, ‘Karāma’, SEI, p. 216
(which notes that the word is non-Qur’ānic); Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia,
s.v. ‘Karāmāt’, p. 219.
28. Wehr, Dictionary, s.v. ‘muʿjiza’, p. 592; Wensinck, ‘Muʿdjiza’, SEI, p. 389
(which also notes that the word is non-Qur’ānic); Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia,
s.v. ‘miracles’, pp. 270–1; Gril, ‘Miracles’, EQ, Vol. 3, pp. 392–9.
29. Gril, ‘Miracles’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 392.
30. Ibid.
31. Hopwood, ‘Lane, Edward William (1801–1876)’, EICR, p. 363; Ahmed,
Edward Lane.
32. Lane, Arabic–English Lexicon Part 5, ¤ād-ʿAyn, p. 1961, s.v. ‘muʿjiz > muʿjiza’.
33. Gardet, ‘Karāma’, EI2, Vol. 4, p. 615.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Netton, ‘Myth, Miracle and Magic’ in Netton, Seek Knowledge, p. 106; Ibn
Ba††ū†a, Riªla, p. 641; Gibb, Ibn Battūta, pp. 36, 296–7.
38. Gardet, ‘Karāma’, EI2, Vol. 4, pp. 615–16; see also Wensinck, ‘Muʿdjiza’, SEI,
p. 389.
39. Mortimer, Time Traveller’s Guide, pp. 64–5.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Gies and Gies, Life in a Medieval City, p. 109. See Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?,
pp. 241–2.
43. Mortimer, Time Traveller’s Guide, p. 75.
44. Ibid., pp. 74–5.
45. Ibid., p. 75.
46. Ibid., pp. 190, 194.
47. Ibid., p. 200.
48. Whitton, ‘Society of Northern Europe’, p. 134.
49. See Mayblin, ‘The Lapsed and the Laity’, p. 514.
50. Mortimer, Time Traveller’s Guide, p. 270; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?, passim.
51. Le Goff, Medieval Civilisation, p. 253.
52. Brown, Cult of the Saints, p. 1 and passim. See also Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?,
pp. 333–409.
53. Whitton, ‘Society of Northern Europe’, p. 134. See also Brown, Cult of the
Saints, pp. 38, 75, 77–8; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?, pp. 349–65; Freeman,
Holy Bones, Holy Dust, pp. 58, 161–2 and passim; Vauchez, Sainthood, pp. 444–
77, 481–98; Benedicta Ward, ‘Miracles in the Middle Ages’, pp. 156–60, 162.
54. Barlow, Thomas Becket, p. 333. For the cult of saints and their relics, see Gies
and Gies, Life in a Medieval City, pp. 108–10. See also Freeman, Holy Bones,
Holy Dust, pp. 1–8; Jackson, Marvellous to Behold, pp. 52, 71, 74–5.
55. Jackson, Marvellous to Behold, p. 43.
56. Clanchy, Early Medieval England, p. 72.
57. Alexander (Intro. and Text), Master of Mary of Burgundy, illustrations 87–8
and preceding text.
58. See Jackson, Marvellous to Behold, p. 28.
59. See Brown, Cult of the Saints, pp. 88–94 and passim; Bartlett, Why Can the
Dead?; Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust; Vauchez, Sainthood.
60. Brown, Cult of the Saints, p. 92.
61. Ibid., p. 107; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?, pp. 239–332; Freeman, Holy Bones,
Holy Dust, pp. 94–107, 108–19.
62. Benedicta Ward, ‘Miracles in the Middle Ages’, p. 154. See also Twelftree,
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid., pp. 43, 144 n. 40, citing Sumption, Pilgrimage, p. 65.
notes | 191

67. Garland, ‘Miracles in the Greek and Roman World’, p. 89.
68. Ibid., p. 88; Del Col, ‘Miracles in Christianity’, p. 237; Paget, ‘Miracles in
Early Christianity’, pp. 138–42.
69. Augustine, City of God, Book XXII.X, [Latin–English Text], Vol. VII,
pp. 254–5; Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, p. 11.
70. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, p. 45.
71. Vauchez, Sainthood, p. 19.
72. For an extended discussion of authority and interpretation of the text in medi-
eval Islam, see Netton, Islam, Christianity and Tradition, pp. 72–88 and passim.
74. Ibid.
75. Knapp, The Dawn of Christianity, p. 197.
76. Ibid; see also pp. 198–202.
77. Ibid., pp. 88, 197.
78. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic.
79. Mantel, ‘Introduction’ to ibid., p. XVI.
80. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Vol. 1, p. 24.
81. Ibid., p. 104.
82. Ibid., pp. 186–98.
83. Ibid., p. 191.
84. Ibid.
85. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 631, 622–50.
86. Ibid., p. 637.
87. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars.
88. Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England, p. 180.
89. Ibid., p. 181.
90. Ibid.
91. Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, p. 39.
92. Ibid., pp. 39–40.
93. Thiselton, ‘Biblical Interpretation’, p. 292.
94. Bultmann, ‘New Testament and Mythology’, Vol. 1, p. 5.
95. Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, pp. 2, 10; Levine, ‘Philosophers on Miracles’,
pp. 291–308 esp. pp. 292–3; Brown, ‘Issues’, pp. 281–3; Hume, Enquiry,
‘Section X: Of Miracles’, pp. 79–95.
96. Castelli, Padre Pio Under Investigation; Luzzatto, Padre Pio, esp. pp. 88–115;
Rega, Truth About Padre Pio, pp. 1–15.
97. Luzzatto, Padre Pio, pp. 4–5.

98. Crane, Miracles and Modern Science, pp. 8, 110. See also Del Colle, ‘Miracles in
Christianity’, p. 242; Hvidt, ‘Patient Belief’, pp. 312–13; Scott, Miracle Cures,
170–1 who notes: ‘In the century and a half since the shrine was created, a total
of [only] sixty-six miracle cures have been declared.’ See also Antoine Marie,
Letter (18 December 2012), p. 2. The number has now increased to 70.
99. See Cardinal Prospero Lambertini (the future Pope Benedict XIV), De
Servorum, Liber IV, Cap. VIII, No. 2 of 1734. Hvidt (‘Patient Belief’,
pp. 312–13) provides a very brief English summary of this Latin text and notes
(ibid., p. 325 n. 13) its full printing details in 1840 (see my Bibliography under
Benedict XIV). Contrary to Hvidt’s assertion (p. 312), Pope Benedict XIV
reigned in the eighteenth century (from 1740 to 1758) and not the sixteenth.
100. See above n. 99; Norget, Napolitano and Mayblin (eds), Anthropology of
Catholicism, p. 218; Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 35.
101. See Vauchez, Sainthood, pp. 13–21.
102. Ibid., p. 22; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?, p. 59.
103. Vauchez, Sainthood, pp. 23–5. See also Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, p. 147.
104. Quoted by Vauchez, Sainthood, p. 25; see also Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?,
p. 58.
106. Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 26.
107. Inside the Vatican Magazine Staff, ‘ Decision Near on Medjugorje?’, p. 16.
108. Ibid.
109. Marsden, ‘Our Troubled World’, p. 9.
110. Inside the Vatican Magazine Staff, ‘Decision Near on Medjugorje?’, p. 17. See
also Sawicki, ‘Each Debate is Good’, p. 38 in which Cardinal Gerhard Müller
stresses the private nature of the visions and revelations at Medjugorje and that
‘the truth of Revelation does not depend on later phenomena and visions’.
111. Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 45; Foley, Medjugorje Revisited. For the Council of
Trent, see O’Malley, Trent.
112. Scott, Miracle Cures, p. XVIII (my emphasis).
113. Twelftree, ‘Introduction’, p.2.
114. Ibid., p. 9. See Del Colle, ‘Miracles in Christianity’, pp. 246–7.
115. Garland, ‘Miracles in the Greek and Roman World’, p. 75.
116. Brown, ‘Issues’, p. 283.
117. Geivett and Habermas, ‘Introduction’ to Geivett and Habermas (eds), In
Defence of Miracles, p. 9.
notes | 193
118. Ibid., p. 22.

119. Newman, ‘Fulfilled Prophecy as Miracle’, pp. 214–25.
120. Feinberg, ‘Incarnation’, pp. 226–46.
121. Craig, ‘Empty Tomb’, pp. 247–61.
122. Habermas, ‘Resurrection Appearances’, pp. 262–75.
123. Ibid., p. 275.
124. Geivett and Habermas, ‘Conclusion: Has God Acted in History?’, p. 277.
125. Ibid., p. 280.
126. Crane, Miracles and Modern Science: see Bibliography.
127. Ibid., p. 2.
128. Ibid., p. 29.
129. Ibid., p. 117.
130. Ibid., p. VII.
131. Ibid., p. 119.
132. Ibid.
133. Ibid.
134. Smith, Exodus, p. 58.
135. McCaffrey, ‘Faith and the Eucharist’, p. 34. For longer discussions of memory,
see O’Loughlin, Eucharist, pp. 17–21, 118–21, 123–44, 145–90.
136. CCC, p. 305 # 1354.
137. Ibid.
138. Exodus 7:14–12:32; Smith, Exodus, pp. 39–54. See also Trevisanato, The
Plagues of Egypt.
139. CCC, p. 307 ## 1366, 1367, 1330.
140. See, for example, Luke 24:1–53.
141. CCC, p. 252 # 1099, p. 139 # 611.
142. Brümmer, Atonement, p. 67.
143. Feinberg, ‘Incarnation’, pp. 226–46.
144. Ibid., p. 226.
145. Brümmer, Atonement, p. 67.
146. Ibid., p. 91.
147. See Howe, ‘Late Medieval Christianity’, p. 137
148. CCC, p. 268 # 1168.
149. Dukes (rev.), ‘Exultet’, in Daily Missal, pp. 598–9.
150. Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 1–17, trans. Hill: ‘Introduction’,
p. 3.
151. Sanidopoulos, Mystagogy. Available at <http://www.johnsanidopoulos.
com/2011/05/st-john-chrysostom-homily-on-cemetery> (last accessed 27 May

2015); for the original text in Greek and Latin, see Migne, Patrologiae Cursus
Completus [Series Graeca], Vol. 49, pp. 395–6. See also John Chrysostom,
Homilies on Genesis 1-17: Homily 16, pp. 220–1. For triumph over death via
martyrdom, see Mayer and Neil (Introduction, trans. and annotated), St John
Chrysostom, p. 30 and passim.
152. Wehr, Dictionary, p. 36, s.v. ‘āya’; Lawrence, Qur’an, p. 8.
153. Lawrence, Qur’an, p. 8. See also, inter alia, Graham and Kirmani, ‘Recitation
and Aesthetic Reception’, p. 130; Abrahamov, ‘Theology’, p. 431.
154. Q.17:88; trans. Yusuf Ali, pp. 719–20.
155. Martin, ‘Inimitability’, EQ, Vol. 2, p. 527.
156. Gril, ‘Miracles’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 392.
157. Q.85:21–2; trans. Yusuf Ali, p. 1717.
158. Lawrence, Qur’an, p. 15; see also Thomas, ‘Miracles in Islam’, pp. 203–6.
159. Gramlich, Die Wunder der Freunde Gottes, p. 15.
160. Esposito, Oxford Dictionary of Islam, p. 37, s.v. ‘Barakah’.
161. Thomas, ‘Miracles in Islam’, pp. 203–4. See also Twelftree, ‘Introduction’,
p. 7; Khan (trans.), Mukhta‚ar Íaªīª al-Bukhārī: ‘The Miracles of Prophet
Muªammad’, pp. 15–17. (This volume is hereafter referred to as al-Bukhārī.)
162. Al-Bukhārī, ‘Miracles’, pp. 15–17.
163. Gril, ‘Miracles’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 397; see also Rubin, ‘Prophets and Prophethood’,
p. 244.
164. Q.29:50.
165. Q.17:93.
166. Gril, ‘Miracles’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 392. See also Lawrence, Qur’an, p. 86.
167. Al-Bukhārī, p. 709, bāb 37 # 1518.
168. Beverley, ‘Muhammad’, p. 423.
169. See ibid.
170. See ibid. See also Geivett and Habermas, In Defence of Miracles, p. 204.
171. Beverly, ‘Muhammad’, p. 423. See also Peters, God’s Created Speech, p. 276.
172. Geivett and Habermas, In Defence of Miracles, p. 204.
173. For example, Du Pasquier and Winter, Unveiling Islam, p. 53. For a magisterial
and important article on the subject, see Jonathan Brown, ‘Faithful Dissenters’,
pp. 123–68.
174. Thomas, ‘Miracles in Islam’, p. 212.
175. See above n. 37; Netton, ‘Myth, Miracle and Magic’, p. 136; Ibn Ba††ū†a,
Riªla, p. 641; Gibb, Ibn Battúta, pp. 36, 296–7.
notes | 195

177. See Gardet, ‘Karāma’, EI2, Vol. 4.
178. Ibid. See Brown, ‘Faithful Dissenters’, pp. 137–40.
179. Peters, God’s Created Speech, p. 98; see nn. 316–21 on this page which cites the
original Arabic source as follows: ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Sharª al-U‚ūl, pp. 569–71.
180. Peters, God’s Created Speech, p. 99.
181. Bigliardi, ‘Interpretation of Miracles’, pp. 282–3.
182. Al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh, p. 44. For al-Ghazālī, see Watt, ‘Al-Ghazālī’, EI2, Vol.
2, pp. 1038–41; Watt, Muslim Intellectual, passim. For Sufi ‘wariness of the
karāmāt’, see Keeler, Handout to Presentation on ‘Karāmāt’, pp. 2–3.
183. Gardet, ‘Karāma’, EI2. For ‘Differences between the muʿjiza of the anbiyā’ and
the karāma of the awliyā’, see Keeler, Handout, p. 2. For a variety of excellent
studies on karāma, see Aigle (ed.), Miracle et karāma, passim.
184. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 205. For ‘Allowability of karāmāt’,
see Keeler, Handout, p. 2.
185. Kugle, Sufis and Saints’ Bodies, pp. 70–1.
186. Ibid., p. 71.
187. Ibid., p. 104.
188. Ibid., pp. 136–80.
189. Ibid., p. 300 n. 31.
190. See Brown, ‘Faithful Dissenters’, esp. pp. 125–30, 132 n. 40 (for an excellent
listing of primary source material), 135–7 and passim.
192. Clark, ‘Miracles in the World Religions’, pp. 204, 304 n. 14.
193. Clarke, ‘Cough Sweets and Angels’, p. 408. See also p.413 and passim.
194. Ibid., p. 416.
195. Ibid., p. 420.
196. Ibid., pp. 420–1.
197. Malik, Muʿjizat Ha∂rat Bibi Fā†ima. (I am most grateful to Mrs Nasra Hassan
of Vienna for drawing my attention to this text and for providing a private
translation of it from the Urdu.)
198. Malik, Muʿjizat, pp. 3–6.
199. Ibid., p. 2.
200. See ibid., p. 13.
201. Ibid., p. 2.
202. Ibid., p. 9.
203. Ibid., pp. 3, 13.
204. Nasra Hassan, translator’s note to private translation of Malik, Muʿjizat, 28

April 1993, Vienna.
205. Netton, ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’, p. 129 and nn. 117–19.
206. Q.2:185; trans. Yusuf Ali, p. 73.
207. See, for example, Q.29:45.
208. Bosworth, ‘Al-Bū‚īrī’, EAL, Vol. 1, p. 163. See also Basset, ‘Burda’, EI2, Vol.
1, pp. 1314–15.
209. Netton, Allāh Transcendent.
210. See Netton, ‘Narratology as Philosophy’; Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists;
Ikhwān al-Íafā’, Rasā’il.
211. Abbott, ‘Preface’, Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, p. XV.
212. Ibid., p. 1.
213. Ibid. and p. 214; Barthes, ‘Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives’,
pp. 251–2.
214. Abbott, Cambridge Introduction, pp. 1–2; Barthes, ‘Introduction’, pp. 251–2.
215. Abbott, Cambridge Introduction, p. 28.
216. Ibid., pp. 95–9.
217. Ibid., and passim. See also, for example, discussions of these in Herman et al.
(eds), RENT; Onega and Landa (eds), Narratology; Sturgess, Narrativity.
218. Abbott, Cambridge Introduction, p. 95. See the very clear and succinct defini-
tions on pp. 237, 242.
219. Khalifa, Hardship and Deliverance, pp. 8, 11.
220. Ibid., p. 19.
221. Ibid., p. 34.
Notes to Chapter 2
1. See Netton, ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’, p. 114 and John 6:48–58.

4. Exodus 16:1–3.
5. Exodus 16:4–5; trans. NJB, pp. 100–1.
6. Exodus 16:13–15; trans. NJB, p. 101.
7. Exodus 16:16–21.
8. Exodus 16:22–30.
9. Exodus 16:31.
10. Cooper (trans.), Commentary on the Qur’ān by . . . al-˝abarī, Vol. 1, pp. 328–9.
11. Ibid., pp. 330–2.
notes | 197
12. Ibid., p. 332.

13. Ibid., pp. 347–51.
14. Exodus 16:35; Cooper (trans.), Commentary, p. 331.
15. Cooper (trans.), Commentary, p. 332.
16. Yusuf Ali, p. 31 n. 71.
17. Ibid.
18. NJB: Exodus, p. 101 n. 16a. See also Smith, Exodus.
19. Clifford, ‘Exodus’, pp. 50–1.
20. Ibid., p. 50. See also Smith, Exodus, p. 69 and the text itself at Exodus 16:15
where the people ask ‘What is that?’
21. Yusuf Ali, p. 31 n. 71.
22. Exodus 16:4. See Smith, Exodus, p. 71 and p. 69.
23. Clifford, ‘Exodus’, pp. 50–1. See Exodus 15:23–5; 16:4–31; 17:1–7.
24. Clifford, ‘Exodus’, p. 50.
25. Ibid.
26. West, Devil’s Advocate, published in 1959. See Bibliography.
27. West, Devil’s Advocate, p. 50; see also p. 30.
28. See the previous chapter n. 181.
29. Clifford, ‘Exodus’, p. 51.
30. See, for example, Trevisanato, Plagues of Egypt, passim.
31. John 6:35.
32. Matthew 14:13:21; Mark 6:30–44; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–15.
33. For types and antitypes, see my article ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’, esp. pp. 114–23.
34. NJB, p. 1633, n. 14c; 2 Kings 4:1–7, 42–4. See Viviano, ‘The Gospel According
to Matthew’, p. 658.
35. NJB, p. 1633 n. 14c; Matthew 15:32–9; Mark 8:1–10.
36. NJB, p. 1633 n. 14c. See also Harrington, ‘The Gospel According to Mark’,
p. 613; Yeary, Welcome, pp. 27–8; O’Loughlin, Eucharist, p. 49.
37. NJB, p. 1633 n. 14c; Viviano, ‘Matthew’, p. 659; Harrington, ‘Mark’, p. 613.
38. Harrington, ‘Mark’, p. 613; Viviano, ‘Matthew’, pp. 658–9.
39. Viviano, ‘Matthew’, p. 658.
40. Kerris, ‘The Gospel According to Luke’, p. 699. See also Reid, The Gospel
According to Matthew, p. 81; CCC, p. 300 # 1335.
41. Luke 22:19; 24:30; Harrington, ‘Mark’, p. 610.
42. Patella, The Gospel Acording to Luke, p.64.
43. CCC, p. 307 # 1367; John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, p.11; Selman,
Sacraments, p. 119.
44. John 6:31–5; trans. NJB, p. 1756.

45. See John 13–17; Matthew 26:17–29; Mark 14:12–25; Luke 22:1–38.
46. See Martos, Doors to the Sacred, pp. 248, 239–315.
47. CCC, p. 305 # 1354, p. 306 # 1362.
48. See pp. 37–41.
49. Netton, ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’, passim; see CCC, p. 317 # 1402 for the Eucharist
as ‘also an anticipation of the heavenly glory’.
50. CCC, pp. 306–307 ## 1363, 1364; McCaffrey, ‘Faith and the Eucharist’,
p. 34. See also O’Loughlin, Eucharist, pp. 58, 129–34.
51. See n. 78 below.
52. Le Goff, Medieval Civilisation, p. 238.
53. Ibid., p. 238.
54. Ibid., pp. 238–9.
55. Ibid., p. 239.
56. Ibid.
57. See Yeary, Welcome, passim.
58. See NJB, p. 37 n. 18a.
59. Yeary, Welcome, pp. 3–4, citing Genesis 18:1–15.
60. Yeary, Welcome, pp. 11–15, citing Exodus 12:1–30.
61. Yeary, Welcome, pp. 27–34.
62. Ibid., pp. 35–51.
63. Ibid., pp. 51–53, citing Luke 24:13–35.
64. Luke 24:36, cited in Yeary, Welcome, p. 52.
65. Yeary, Welcome, p. 52.
66. Gamboso (ed.), Book on St Anthony’s Miracles, pp. 82–3. For the life of San
Antonio of Padova, see Gamboso (ed.), Life of St Anthony <<Assidua>> and
Gamboso, Life of St Anthony. (Fieldwork at the shrine and Basilica of San
Antonio in Padova was undertaken by the author on 2–3 July 2017.)
67. Yeary, Welcome, p. 42 citing Matthew 26:26–9, Mark 14:22–5, Luke 22:15–
20; 1 Corinthians 11:23–5.
68. See John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, pp. 29–37 ## 34–7.
69. Martos, Doors to the Sacred, pp. 239, 240–315.
70. Ibid., p. 243.
71. Ibid., pp. 280–5. See John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, pp. 35–6 ## 43–4;
O’Loughlin, Eucharist, pp. XV, 32.
72. Martos, Doors to the Sacred, p. 285.
73. Ibid., p. 239.
notes | 199
74. Official website of the Carlo Acutis Association and the Cause of Beatification
of the Servant of God Carlo Acutis, available at <http://www.carloacutis.com/
en/association/biografia> (last accessed 24 April 2017); Gori, Un giovane; Gori,
Eucaristia.
75. See CCC, pp. 299–300, # 1333, pp. 309–310 ## 1373–7; Marsden, ‘In
Eucharist’; John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, p. 13 # 15; Paul VI, Mysterium
Fidei, esp. pp. 34–5; DVD Hostia.
76. Misiura, ‘Vatican and Science’, p. 20.
77. Marsden, ‘In Eucharist’.
78. Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 38. Eucharistic miracles are detailed at length in
Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles.
79. Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37.
80. Misiura, ‘Vatican and Science’, p. 20. For important primary and photographic
documentation for the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, see Sammaciccia,
Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, esp. pp. 73–119. For the ancient name
Anaxanum and its transformation into Lanzanum, see ibid., pp. 19–20.
81. Misiura, ‘Vatican and Science’, p. 20; Sammaciccia, Eucharistic Miracle of
Lanciano, pp. 17, 18, 23, 37. See also Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 38; Marsden,
‘Eucharistic miracle’, p. 7; Peter Smith, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, pp. 6–7; Cruz,
Eucharistic Miracles, pp. 3–18, which contextualises the Lanciano miracle
among a large number of other Eucharistic miracles.
82. Misiura, ‘Vatican and Science’, pp. 20–1.
83. Ibid., p. 20.
84. Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016), p. 2. See also Peter Smith, ‘Eucharistic
Miracle’, pp. 6–7.
85. Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016), p. 2. See also Allegri, ‘Signs from
God’, p. 38.
86. See Tanner, The Church in the Later Middle Ages, p. 94. For a popular hagiog-
raphy, see Ferretti, Saint Catherine of Siena.
87. Tanner, Church in the Later Middle Ages, p. 94.
88. Ferretti, Saint Catherine of Siena, p. 145.
89. Ibid., pp. 100–1.
90. Ibid., pp. 101–2.
91. Anon., Catholic Life, ‘The Miraculous Benediction’, pp. 16–18; Cruz,
Eucharistic Miracles, pp. 185–193.
92. Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016), p. 1.
93. Marsden, ‘In Eucharist’, p. 7.
94. Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, pp. 38–9.

95. Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016), p. 1; Marsden, ‘In Eucharist’.
97. Marsden, ‘In Eucharist’; Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016), p. 1.
99. Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016), pp. 1–2.
100. Ibid., p. 4.
101. Ibid., p. 2.
105. Piotrowski, ‘Sokółka’, p. 25.
106. Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7; Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016),
p. 3.
107. Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7; Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016),
p. 3; Piotrowski, ‘Sokółka’, pp. 25–6.
108. Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7.
109. Piotrowski, ‘Sokółka’, p. 26; Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7; Antoine
Marie, Letter (27 March 2016), p. 3. We may compare this event with the very
similar, and most recently alleged, Eucharistic miracle which is claimed to have
taken place in St Hyacinth’s Church, Legnica, which is in the Lower Silesian
region of Poland, on 10 April 2016. See Piotrowski, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’,
pp. 4–9.
110. Piotrowski, ‘Sokółka’, p. 28. See also Antoine Marie, Letter (27 March 2016),
p. 3; Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle, p. 7.
111. Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7.
112. Piotrowski, ‘Sokółka’, p. 29.
113. See O’Loughlin, Eucharist, pp. 141, 38 n. 54.
114. See Sammaciccia, Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, p. 7.
115. See Cornwell, The Pope in Winter, pp. 45–8.
116. Ibid., pp. 101–2.
117. Q.5: 115–16; trans. Yusuf Ali, pp. 278–80.
118. Q.5: 117–18.
119. See, for example, Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, p. 87; Nasr et al. (eds), Study
Quran, p. 335.
120. Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, p. 87; Nasr et al. (eds), Study Quran,
pp. 335–6.
notes | 201
121. Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, p. 88.

122. Q.5:48 in Nasr et al. (eds), Study Quran, p. 300; Q.5:51 in Yusuf Ali, p. 258.
123. Guillaume, Traditions of Islam, pp. 135–6.
124. Juynboll, Encyclopedia of Canonical Óadīth, p. 288.
125. Ibid.
126. Ibid., pp. 287–8; Malik ibn Anas, Al–Muwatta, pp. 390–1 # 49.10.19; Burton,
Introduction to the Óadīth, pp. 98, 189. For the original Arabic, see Mālik Ibn
Anas, Kitāb al–Muwa††a’, Vol. 2, pp. 252–3. See also Woodward, Book of
Miracles, pp. 199, 185; al-Ghazālī, Iªyā’, Vol. 2, p. 384.
127. See, for example, al-Bukhārī, Íaªīª: Kitāb al-Maghāzī # 4104 in Khan (trans.),
Translation, Vol. 5, pp. 262–3.
128. Juynboll, Encyclopedia of Canonical Óadīth, p. 288.
129. Guillaume (trans.), Life of Muhammad, pp. 451–2; Juynboll, Encyclopedia,
p. 288. For the Arabic text see Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 3, p. 218. The same
miracle is recorded in Ibn Kathīr, Sīra, p. 338.
130. Guillaume, Traditions of Islam, p. 138.
131. Available at <https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muhammad’s_Miracles> (last acces
sed 26 July 2016): see the article ‘Muhammad’s Miracles’ on p. 5, which cites
numerous Qur’anic verses emphasising that Muhammad was not a miracle
worker. (While this list is of interest, it is clear that p. 6 of this article has clearly
been modified by someone hostile to Islam.)
132. Pakistan, ‘Are You a Believer’; available at <www.shughal.com>Islam> (last
accessed 9 August 2016): see photograph no. 9.
133. Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, p. 45 citing, inter alia, Q.3:39; see also ibid.,
pp. 46–8.
134. Ibid., pp. 45, 47–8.
135. Q.46:2 and passim.
136. Pakistan, ‘Are You a Believer’.
137. Ibid. In the Christian tradition we might compare the Filipino rose petals (with
healing properties) in which images of the face of Christ or the Virgin and child
are perceived: see de la Cruz, Mother Figured, pp. 132–6.
138. Scott, ‘Remarks’, p. 25.
139. Q.2:115.
141. See Hatoum (Introd.), Alf Layla wa Layla.
142. See Boccaccio, Decameron.
143. Q.5:118.
144. For more on types and antitypes, see Netton, ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’, esp.
pp. 114–23.
145. Ibid., esp. p. 131.
146. See Netton, ‘Towards a Modern Tafsīr of Sūrat al-Kahf’, esp. p. 75.
147. See, for example, Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, pp. 3, 25, 121.
148. Ibid., p. 122; see also pp. 122–31.
149. Ibid., p. 326; see also pp. 32–40.
150. Woodward, Book of Miracles, p. 185 (my emphases), citing (p. 395 n. 13)
Zolondek, Book XX of al-Ghazālī’s Iªyā’, p. 13. See also Woodward, Book of
Miracles, p. 187.
151. Al-Ghazālī, Iªyā’, Vol. 2, p. 383.
152. See ibid., p. 385.
Notes to Chapter 3
1. Exodus 17:1–7.
2. Exodus 17:3; trans. NJB, p. 102.
3. Exodus 17:4–7.
5. NJB, p. 103 n. 17a.
6. Ibid.; see Exodus 15:22–5.
7. NJB, p. 103 n. 17a; see Numbers 20:1–11.
8. Numbers 20:10–11; trans. NJB, p. 201.
9. Numbers 20:12; trans. NJB, p. 201.
10. NJB, p. 201 n. 20c.
11. See ibid. See also L’Heureux, ‘Numbers’, p. 87.
12. Smith, Exodus, pp. 71–2.
13. Exodus 15:25–26; trans. NJB, p. 100 (my emphases); Smith, Exodus, p. 71.
14. Smith, Exodus, p. 71.
16. Q.2:60; trans. Yusuf Ali, pp. 31–2. Compare Q.38:41–3. See Ibn Kathīr,
Qa‚a‚, p. 243; Ibn Kathīr (trans. Azami), Stories, pp. 407–8. Q.2:60 is echoed
in the Shiʿite tradition, with ʿAlī as the protagonist in place of Mūsā: see
al-Shīrūwānī, Kitāb Manāqib Ahl al-Bayt, pp. 203–8. (I am indebted to Mrs
Yasmin Amin for this last reference.)
17. See Q.2:55, 61.
19. Q.17:90.
notes | 203
20. Cooper (trans.), Commentary, pp. 345–6.

21. Ibid., p. 346.
23. Johns, ‘Water’, EQ, Vol. 5, p. 462.
24. See ibid.
25. Ibid. See Q.41:39.
27. Yusuf Ali, p. 32 n.73.
28. ‘Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels’, NJB, p. 1607. See also Reid, Gospel
According to Matthew, pp. 8–9.
29. See Matthew, 3:13–17.
30. See Selman, Sacraments, pp. 51–2.
31. Ibid., p. 84.
32. Ibid. See also Guzie, Sacramental Basics, pp. 81 ff. Mary in Catholic tradition,
alone of all humans, was born free of the stain of original sin. See CCC,
p. 93 ## 417, 418 (original sin), p. 110 # 491 (Immaculate Conception of
Mary).
33. Selman, Sacraments, p. 87 citing CCC # 1262 [see CCC, p. 286].
34. John 3:5, NJB, p. 1748.
35. John 4:13–14, NJB, p. 1751.
36. NJB, p. 1751 n. 4a.
37. Mark: 6:45–52; see John 6:16–21.
38. Luke 8:22–5.
39. John 2:1–10
40. John 9:1–9.
41. John 9:39.
43. Ibid., pp. 57–8.
44. NJB, p. 1753 n. 5c. See Jackson, Marvellous to Behold, p. 58.
46. Ibid., pp. 52 ff.
47. John 5: 1–9. See Jackson, Marvellous to Behold, p. 58.
48. John 7:37–8, NJB, p. 1760.
49. Goethe, Faust, p. 28, line 66; Scott, Miracle Cures, p. 171.
50. For a standard biography, see Laurentin, Bernadette.
51. Scott, Miracle Cures, p. 57.
52. Ibid., p. 53.
53. Ibid.
54. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 48.
55. Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 54.
56. Ibid.; Anon, ‘Lourdes recognises its 70th miracle’. See also Scott, Miracle Cures,
pp. 170–1; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 82; Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 36.
57. See Scott, Miracle Cures, pp. 47, 53–4, 94–8.
59. Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 81.
60. Ibid., pp. 50 ff., 64 ff.
61. Scott, Miracle Cures, pp. 58–60.
62. See Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 17–19, 27–9.
64. Ibid., p. 57.
65. Laurentin, Bernadette, p. 19.
66. Ibid., pp. 15–16.
67. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 19, 60.
69. See Davies, Europe, pp. 803–5, 823–4.
71. Davies, Europe, p. 797.
72. Ibid., p. 798.
73. Ibid., pp. 798–9. See also Boss, ‘Deification’, p. 198.
74. See Laurentin, Bernadette, passim.
75. Rubin, Mother of God, p. 414.
76. See Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 40–9.
78. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 43 ff.
79. Scott, Miracle Cures, p. 51. See also Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 20.
81. Ibid., p. 50; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 81; Maunder, Our Lady of the
Nations, pp. 64–7.
82. Johnston, When Millions Saw Mary, p. 19; MacCulloch, Silence, pp. 218–19;
Dictionnaire, pp. 493–4.
83. Johnston, When Millions Saw Mary, passim; Castle, ‘Faith Confirmed’, p. 23;
Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 55; Dictionnaire, pp. 154–8.
84. See Laurentin, Bernadette, passim; Scott, Miracle Cures, passim; Maunder, Our
Lady of the Nations, passim.
notes | 205
85. See Scott, Miracle Cures, pp. 61–3; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations,
pp. 20–1, 29 ff., 197; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, pp. 52–76.
86. See Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 45.
87. See Mellor, ‘Islamizing the Palestinian–Israeli Conflict’, p. 514.
88. Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 26, 9–29.
89. Ibid., pp. 48, 60; Scott, Miracle Cures, pp. 51, 59; Warner, Alone of All Her Sex,
p. 255.
90. Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 31–90; Scott, Miracle Cures, p. 51; Thavis, Vatican
Prophecies, pp. 79–80.
92. Ibid., p. 60; Scott, Miracle Cures, pp. 51–3; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies,
pp. 79–80; Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, p. 255.
93. See Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 59; Antoine Marie, Letter, (18 December
2012), p. 4.
94. Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 66–7.
95. Scott, Miracle Cures, pp. 51–3.
96. For Pio Nono, see Duffy, Ten Popes, pp. 93–103; Duffy, Saints and Sinners,
pp. 310–30; Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, pp. 309–11, s.v. ‘Pius IX’.
97. See Duffy, Saints and Sinners, pp. 316–17; Boss, ‘Deification’, passim.
98. Duffy, Saints and Sinners, p. 317.
99. Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, p. 255.
100. Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (8 December 1854) in Denzinger, Enchiridion,
pp. 574–5 # 2803; also trans. and cited in CCC, p. 110 # 491; see also ibid.,
pp. 109–10 ## 490, 492, 493; Ott, Fundamentals, pp. 199–202.
101. See Ott, Fundamentals, pp. 201–2; Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, pp. 241–60;
Duffy, Saints and Sinners, p. 316.
102. Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 81–2; Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, p. 255.
104. Ibid., p. 81.
105. Ibid., p. 83; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 80. See also Werfel, Song,
pp. 298–300.
107. Ibid.
108. Laurentin, Bernadette, p. 41 and passim.
109. See ibid., pp. 41, 44–55, 67–70, and passim.
110. See Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 176.
111. For the continuing controversy over Medjugorje, see, inter alia, Foley,
Medjugorje Revisited; Anon, ‘Schönborn Says’, p. 27; Anon, ‘Francis Expresses

Doubts’, p. 12; Anon, ‘The Jury’s Still Out’, p. 3; Lamb, ‘Francis Casts
Doubt’, p. 25. See, finally, Davis, ‘Is Rome Changing Course on Medjugorje?’,
pp. 20–1.
112. Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 195; Johnston, ‘Belief and Unbelief 1’, pp. 2–3:
available at <http://www.crisismagazine.com/1989/belief-and-unbelief-i-emi
le-zola-at-lourdes> (last accessed 22 August 2016). See also Hemmings, Émile
Zola, pp. 262–3.
113. Johnston, ‘Belief and Unbelief 1’, p. 2.
114. Ibid., p. 3.
115. Ibid.
116. Ibid.
117. Ibid.
118. Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 55; Johnston, ‘Belief and Unbelief 1’, p. 2; Scott,
Miracle Cures, p. 170.
119. Del Colle, ‘Miracles in Christianity’, p. 242.
121. Boss, ‘Deification’, p. 201.
122. Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 55.
123. Ibid.
125. Ibid.; Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 55.
127. Zola, Lourdes, ed. Jacques Noiray.
128. Werfel, Song. The original German edition was published under the title of
Das Lied von Bernadette in 1941 in Stockholm. See also the 2005 DVD of the
1943 film entitled The Song of Bernadette, starring Jennifer Jones and William
Eythe which won four Oscars in 1943 including best actress (Jennifer Jones).
See finally the DVD Lourdes (2009).
129. Arditti, Jubilate.
131. For her vocation as a nun, see Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 123–8.
133. See Orth, ‘The Virgin Mary’, p. 59.
134. See ibid., p. 55 for a brief but vivid pilgrim description of ‘the freezing immer-
sion’ which is, nonetheless, characterised as ‘a bracing moment of deep peace’.
135. Hemmings, Life and Times of Émile Zola, p. 154.
notes | 207
136. Ibid., pp. 184, 238, 263, 297, 299–300.

137. Ibid., p. 262. Noiray, ‘Preface’, to Zola, Lourdes, p. 9.
138. Hemmings, Life and Times of Émile Zola, p. 265.
139. Ibid.
140. Ibid.
141. See Zola, Lourdes, ed. Jacques Noiray, passim.
142. Ibid., p. 54.
143. Ibid., pp. 32–50
144. Ibid., p. 200.
145. See ibid., pp. 192–3.
146. The sick are vividly described in ibid., pp. 375–6.
147. Ibid., p. 375.
148. Ibid., p. 403.
149. Ibid., p. 548
150. Ibid., p. 573.
151. Ibid.
152. Ibid., p. 232.
153. Ibid., p. 240.
154. Ibid., p. 241.
155. Hemmings, Life and Times of Émile Zola, pp. 159, 272
156. Zola, Lourdes, pp. 567–8.
157. Werfel, Song: see, for example, the chapter entitled ‘Open War’, pp. 167–85.
158. Weigel, ‘Foreword’ to Werfel, Song, p. X.
159. Ibid., p. XI.
160. Werfel, Song, pp. 3–18.
161. Ibid., pp. 19–24.
162. Ibid., pp. 53–61.
163. Ibid., pp. 104–358.
164. For example, ibid., pp. 176–85 and passim.
165. Ibid., pp. 460–569.
166. Ibid., pp. 19–24.
167. For example, ibid., p. 98.
168. Ibid., pp. 298–9.
169. Ibid., p. 299.
171. Ibid., p. 18. See Werfel, Song, p. 215; see also De Montfort, Treatise on the
True Devotion.
172. Werfel, Song, p. 29.

173. Ibid.
175. Ibid.
176. Werfel, Song, pp. 283–6.
177. Ibid., p. 293.
178. Ibid., pp. 226–7.
179. See, for example, ibid., pp. 207–18.
180. For example, ibid., p. 207.
181. See ibid., p. 299.
182. See Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 82–4, 112; Werfel, Song, pp. 298–9, 340–5,
558–69.
184. Werfel, Song, p. 389.
185. Ibid., pp. 460–569; Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 123–241.
186. Available at <http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10372565-jubilate>
(last accessed 14 September 2016).
187. Available at <http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/08/21/an-author-
with-an-outsiders-view> (last accessed 14 September 2016): Lucie-Smith,
‘Author with an Outsider’s View’.
188. See Arditti, Jubilate, Passim.
189. Lucie-Smith, ‘Author with an Outsider’s View’.
190. Available at <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/29/jubilate-
michael-arditti-review> (last accessed 14 September 2016): Peter Stanford,
[Review of] ‘Jubilate by Michael Arditti’.
191. Lucie-Smith, ‘Author with an Outsider’s View’; Arditti, Jubilate, passim.
192. Available at <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jul/01/jubilate-
michael-arditti-review > (last accessed 14 September 2016): Arco, ‘Jubilate by
Michael Arditti – review’.
193. Ibid.
194. Ibid.
195. Arditti, Jubilate, passim.
196. Available at <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/revi
ews/jubilate-by-michael-arditti> (last accessed 14 September 2016): Rivka
Isaacson, [Review of] ‘Jubilate By Michael Arditti’.
197. Ibid.
198. See, for example, Arditti, Jubilate, pp. 27, 85, 310–11.
notes | 209
199. See, for example, ibid., pp. 27, 131.

200. Ibid., pp. 26–7.
201. Ibid., passim.
202. Stanford, [Review of] ‘Jubilate’.
203. For example, Arditti, Jubilate, p. 27.
204. For example, see ibid., pp. 311, 290, 147.
205. See ibid., pp. 84–5.
206. Ibid., p. 28.
207. Q.38:41–2; trans. Yusuf Ali, pp. 1226–7.
208. S.XXI is Sūrat al-Anbiyā’, The Chapter of the Prophets, where Job is men-
tioned in vv. 83–4.
209. In the Old Testament. See Jackson, Marvellous to Behold, pp. 58–61.
210. Yusuf Ali, p. 1227 n. 4200.
212. Ibid.
213. Ibid.
214. Raªma is better translated as ‘mercy’ rather than, as Yusuf Ali has it, ‘grace’
which pertains more to a Christian register of sacramental theology.
216. Q.38:41–2.
217. Q.38:41, 43.
218. Q.38:45.
219. For Ibn Kathīr, see Irwin, ‘Ibn Kathir’, EAL, Vol. 1, p. 341; Laoust, ‘Ibn
Kathīr’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 817–18. Laoust (p. 818) has characterised Ibn Kathīr’s
tafsīr as ‘essentially a philological work . . . [and] very elementary’ but it is,
nonetheless, an important source for the account of the splitting of the moon
which is analysed in depth in Chapter Six of this volume.
220. Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, p. 180.
221. Q.12:58.
222. Q.6:76–9.
223. Trans. Yusuf Ali, p. 1227.
224. Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, p. 181. See also al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 189; al-Thaʿlabī, Qi‚a‚,
p. 141.
225. Johns, ‘Job’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 51.
226. 2 Kings 5:1–14; trans. NJB, p. 474; Jeffery, ‘Ayyūb’, EI2, Vol. 1, p. 795.
227. Jeffery, ‘Ayyūb’, EI2, Vol. 1 p. 796. See, for example, al–Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 189.
Compare al-Nīsābūrī [known as al-Thaʿlabī], Qi‚a‚, p. 141.
228. Q.19:16–22. See Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Pt. 1, pp. 236–7; Ibn Isªāq, Life, p. 36;
Webb, ‘Gabriel’, EQ, Vol. 2, pp. 278–9; Pederson, ‘Djabrā’īl’, EI2, Vol. 2,
pp. 362–4.
229. See Abdel Haleem, ‘Water in the Qur’an’, pp. 29–41.
230. See CCC, p. 91 # 405.
231. John 3:5; trans. NJB, p. 1748.
232. See al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, pp. 188–9.
233. Williams, Muhammad and the Supernatural, p. 1.
234. Ibid., p. 208.
235. Mālik ibn Anas, Al-Muwatta, trans. Bewley, p. 12 no. 33; see also Juynboll,
Encyclopedia of Canonical Óadīth, p. 288. For the original Arabic, see Mālik
ibn Anas, Kitāb al-Muwa††a’, p. 42 no. 29. See also, Guillaume, Traditions,
pp. 136–7; Woodward, Book of Miracles, pp. 186, 198; al-Ghazālī, Iªyā’, Vol.
2, p. 384.
236. Al-Bukhārī, Mukhta‚ar Íaªīª, Arabic–English text, ed. and trans. Khan,
p. 124, no. 148.
237. Ibid.
238. Ibid., p. 286, no. 552; Burton, Introduction to the Óadīth, p. 99; Woodward,
Book of Miracles, pp. 197–8.
239. Woodward, Book of Miracles, p. 197; Jackson, Marvellous to Behold, p. 58.
240. Faizer (ed.), Life of Muªammad, p. 288. For the Arabic text see al-Wāqidī,
Kitāb al-Maghāzī, Vol. 2, p. 587. (I am grateful to my doctoral student Ranyh
Alatawi for drawing my attention to this account.)
241. Faizer (ed.), Life of Muªammad, p. 289; al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, Vol. 2,
p. 588; al-Bukhārī, Mukhta‚ar Íaªīª, p. 774, no. 1637; Burton, Introduction
to the Óadīth, p. 98; al-Ghazālī, Iªyā’, Vol. 2, p. 384; Woodward, Book of
Miracles, p. 186.
246. Q.21:85.
247. Firestone, ‘Ishmael’, EQ, Vol. 2, p. 564.
248. Ibid.
249. See Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, pp. 108–10; Ibn Kathīr, Stories, pp. 158–62.
250. See al-Bukhārī, Mukhta‚ar Íaªīª, pp. 665–71 # 1415.
251. Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, p. 108; Ibn Kathīr, Stories, p. 159.
notes | 211
252. For example, see al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 143; al-Thaʿlabī, Qi‚a‚, p. 72.
253. See above n. 249. The account by Ibn Kathīr may be compared with those of
al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, pp. 142–5 and al-Thaʿlabī, Qi‚a‚, pp. 69–75.
254. See above p. 60 and Dictionnaire, p. 562.
256. Al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 143.
257. Ibid. See also Wensinck, ‘Ismāʿīl’, SEI, pp. 178–9; Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia,
p. 193, s.v. ‘Ismāʿīl (Ishmael) 1’.
258. Hawting, ‘Disappearance’, p. 44; Watt, ‘ʿAbd al-Mu††alib B. Hāshim’, EI2,
Vol. 1, 80; Buhl, ‘ʿAbd al-Mu††alib’, SEI, p. 7; Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia,
p. 15, s.v. ‘ʿAbd al-Mu††alib ibn Hāshim’.
259. Hawting, ‘Disappearance’, p. 52.
260. Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p.119.
261. Broadhurst, Travels, pp. 140–1; Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p. 118.
262. Broadhurst, Travels, p. 120; Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p. 101.
263. Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p. 101/Broadhurst, Travels, p. 121 cites here the classic
ªadīth (mā’ zamzam li-mā shuriba lahu) which lies behind much of the miracu-
lous narrative associated with the water of Zamzam. See Ibn Māja, Íaªīª
Sunan, Vol. 2, p. 183 # 3062/2484; Ibn Māja, Sunan Ibn-I-Mājah, Arabic–
English version by An‚ārī, Vol. 4, p. 310 # 3062 which notes that this ªadīth
is extremely well known but its reliability is disputed with scholars variously
holding it to be ‚aªīª, ªasan and even ∂aʿīf. See also Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-Buldān,
Vol. 3, p. 148, s.v. ‘zamzam’; Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p. 58; Broadhurst, Travels,
pp. 76, 374 n. 50; Ahmad and Ibrahim, The Water of Zamzam, pp. 27–31, 34.
264. Broadhurst, Travels, pp. 120–1; Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p. 101.
265. Broadhurst, Travels, p. 138; Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p. 116.
266. (My emphases) Ibn Ba††ū†a, Riªla, p. 130; trans. Gibb, Travels, Vol. 1, p. 188.
The key ªadīth phrase, wa huwa li-mā shuriba lahu, quoted above is explained
by H. A. R. Gibb citing the same ªadīth as mentioned by Broadhurst. See
Gibb, Travels, Vol. 1, p. 188 n. 3.
267. See above n. 263.
268. One of the tābiʿūn or ‘followers’, that is, of those Companions (‚aªāba) who
knew the Prophet personally. See De Vaux, ‘Tābiʿ’, SEI, p. 557.
269. See, for example, Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-Buldān, Vol. 3, p. 148, s.v. ‘zamzam’ (my
trans.); Broadhurst, Travels, p. 374 n. 50.
270. See Wensinck, ‘Nīya’, SEI, pp. 449–50.
271. Robson, ‘Abū Dharr’, EI2, Vol. 1, pp. 114–15.
272. Muslim, Íaªīª, Vol. 4, pp. 1921–2 # 2473 (Bāb Fa∂ā’il Abī Dharr). See
Ahmad and Ibrahim, Water of Zamzam, pp. 32–3. Compare al-Bukhārī,
Mukhta‚ar Íaªīª, pp. 692–4 # 1470 for another conversion account of Abū
Dharr to Islam.
273. See Ahmad and Ibrahim, Water of Zamzam, pp. 24–6.
274. Ibid., pp. 40–2.
275. Ibid., pp. 42–4.
276. Ibid., p. 43.
277. Moinuddin Ahmed with research by Tariq Hussain (Their source: <http://
alisalaah4.tripod.com/moreadvices2/id21.htm>; Credit: Al-Islaah
Publications): ‘Scientific Facts of the Zamzam Well. A Magnificent Miracle
by Allah. [A Research Conducted by a Group of European Scientists]’ (last
accessed 9 November 2016 at <https://www.facebook.com/notes/madina/
scientific-facts-of-the-zamzam-well>).
278. See Q.2:125, 127.
279. Q.76:18.
280. Ahmad and Ibrahim, Water of Zamzam, p. 52.
281. Ibid., p. 4.
283. Ibid., p. 108.
284. Ibid., p. 110.
285. Ibid., p. 109. See Netton, ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’; see also Meridian International
Communications, The Guests of God (videotape).
286. Laurentin, Bernadette, p. 67; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 87; Scott,
Miracle Cures, p. 53.
287. See Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia, pp. 341, 431, s.vv. ‘Íafā and Marwah’,
‘Zamzam’.
288. See Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, p. 109.
289. Laurentin, Bernadette, pp. 44, 45–79 and passim.
290. Wilson, Emile Zola, p. 124.
291. Ibid.
292. See ibid., pp. 24–68 for a general survey.
293. See ibid., pp. 124–5; Schom, Emile Zola, pp. 152–60; Noiray, ‘Preface’ to
Zola, Lourdes, pp. 8, 11–12.
294. Arditti, Jubilate, p. 28.
notes | 213
Notes to Chapter 4
1. Waugh, ‘Blood and Blood Clot’, EQ, Vol. 1, p. 237.

2. See CCC, pp. 299, 307 ## 1333, 1367. See also Ott, Fundamentals, pp. 379–83.
3. See Q.96:2.
4. Ibid.
5. See Q.4:157; Lawson, Crucifixion and the Qur’an; Parrinder, Jesus in the
Qur’ān, pp. 105–21.
6. For Lanciano, see Chapter Two; for the association of Lanciano with Longinus
and his lance, see Sammaciccia, Eucharistic Miracle, p. 20.
7. See Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism, p. 251.
8. John 2:1–10; trans. NJB, pp. 1746–7. See also CCC, p. 361 # 1613.
9. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism, p. 250.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., pp. 253–4. See also Perkins, ‘The Gospel According to John’, p. 954.
13. Perkins, ‘The Gospel According to John’, p. 954.
14. See Matthew 27:54; Mark 15:39; Luke 23:47.
15. John 19:34. See also Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week,
pp. 224–6; Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 318 n. 3, 319 n. 16.
16. Sammaciccia, Eucharistic Miracle, p. 20; Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, p. 3;
Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 248–9.
17. Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 248–9; Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 170–1.
18. John 19:34; trans. NJB, p. 1787.
19. Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 248–9.
20. Zechariah 12:10; trans. NJB, p. 1588; Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of
Nazareth: Holy Week, p. 219.
21. John 19:37; Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, p. 219.
22. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, p. 226. See Bynum,
Wonderful Blood, p. 18.
23. Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 181–2.
24. Q.96:1–2; trans. Yusuf Ali, p. 1761 (my emphases).
26. Sahin, ‘ʿAlaq’, pp. 27–8; Yahya, Allah’s Miracles in the Qur’an, pp. 152–63.
27. Sahin, ‘ʿAlaq’, pp. 27–8 citing Bucaille, The Bible, The Qur’an and Science.
28. Douglas, Purity and Danger, p. 121.
29. See ibid., pp. 61–2.
30. See Leviticus 12:1–7, 15:19–33.

31. See Douglas, Purity and Danger, pp. 61–2.
32. See Q.2:222.
33. Al-Bukhārī, Mukhta‚ar Íaªiª, p. 144 # 210. See also Bousquet, ‘Óay∂’, EI2,
Vol. 3, p. 315.
34. Al-Bukhārī, Mukhta‚ar Íaªiª, p. 142 # 203. See also Ibn Baz, Hajj, ʿUmrah
and Ziyarah, pp. 39–40.
36. See Cooper (trans), Commentary, pp. 209, 212.
37. Ibid., p. 219.
38. Ibid., pp. 221, 222.
39. See Eliade, Sacred and the Profane.
40. Vauchez, ‘Le Miracle’, pp. 45–6.
41. Raju, Via Francigena 2, p. 264.
42. Schütz, Great Cathedrals, p. 384.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid., pp. 17, 295; see also pp. 33, 264.
46. Ibid., p. 264.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., p. 265.
49. See Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, p. 187.
50. Ibid.; Raju, Via Francigena 2, p. 265; Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, p. 64; Allegri,
‘Signs from God’, p. 37; Schütz, Great Cathedrals, p. 384.
51. Vauchez, ‘Le Miracle’, p. 46; Raju, Via Francigena 2, p. 265; Cruz, Eucharistic
Miracles, p. 64; Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, p. 187; Allegri, ‘Signs from
God’, p. 37.
52. Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, p. 187.
53. Ibid.
55. Marden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7.
56. Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, p. 187.
57. Ibid., pp. 187–8; Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, p. 65.
58. Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, p. 64.
59. Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37; Shütz, Great Cathedrals, p. 384.
60. See Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37; Shütz, Great Cathedrals, p. 384. See also
Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7; Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, p. 64.
notes | 215

62. Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, p. 64. For Pope Urban IV see Kelly, Oxford
Dictionary of Popes, pp. 194–6.
65. Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, p. 187; Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37; Cruz,
Eucharistic Miracles, p. 64.
66. Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37; Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, p. 64.
67. Raju, Via Francigena 2, p. 265; Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37; Cruz,
Eucharistic Miracles, p. 65.
68. Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37. For a general architectural survey of Orvieto
Cathedral, with magnificent colour photographs, see Schütz, Great Cathedrals,
pp. 384–93.
69. Mattioni, Cathedral of Orvieto, p. 6. For photographs of the Cappella del SS.
Corporale, see pp. 39–45. (The sixty-four photographs are black and white and
of poor quality.)
71. For Pope Nicholas IV, see Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, pp. 205–6.
74. Ibid., p. 36.
75. Allegri, ‘Signs from God’, p. 37; Marsden, ‘Eucharistic Miracle’, p. 7; Cruz,
Eucharistic Miracles, pp. 64–5; Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, p. 196.
76. Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 340 n. 62.
77. Bynum, Christan Materiality; Bynum, Holy Feast; Bynum, Wonderful Blood.
78. Bynum, Wonderful Blood, p. 63.
79. Ibid., pp. 181–2.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid., p. 63.
83. Bynum, Christian Materiality, p.259; Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 48, 80–1,
241.
84. Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 63, 69, 149; Bynum, Christian Materiality,
p. 144; Bynum, Holy Feast, p. 64.
86. Ibid., p. 59.
87. Ibid., p. 149.
88. Ihnat, Mother of Mercy, p. 182 and passim.

89. Ibid., pp. 14, 166, 186.
90. Ibid., pp. 148–9.
91. Ibid., p. 149. See Livius, Blessed Virgin, pp. 322–3.
92. CCC, p. 346 # 1548.
93. Selman, Sacraments, p. 167.
94. Ibid., p. 166. See also Martos, Doors to the Sacred, p. 502.
95. See Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 113.
96. See Castelli, Padre Pio.
97. Bynum, Wonderful Blood, p. 129; Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 116;
Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 30.
98. Butler, Lives, Vol. 3, p. 1200.
99. Woodward, Book of Miracles, p. 167.
100. Butler, Lives, Vol. 3, p. 1207; Woodward, Book of Miracles, p. 167; Bynum,
Christian Materiality, p. 113; St Bonaventure (1217–74), ‘Life of St Francis’
in Cousins (trans), Bonaventure, p. 305; Brother Thomas of Celano, St Francis
of Assisi, para. 84.
101. Butler, Lives, Vol. 3, p. 1208, (my emphases) following the account of St
Bonaventure; Woodward, Book of Miracles, p. 167, following the account of
Thomas of Celano, Francis’ first biographer. For the original Latin texts, see
Bonaventure, ‘Life of St. Francis’, p. 306 and Thomas of Celano, St. Francis of
Assisi, paras 94–5.
102. Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 116.
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid., p. 71.
107. Ibid.
108. Barlow, Thomas Becket, p. 3.
109. Woodward, Book of Miracles, p. 166.
110. Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 310–11.
111. Ibid., p. 312.
112. Ibid., p. 311.
113. Ibid., p. 334.
114. Ibid., p. 335.
115. Ibid.
116. Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 257; Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 144, 169.
notes | 217
117. Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 21; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, pp. 35–41;
Butler, Lives, Vol. 3, pp. 1124–5, s.v. ‘St. Januarius’.
118. Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, pp. 35–6.
119. Ibid., p. 36; Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 21.
121. Ibid., pp. 38–40.
122. Ibid., p. 39.
123. Ibid., p. 37.
125. Baronio Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici 1198–1534, Vol. 19, No. 23, cited in
Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 347 n. 107.
126. Trans. Bynum, Christian Materiality, p. 159. See also Bynum, Wonderful
Blood, pp. 53, 87.
127. Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 92–3.
128. See Genesis 40–1; Q.12, esp. vv. 36–41, 43–9. See Netton, ‘Towards a Modern
Tafsīr’, p. 78.
130. See ibid., pp. 249–58, 144, 149; Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 139–40,
144.
132. Maunder, ‘No More Secrets’, p. 7; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations,
passim.
133. For coverage of the year 1917, see, inter alia, Grant and Overy, World War 1,
esp. pp. 204–61; Gilbert, First World War, Vol. 2, esp. pp. 371–483.
134. Anon., ‘A New Saint?’, p. 10.
135. See Bynum, Wonderful Blood, pp. 181–2.
136. Ibid., p. 181.
137. Ibid., pp. 33, 37, 57–8, 391 (s.v. ‘Frauds (alleged)’).
138. See Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, pp. 90–2.
139. Ibid., p. 91.
140. Ibid.
141. See, for example, Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?, pp. 368–70.
142. For this important Pope, who bears the title ‘The Great’, see Kelly, Oxford
Dictionary of Popes, pp. 65–8; Duffy, Saints and Sinners, pp. 65–77; Duffy, Ten
Popes who Shook the World, pp. 49–57.
143. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?, pp. 370–1.
144. Ibid., p. 370.

146. Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes, p. 66. For Pelagius 11, see ibid., p. 65 and
Duffy, Saints and Sinners, pp. 67–8, 71.
147. Duffy, Saints and Sinners, p. 68 (my emphases). See also Duffy, Ten Popes
who Shook the World, p. 55: Gregory described himself as servus servorum Dei
(Servant of the Servants of God).
149. Ibid.
150. Ibid.
152. Ibid.
154. Ibid.
155. MacCulloch, Reformation, pp. 81–2. See also, for the ‘Donation of Constantine’,
MacCulloch, History of Christianity, pp. 351, 579.
157. Butler, Lives, Vol. 3, p. 1125. The same caution is applied by the Church to
apparitions. See Dictionnaire, pp. 12, 20–1.
158. For varying discussions of ‘presence’ and ‘immanence’, see Orji, ‘Hermeneutical
Clarification’, pp. 653–75; Lonergan, Method in Theology, pp. 7–8,
109–11.
159. See Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 40.
161. Radtke, ‘Sahl al-Tustarī’, EAL, Vol. 2, p. 676.
162. Ibid.
163. See al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, p. 381; Kashf – Nicholson (trans.), p. 296.
164. Massignon, ‘Sahl al-Tustarī’, SEI, p. 488.
165. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 56.
166. Ibid.
167. Ibid.
168. Ibid., p. 56. See Massignon, ‘Sahl al-Tustarī’, SEI, p. 789.
169. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 86.
170. Green, Sufism, p. 34.
171. Radtke, ‘Sahl al-Tustarī’, EAL, Vol. 2, p. 676; Massignon, ‘Sahl al-Tustarī’,
SEI, pp. 488–9.
172. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 133.
173. Ibid., p. 132.
notes | 219
174. Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf; Kashf – Nicholson (trans). The name of the Russian editor
of the Persian text has been variously transliterated as Zhouski, Zukovsky and
Žukovskij.
175. Kashf – Nicholson (trans.), p. 195. For the original Persian text, see al-Hujwīrī,
Kashf, p. 245. See also Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 169;
Nicholson, Mystics of Islam, p. 46.
176. Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, pp. 378–86; Kashf – Nicholson (trans.), pp. 294–9.
177. Matthew 3:2; trans. NJB, p. 1612.
178. Luke 15:7; trans. NJB, p. 1715.
179. Luke 22:44; trans. NJB, p. 1727.
180. Patella, Gospel According to Luke, p. 143. Other stigmatics have exhibited dif-
ferent phenomena. An example was Marthe Robin (1902–81) who claimed to
take no food but the Eucharist for more than fifty years: see Teague, ‘Suffering
with Jesus’, pp. 28–9.
182. Nicholson, Mystics of Islam, p. 46.
183. Smith, Palmer, Sherr and Ware, Philokalia, pp. 104–5.
184. Ibid., pp. IX, 164–89.
185. See Main, The Way of Unknowing.
186. Kashf – Nicholson (trans.), p. 151; al-Hujwīrī, Kashf, p. 190; Mojaddedi,
‘Óallāj’, pp. 589–92.
187. Ibid.
188. Ibid.
189. See, for example, Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia, p. 145 s.v. ‘Al-Óallāj, Óusayn
ibn Man‚ūr’; Green, Sufism, p. 39; Massignon, ‘Al-Óallāj’, p. 346; Mason,
‘Óallāj and the Baghdad School of Sufism’, p. 71.
190. Mason, ‘Óallāj and the Baghdad School of Sufism’, p. 71.
191. Green, Sufism, p. 39.
192. Ibid., pp. 39–40. For his life, death and significance, see Mason, Al-Hallaj,
pp. 1–52 and passim; Mason, ‘Óallāj and the Baghdad School of Sufism’,
pp. 64–81; Massignon [Gardet], ‘Al-Óallādj’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 99–104; Knysh,
Islamic Mysticism, pp. 72–82; Massignon, ‘Al-Óallāj’, pp. 346–9. However,
one of the most extensive and important examinations of al-Óallāj remains
Massignon’s 4 vol. La Passion de Óusayn ibn Man‚ūr Óallāj, which has been
characterised as ‘one of the finest works of comparative mysticism of the cen-
tury’ (Anawati, ‘Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism’, p. 371). It was trans-
lated by Herbert Mason under the title of The Passion of al-Óallāj.
193. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 66. See also Mojaddedi, ‘Óallāj’,
pp. 589–92.
194. I have rendered ˝awāsīn with a singular translation. Literally the word means
˝ā’ Sīns in the plural. Massignon draws our attention to the fact that these
are two of the mysterious letters of the Qur’ān which appear at the beginning
of Q.26 (‫)طسم‬, Q.27 (‫ )طس‬and Q.28 (‫)طسم‬: see Massignon, Kitâb al-Tawâsîn,
p. 1. I am grateful to my colleague in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies,
University of Exeter, Dr Lenny Lewisohn, for helping me to unravel the com-
plexities of this word. See also Seale, ‘The Mysterious Letters of the Qur’an’,
pp. 26–46 esp. p. 33.
195. Trans. Arberry, Sufism, p. 60. For the original text, see Massignon, Kitâb al-
Tawâsîn, pp. 51–2. See also, Mojaddedi, ‘Óallāj’, pp. 589–92.
196. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, pp. 75, 64–5.
197. Ibid., p. 75.
198. Q.22:6.
199. Yusuf Ali, p. 852.
200. Nasr (ed.), Study Quran, p. 832 which also admits the possibility of Yusuf Ali’s
rendition above. Arberry (The Koran Interpreted, Vol. 2, p. 28) translates as
‘The Truth’ as does Abdel Haleem (The Qur’an, p. 209).
201. Cooper, ‘Al-Óallāj’, EAL, Vol. 1, p. 266.
202. Ibid. For a full coverage of the sha†aªāt, see Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in
Sufism.
203. Mojaddedi, ‘Óallāj’, pp. 589–92.
204. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism, pp. 10–11, 44–5.
205. See Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, pp. 81–2.
206. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 65; Kimber ‘Ibn al-Nadīm’, EAL,
Vol. 1, pp. 355–6; Fück, ‘Ibn al-Nadīm’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 895–6.
207. Dodge (trans.), Fihrist, Vol. 1, p. 474; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist, Vol. 1:2,
pp. 675–6.
208. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 65.
209. See Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, p. 110.
210. Arberry, Sufism, p. 59.
211. See Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, pp. 108–109; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, p. 77;
Green, Sufism, p. 40; Massignon [Gardet], ‘Al-Óallādj’, EI2 , Vol. 3, p. 102.
212. (My emphases) Kashf – Nicholson (trans.), p. 150; al-Hujwīrī, Kashf,
pp. 189–90.
213. See Ritter, ‘ʿA††ār’, EI2, Vol. 1, pp. 752–5 for this dating and a general survey
notes | 221
of his life and work. No precise death date is possible: Nott (trans.), Conference,
p. 137; Schimmel, ‘Foreword’ to Boyle (trans.), Ilāhī Nāma, p. XII.
214. Mojaddedi, ‘Óallāj’, pp. 589–92.
215. ʿA††ār, Ilāhi Nāma, trans. Boyle, p. 103. For the original Persian see ʿA††ār,
Ilāhi Nāma, p. 86. Compare ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat, p. 517: trans. Arberry, Muslim
Saints and Mystics, p. 270.
216. See Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics. Despite Arberry’s choice of translation
of awliyā’ as ‘saints’, I prefer the more accurate Islamic register of ‘friends of
God’ in view of the Christian associations of the word ‘saint’.
217. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics, p. 266; ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat, p. 514.
218. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics, p. 267; ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat, p. 514.
219. Luke 23:34.
220. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics, pp. 269–70 (the quotation is from p. 270);
ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat, p. 517; Arberry, Sufism, p. 60; Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, p. 69.
221. Trans. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics, pp. 270–1; ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat,
p. 517 (my emphases).
222. See CCC, pp. 140–1 # 616. See Brümmer, Atonement; Ray, Atonement Muddle.
223. Arberry, Sufism, p. 60.
224. CCC, pp. 306–7 ## 1362–7.
225. See Anver and Chelkowski, ‘From Rūmī’s Mathnawī to the Popular Stage’,
p. 188; Strothmann, ‘Taʿziyya’, SEI, pp. 590–1. For the taʿziya with particular
reference to al-Óusayn, see Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering, pp. 148–80, 251–3;
Halm, Shiʿism, pp. 139–42.
226. Anver and Chelkowski, ‘From Rūmī’s Mathnawī to the Popular Stage’,
p. 192.
227. Ibid., p. 193.
228. Ibid., pp. 193–4.
229. Ibid., p. 194. At least one Western scholar has immortalised the last days of
al-Óallāj. See Mason, The Death of al-Óallāj. Mojaddedi, ‘Óallāj, Abu ’l-Moḡit
¯
Óosayn’, pp. 589–92, notes: ‘The attention given to [al–Óallāj] by modern
Western scholars seems to have helped inspire a revival of interest in the story
of Óallāj’s life and his poetry among Arab authors too.’ He cites the play by
Íalāª ʿAbd al-Íabūr entitled Ma’sat al-Óallāj, trans. by K. I. Semaan under the
title Murder in Baghdad.
230. Matthew 27:51–4; trans. NJB, p. 1658. In Mark 15:39 it is just the centurion
who makes this transition to belief. Luke 23:47 records him as giving praise to
God and stating ‘Truly, this was an upright man’ (trans. NJB, p. 1730). Other
texts translate the centurion as saying: ‘This man was innocent beyond doubt’
(see Patella, Gospel According to Luke, p. 151). See also Ratzinger/Benedict
XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, p. 224.
231. Sabin, Gospel According to Mark, p. 147.
232. ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat, p. 517.
233. Ibid.
234. Ibid.
235. Trans. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics, p. 271; ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat, p. 517.
236. Trans. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics, p. 268; ʿA††ār, Tadhkirat, p. 515.
237. Ibid.
238. St John Chrysostom, Cult of the Saints, pp. 91–2. For the original text with
facing Greek and Latin pages, see Migne (ed.), Patrologia Cursus Completus:
Series Graeca: S. Joannes Chrysostomus, Tomi Secundi, Pars Posterior, Vol. 50,
pp. 571–2.
239. ‘Introduction’ in St John Chrysostom, Cult of the Saints, p. 29.
240. CCC. p. 307 ## 1365–6.
241. Gell, ‘Closure and Multiplication’, p. 293. (Gell’s essay here is an abridged
version of an essay by the same title which originally appeared in de Copper
and Iteanu (eds), Cosmos and Society in Oceania, pp. 21–56.
242. Gell, ‘Closure and Multiplication’, p. 293.
243. For Karbalā’, see Momen, Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, pp. 28–33. See also
Vaglieri, ‘Al-Óusayn’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 607–15; Halm, Shiʿism, pp. 13–16;
Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering, pp. 97–139.
244. Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering, p. 8.
245. Momen, Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, p. 33.
246. Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia, p. 220, s.v. ‘Kerbala’.
247. Vaglieri, ‘Al-Óusayn’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 612–13.
248. Matthew 27:51–4; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:44–5.
249. Compare ibid.
250. See Matthew 27:57–61; Mark 15:42–7; Luke 23: 50–6; John 19:38–42.
251. See Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering, p. 132.
252. Ibid., pp. 132–3.
253. Ibid., p. 133.
254. Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering, p. 23. Compare Brümmer, Atonement, passim.
256. Ibid.
257. Ibid.
notes | 223
258. Ibid., p. 23.

259. Ibid.
260. Halm, Shiʿism, p. 137.
261. Ibid., referencing Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering, p. 199 who cites (p. 282 n.6)
Corbin’s article entitled ‘De la philosophie prophétique en Islam Shīʿite’,
pp. 49–116.
262. Halm, Shiʿism, p. 137.
263. Ibid.
Notes to Chapter 5
1. George, ‘Introduction’ to [reprint of] Layard, Discoveries, p. XV.

2. Ibid., p. XIX; George (trans.), ‘Introduction’ to George, (trans.), Epic of
Gilgemash, p. XXI (hereafter referred to simply as Gilgamesh).
3. George, ‘Introduction’ to Layard, Discoveries, p. XIX.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid; George, ‘Introduction’ to Gilgamesh, p. IX. For a popular account of the
story of Gilgamesh, shorn of scholarly apparatus and line breaks, see Sandars,
‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ in Storm, Myths and Legends, pp. 62–99 and Sandars,
Appendix: ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh: Note on the Text’, pp. 599–603.
6. George, ‘Introduction’ to Gilgamesh, p. XXII.
7. Ibid., p. XI.
8. Winterson, Christmas Days, p. 291 (my emphases).
9. Keller, Bible as History, p. 45
10. Ibid.
11. See John, Meaning in the Miracles, passim.
12. Ibid., p. 5.
13. Ibid.
14. George, ‘Glossary of Proper Names’, Gilgamesh, p. 204.
15. Ibid., p. 207.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., p. 204.
19. Gilgamesh, p. 86.
20. Ibid., p. 87.
21. Ibid, pp. 88–9.
22. Ibid., p. 89.
23. Ibid., pp. 89–91.
24. Ibid., p. 90.

25. Ibid., p. 91.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., p. 92.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., pp. 92–3.
30. Ibid., p. 93.
31. Ibid., pp. 93–8, esp. p. 95.
32. Ibid., p. 86.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 203 (‘Glossary of Proper Names’).
35. Ibid., pp. 98, 204 (‘Glossary of Proper Names’).
36. Ibid., p. 155.
37. Ibid., p. 194.
38. Cook, Genesis, p. 27. See Genesis 7:21.
39. Genesis 9:28–9.
40. Genesis 6:14.
43. See Q.11:38.
44. Q.29:15; trans. Yusuf Ali, p. 1032 who nonetheless prefers the translation of
safīna as ‘ark’ as do Abdel Haleem (Qur’an), Arberry (Koran Interpreted) and
Khalidi (Qur’an). Nasr (Study Quran) prefers ‘ship’.
45. Q.29:15. See Yusuf Ali, p. 1456 n. 5140.
46. See Ikhwān al-Íafā’, Rasā’il, Vol. 4, p. 18; Traboulsi et al. (eds and trans.),
Epistles: On Companionship and Belief, pp. 80 (English trans.), 40 (Arabic text).
See also Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists, esp. pp. 105–8.
47. Gilgamesh, p. 87
48. See Clifford and Murphy, ‘Genesis’ in NJBC, p. 14 where God’s ‘regret’ is
placed in inverted commas. The NJB, p. 25, notes and observes that ‘God’s
‘regret’ is a human way of expressing the fact that tolerance of sin is incompat-
ible with his sanctity’.
49. Genesis 6:7; trans. NJB, p. 24.
50. Q.71:1–28, esp. vv. 21–3.
52. See Clifford and Murphy, ‘Genesis’ in NJBC, pp. 15–16.
notes | 225
54. Q.71:26
56. Gilgamesh, p. 87; Genesis 7:1; Q.7:64; 11:37, 40–1.
57. Gilgamesh, p. 88; Genesis 6:14–16; Q.11:37.
58. Genesis 6:14–16.
59. Q.11:37; see trans. Yusuf Ali, p. 523.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., p. 88.
63. See Genesis 6:18–7:16.
64. See, for example, Q.11:40.
65. See Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering, p. 31.
66. Ibid., pp. 31, 261 n. 27.
67. Ibid., p. 32.
68. Gilgamesh, pp. 90–1.
69. Genesis 7:11–12.
70. For example, see Q.26:120, 37:82.
72. Gilgamesh, pp. 91–2; Genesis 8:6–12.
73. Gilgamesh, p. 92; Genesis 8:20–1.
74. Al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 92; Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, p. 60.
75. Al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 92.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid., p. 98.
78. Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, pp. 92–3.
79. Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab, Vol.1:1, p. 51.
80. Al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 92.
81. Ibid., p. 95.
82. Ibid., pp. 95–6.
83. Ibid., p. 96.
84. Ibid., pp. 57–8.
85. Saggs, Babylonians, p. 310.
86. See Bachelard, Formation of the Scientific Mind, p.237; Foucault, Order of
Things, esp. pp. 55, 235, 401, 422.
87. See Cook, Genesis, p. 27.
88. See Keller, Bible as History, p. 45; Clifford and Murphy, ‘Genesis’ in NJBC,
p. 15; Robertson, About Atlantis, p. 17; Mifsud et al., Malta, pp. 36–7. See also
Cline, From Eden to Exile, pp. 17, 21, 27, 34–5; Shorter, Towards a Theology
of Inculturation, p. 107.
89. George, ‘Introduction’ to Gilgamesh, p. XIX.
90. Cline, From Eden to Exile, p. 28; Porter, Illustrated Guide, p. 33.
91. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Raeburn, pp. 17–22: Bk 1 lines 253–350. For
the original Greek text, see Ovid, Metamorphoses Books I–VIII, [dual Greek–
English edn], trans. Miller, pp. 20–6: Bk 1 lines 253–350.
92. See Hornblower and Spawforth (eds), Oxford Classical Dictionary, p. 460, s.v.
‘Deucalion’. For a popular retelling of this Greek flood story, see ‘Deucalion’s
Flood’ in Graves, Greek Myths, Vol. 1, pp. 136–8.
93. Graves, Greek Myths, Vol. 1, p. 138.
94. Saggs, Babylonians, p. 350; see also p. 310; Gilgamesh, p. 4.
95. George, ‘Glossary of Proper Names’ in Gilgamesh, p. 204; Keller, Bible as
History, p. 52; Gilgamesh, p. 4.
96. Saggs, Babylonians, p.402; Cook, Genesis, p. 6; Rogerson, Introduction, pp. 32,
29–31; Coogan, Old Testament, pp. 18, 21, 37–8.
97. Keller, Bible as History, p. 59 suggests ‘the Fertile Crescent’.
98. Saggs, Babylonians, p. 402.
99. See pp. 139–40.
100. Ramage, Atlantis, pp. 34 (Ramage: ‘Perspectives Ancient and Modern’), 88, 98
(Fredericks: ‘Plato’s Atlantis: a Mythologist Looks at Myth’).
101. See Mifsud et al., Malta, esp. pp. 48–60 and the website Atlantipedia, avail-
able at <http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/> (last accessed 1 March 2018). This
identification is rejected by Robertson, About Atlantis, p. 29; Ramage, Atlantis,
p. 37 (Ramage: ‘Perspectives Ancient and Modern’), 142 (Vitaliano: ‘Atlantis
from the Geologic Point of View’).
102. See Johansen, ‘Introduction’ to Lee and Johansen (trans., annot., and Introd.),
Plato: Timaeus and Critias, pp. IX, XIII–XIV, XXVII–XXX; Ramage, Atlantis,
esp. pp. 23, 26, 29 (Ramage: ‘Perspectives Ancient and Modern’), 105 (Fears:
‘Atlantis and the Minoan Thalassocracy’); Robertson, About Atlantis, p. 14;
Mifsud et al., Malta, p. 10.
103. Johansen, ‘Introduction’, p. XXIX.
104. Hornblower and Spawforth (eds), Oxford Classical Dictionary, pp. 208,
s.v. ‘Atlantis’; Ramage, Atlantis, pp. 39–41 (Ramage: ‘Perspectives Ancient
and Modern’), 67–73 (Luce: ‘Sources and Literary Form of Plato’s Atlantis
Narrative’).
105. Hornblower and Spawforth (eds), Oxford Classical Dictionary, pp. 208,
notes | 227
s.v. ‘Atlantis’; Ramage, Atlantis, pp. 39–41 (Ramage: ‘Perspectives Ancient

and Modern’), 67–73 (Luce: ‘Sources and Literary Form of Plato’s Atlantis
Narrative’). See Plato, Timaeus 25c–d in Bury (trans), Plato: Timaeus, Critias,
Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles, [dual Greek–English edn], pp. 42 (Greek text),
43 (English trans.); Lee and Johansen (trans.), Timaeus 25c–d in Timaeus and
Critias, p. 16.
106. Lee and Johansen (trans.), Timaeus 25d in Lee and Johansen (trans.), Timaeus
and Critias, p. 16. The destruction of Atlantis is also covered by Plato in his
Critias Dialogue: Critias 108e in Bury (trans), Plato: Timaeus, Critias . . .,
pp. 264 (Greek text), 265 (English trans.); Lee and Johansen (trans.), Critias
108e in Lee and Johansen (trans.), Timaeus and Critias, p. 97.
107. Mifsud et al., Malta, p. 12.
108. NJB, p. 25 note c.
109. See Robertson, About Atlantis, p. 27.
110. Ibid., p. 55.
111. See Stoneman et al. (eds), Alexander Romance, passim. See also Renard,
‘Alexander’, EQ, Vol. 1, pp. 61–2; Anon, ‘Al-Iskandar’, SEI, pp. 175–6; Abel,
‘Iskandar Nāma’, EI2, Vol. 4, p. 128; Stoneman (trans.), Greek Alexander
Romance, esp. pp. 119–21: Bk 2:39.
112. See Genesis 6:9.
113. See Gilgamesh, p. 52; Genesis 8:20–1.
114. Porter, Illustrated Guide, p. 122.
116. For example, Genesis 6:13, 17; Q.2:284.
117. Cook, Genesis, p. 25. Gilgamesh, p. 90.
118. John, Meaning in the Miracles, p. 3.
119. Ibid., p. 79. See Marshall, ‘Punishment Stories’, EQ, Vol. 4, pp. 318–22.
120. Though many pious enthusiasts, for example in the Philippines, would like
it, the actual title of Mary as Co-Redemptrix has not been conferred on her
formally and dogmatically by the Catholic Church: see Maunder, Our Lady of
the Nations, pp. 13, 109, 114–21; de la Cruz, Mother Figured, pp. 149, 211,
267 n. 3.
121. Hawting, ‘Kaʿba’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 78.
122. Exodus 25:16; trans. NJB, p. 112; see also Exodus 25:8–22, 37:1–9.
123. Exodus 25:10.
124. Q.2:248; see Firestone, ‘Shekhinah’, EQ, Vol. 4, p. 590.
125. Ibid.
126. Wehr, Dictionary, p. 418, s.v. ‘sakīna’.

127. However, Firestone notes that if sakīna is indeed derived here (Q.2:248) from
the Hebrew and Arabic word shekhīnā, meaning a ‘divine “indwelling”’, then
there are problems in trying to fit the definition to other occurences of the word
sakīna in the Qur’an (see his article ‘Shekhinah’, EQ, Vol. 4, pp. 589–90).
128. Castelot and Cody, ‘Religious Institutions of Israel’, NJBC, p. 1261.
129. Ray, ‘Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant’, Catholic Answers Live, October
2005, available at <https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/mary-
the-ark-of-the-new-covenant-0> (last accessed 3 April 2017).
130. See Livius, Blessed Virgin, esp. pp. 74–7, 474, Index, s.v. ‘The Ark’.
131. Bowden and Attwater, Miniature Lives, pp. 273–4; Daix, Dictionnaire des
Saints, pp. 130–1; Butler, Lives, Vol. 2, pp. 759–66.
132. Daix, Dictionnaire des Saints, p. 130.
133. Livius, Blessed Virgin, p. 74.
134. Bowden and Attwater, Miniature Lives, pp. 554–5; Daix, Dictionnaire des
Saints, pp. 58–9; Butler, Lives, Vol. 4, pp. 1530–58.
135. Livius, Blessed Virgin, p. 77 and for primary sources.
136. Ibid., p. 74.
137. Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, pp. 11–12, 32.
138. Ibid; Luke 1:35, NJB, trans. p.1687; Exodus 40:34, NJB, trans., p. 133.
139. CCC, p. 570 # 2676; Revelation 21:3.
140. Revelation 11:19–12:1, NJB, trans., p. 2040; Maunder, Our Lady of the
Nations, p. 16.
141. Ray, ‘Mary, The Ark of the New Covenant’, Catholic Answers Live.
142. See Collins, ‘ The Apocalypse (Revelation)’, NJBC, p. 1008; see also NJB,
p. 2041 note j.
143. See Cory, Book of Revelation, p. 56.
144. See ‘Litany of the Blessed Virgin’ in Dukes, Daily Missal, p. 51; Liber Usualis,
pp. 1858, 1860; Denis, Reign of Jesus Through Mary, p. 312.
145. Family Publications, Walsingham Prayer Book, p. 56; Catholic Westminster
Hymnal, p. 88.
146. Walsingham Prayer Book, p. 33.
147. Novena, p. 14.
148. See Revelation 12:1.
149. Walsingham Prayer Book, p. 5; see Gillett, Walsingham; Dickinson, Shrine; Janes
and Waller (eds), Walsingham in Literature; Waller, Walsingham; Rayne-Davis
and Rollings, Walsingham; Stephenson, Walsingham Way; Baker, Walsingham
notes | 229
Abbey. Fieldwork in Walsingham was undertaken by the Ian Richard Netton

in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. See DVDs The Story of Walsingham (2011) and
Richeldis de Faverches (2012).
150. Novena, p. 1.
151. Walsingham Prayer Book, pp. 15, 45, 63.
152. Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 19.
153. The Ballad is printed in full, in its original language, in (1) Gillett, Walsingham,
pp. 74–7; (2) Dickinson, Shrine, pp. 125–30; and (3) rendered into modern
English in Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, pp. 73–7. In what follows,
references to this Ballad will be, respectively, to the abbreviated forms Pynson/
Gillett, Pynson/Dickinson and Pynson/Rayne-Davis.
154. Pynson/Gillett, p. 77; Pynson/Dickinson, p. 129.
155. Singer, ‘Walsingham’s Local Genius’, p. 23.
156. Ibid., and pp. 23–34, esp. pp. 29–30.
157. Ibid., p. 30
158. Ibid., p. 33 and passim.
159. See Gillett, Walsingham, pp. 26–36; Waller, Walsingham, p. 4.
160. Gillett, Walsingham, pp. 31–2; Dickinson, Shrine, pp. 41–2; Rayne-Davis and
Rollings, Walsingham, p. 33; Stephenson, Walsingham Way, p. 43; Singer,
‘Walsingham’s Local Genius’, p. 27. The visit is recorded in the historical
fiction of Philippa Gregory, The White Princess, pp. 194–5.
161. See Gillett, Walsingham, p. 9; Dickinson, Shrine, pp. 42–3; Rayne-Davis and
Rollings, Walsingham, pp. 33–4; Stephenson, Walsingham Way, pp. 43–4;
Singer, ‘Walsingham’s Local Genius’, p. 27; Baker, Walsingham Abbey, p. 11.
162. Dickinson, Shrine, p. 43; see Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 34;
Stephenson, Walsingham Way, pp. 33–4; Baker, Walsingham Abbey, p. 11.
163. See Waller, Walsingham, pp. 132–50 and p. 132 n. 1 for bibliographical details
of this novel and my Bibliography. For another fictional reference to Henry
VIII’s visit to Walsingham, see Philippa Gregory, The King’s Curse, p. 116.
164. Gillett, Walsingham, pp. 41–52; Waller, Walsingham, pp. 65–85; Stephenson,
Walsingham Way, pp. 47–9. Dickinson, Shrine, p. 47 gives the dates of his
visit as 1512 and 1514. See also ibid., pp. 100–1 for Erasmus’ description of
the interior of the shrine. For a survey and analysis of the life of Erasmus, see
MacCulloch, Reformation, pp. 97–105. See also Duffy, Reformation Divided,
pp. 19–49.
165. The prayer is recorded in Gillett, Walsingham, p. 44; Rayne-Davis and Rollings,
Walsingham, pp. 21–2, 85; Walsingham Prayer Book, p. 9.
166. See Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 21; Waller, Walsingham,

pp. 65–85 esp. pp. 76–7; Stephenson, Walsingham Way, p. 49. See also
Dickinson, Shrine, pp. 55–7.
167. Baker, Walsingham Abbey, p. 5; Janes and Waller, ‘Introduction’ to Janes and
Waller (eds.), Walsingham in Literature, p. 4.
168. Waller, Walsingham, p. 10.
169. Ibid.
170. Ibid.
171. Ibid., p. 11.
172. See Gillett, Walsingham, p. 1; Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham,
p. 15; Waller, Walsingham, p. 1; Janes and Waller, ‘Introduction’, pp. 5, 6;
Stephenson, Walsingham Way, pp. 21–2; Baker, Walsingham Abbey, p. 8.
173. Pynson/Gillett, p. 75; Pynson/Dickinson, p. 126.
174. Pynson/Gillett, p. 75; Pynson/Dickinson, p. 125
175. Pynson/Gillett, p. 75; Pynson/Dickinson, p. 125; Pynson/Rayne-Davis, p. 73.
For outlines of the whole vision/dream narrative, see, first and foremost, the
Pynson Ballad. See also Waller, Walsingham, p. 13; Gillett, Walsingham,
pp. 1–10; Rayne-Davis, Walsingham, pp. 15–17; Stephenson, Walsingham Way,
pp. 21–3; Baker, Walsingham Abbey, p. 8; Janes and Waller, ‘Introduction’,
pp. 5–6.
176. See Waller, Walsingham, p. 10.
177. Gillett, Walsingham, p. 5.
178. Dickinson, Shrine, p. 124; Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 5; Carroll,
‘Pilgrimage at Walsingham’, p. 38; Janes and Waller (eds), Walsingham in
Literature, p. 38; Waller, Walsingham, p. 1.
179. Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 5; Carroll, ‘Pilgrimage at Walsingham’,
p. 38; Waller, Walsingham, p. 1; Dickinson, Shrine, p. 125.
180. Ibid.
182. Ibid., p. 16.
183. Ibid., p. 10.
184. Ibid., pp. 10–11.
185. Dickinson, Shrine, pp. 33, 24; Gillett, Walsingham, p. 10.
186. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 191.
187. Ibid.
188. Ibid.
notes | 231
190. Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 27.

191. Stephenson, Walsingham Way, p. 36. For the Black Death, see Ziegler, Black
Death, esp. pp. 22–5 for God’s wrath.
192. Stephenson, Walsingham Way, p. 36.
193. Ziegler, Black Death, p. 25.
194. See Waller, Walsingham, pp. 98–101.
195. Philip, Earl of Arundel, Rawlinson Mss Poet. 219, Bodleian Library, Oxford;
Gillett, Walsingham, pp. 78–9, see also ibid., p. 66; Dickinson, Shrine,
p. 68; Stephenson, Walsingham Way, pp. 67–8; Rayne-Davis and Rollings,
Walsingham, p. 42; Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 9; Waller,
Walsingham, pp. 98–101.
196. Waller, Walsingham, p. 36; Gillett, Walsingham, p. 63; Janes and Waller
(eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 7; Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 39;
Stephenson, Walsingham Way, p. 66.
197. Gillett, Walsingham, pp. 62, 53–64; Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham,
pp. 39–40.
198. Dickinson, Shrine, p. 66.
199. Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 40; Baker, Walsingham Abbey,
p. 11; Dickinson, Shrine, p. 71; Waller, Walsingham, pp. 93–4.
201. Ibid., p. 67.
202. Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 2.
203. Ibid., p. 9.
204. Yates, ‘Walsingham and Interwar Anglo-Catholicism’’, p. 131, see also
pp. 132–46.
205. Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p.10. See also Stephenson, Walsingham
Way, passim; Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, pp. 51–2; Baker,
Walsingham Abbey, p. 32.
206. Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 11; Dickinson, Shrine, p. 68.
207. Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 46; Baker, Walsingham Abbey,
p. 32.
208. For this Guild, See Judkins, Walsingham Walk, (Laurence Goulder,
‘Introduction’), esp. back inside cover; Rayne-Davis, Walsingham, p. 47.
209. Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 47 and pp. 46–52.
210. Gamble, ‘Walsingham Becomes Minor Basilica’, p. 30.
211. Baker, Walsingham Abbey, p. 32.
212. Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, pp. 49–50.
213. Ibid., p. 50.

214. See Guild of Our Lady of Ransom, Walsingham Walk 1952–2001; Judkins,
Walsingham Walk; Ryden, Porter of Petitions.
215. See Judkins, Walsingham Walk, pp. 17–18.
216. Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, pp. 46–7.
217. See Waller, Walsingham, pp. 27–9.
218. Pynson/Gillett, p. 76; Pynson/Rayne-Davis, pp. 75–6.
219. See Gillett, Walsingham, p. 1; Walsingham Prayer Book, pp. 15, 45.
220. Pynson/Gillett, p. 75 (my emphases).
221. See Gillett, Walsingham, pp. 2–5; Singer, ‘Walsingham’s Local Genius’,
p. 24; Carroll, ‘Pilgrimage at Walsingham’, pp. 39–40; Waller, Walsingham,
pp. 16–17, 166.
222. Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, pp. 174–5. The feast of the Translation of the
Holy House of Loreto was celebrated on 10 December (Butler, Lives, Vol. 4,
p. 1568).
223. See Corry, Howard and Laven (eds), Madonnas and Miracles, p. 151.
224. Ibid.
225. Pynson/Gillett, p. 75; Pynson/Rayne-Davis, p. 74.
226. Ibid.
228. Ibid. (my emphases). See Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 6; Dickinson,
Shrine, p. 95; Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 16; Stephenson,
Walsingham Way, p. 23.
230. Carroll, ‘Pilgrimage at Walsingham’, p. 45.
233. Ibid. Gillett, Walsingham, p.50; see Walsingham Prayer Book, p. 45 which cites
a pilgrim hymn containing the story; Dickinson, Shrine, p. 92.
234. Pynson/Gillett, p. 76; Pynson/Rayne-Davis, p.76.
237. See Rayne-Davis and Rollings, Walsingham, p. 91; Walsingham Prayer Book
p. 46; Dickinson, Shrine, pp. 92, 94.
238. Carroll, ‘Pilgrimage at Walsingham’, pp. 40–1; Waller, Walsingham, pp. 28,
29.
notes | 233
240. Gillett, Walsingham, p. 39; see Liber Usualis, pp. 273, 277, 1259, 1261, 1262;
Walsingham Prayer Book, pp. 32, 62.
243. See Waller, Walsingham, esp. pp. 76–8, 65–85; Carroll, ‘Pilgrimage at
Walsingham’, pp. 42–3.
244. See Janes and Waller (eds), ‘Introduction’, p. 13.
245. See Waller, Walsingham, p. 29.
246. See esp. ibid., pp. 91–114.
247. Ibid., p. 12.
248. Coleman, ‘Engaging Visions?’, p. 87.
249. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Pt 4, pp. 389 ff.
250. Ibid., pp. 411–12.
251. Khan (trans.), Sahîh Al-Bukhārī, Arabic–English, Vol. 5, p. 353: Kitāb
al-Maghāzī: Óadīth nos 4287, 4288. For al-Bukhārī, see Robson, ‘Al-Bukhārī’,
EI2, Vol. 1, pp. 1296–7; Rippin, ‘al-Bukhārī’, EAL, Vol. 1, p. 162.
252. Bowerstock, Crucible, p. 34. For Hubal, Manāt, al-ʿUzza and Allāt, see ibid.,
pp. 50–1.
253. Q.5:98, 100 (Yusuf Ali); Hawting, ‘Kaʿba’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 76 (Hawting’s
numbering of Qur’anic verses differs here from that of Yusuf Ali).
256. See Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba’, SEI, p. 196; see Hawting, ‘Kaʿba’, EQ, Vol. 3.p. 78.
257. Al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, pp. 57–8.
258. Ibid., p. 61.
259. Ibid., pp. 142–3.
260. Ibid., pp. 144–5.
261. Ibid., p. 145.
262. See Nasr, Study Quran, p. 58 n. 127 on Q. 2:127; Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba’, SEI,
p. 196; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Muslim Institutions, p. 83; Glassé, ‘Kaʿbah’
in Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia, p. 214; Abdel Haleem, ‘The Importance of
Hajj’, pp. 30–1; Porter, Art of the Hajj, p. 94; Cobbold, Pilgrimage, pp. 185,
212.
263. See Nasr, Study Quran, p. 58 n. 127 to Q.2:127.
265. Ibid., p. 120.
266. Ibid.
267. Ibid.
268. Ibn Kathīr, Stories, trans. Azami, p. 177.
269. See Bowersock, Crucible, pp. 45, 49–50, 113.
270. For Ibn Jubayr, see Pellat, ‘Ibn Djubayr’, EI2, Vol. 3, p. 755 and Netton
(ed.), Islamic and Middle Eastern Geographers and Travellers, Volume Two: The
Travels of Ibn Jubayr.
271. Ibn Jubayr, Riªla, p. 58.
272. For Ibn Ba††ū†a, see Miquel, ‘Ibn Ba††ū†a’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 735–6 and Netton
(ed.), Islamic and Middle Eastern Geographers and Travellers: Volume Three: The
Travels of Ibn Ba††ū†a. See also the DVDs Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of
Ibn Battuta (2011) and Roads to Mecca (2011).
273. Ibn Ba††ū†a, Riªla, p. 130; Gibb, Travels, Vol. 1, p. 188.
274. Burton, Secret Pilgrimage, p. 388 (my emphases).
275. Cobbold, Pilgrimage, p. 183.
276. Ibid, p. 184.
277. See al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, Vol. 2, p. 834; al-Azraqī, Ta’rīkh Makka,
Vol. 1, pp. 187–190; Doughty, Travels, Vol. 2, p. 502; Lings, Muhammad,
p. 300; Cresswell, Early Muslim Architecture, pp. 2, 97; Rubin, ‘Kaʿba’, p. 318;
Donner, Muhammad, p. 241; Hillenbrand, Islam, p. 37.
278. Al-Azraqī, Ta’rīkh Makka, Vol. 1, p. 189; al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, Vol.
2, p. 834.
279. See Wehr, Dictionary, p. 530, s.v. ‘Íūra’.
280. Al-Azraqī, Ta’rīkh Makka, Vol. 1, p. 187.
281. See Wehr, Dictionary, p. 892, s.v. ‘Timthāl’.
282. Al-Azraqī, Ta’rīkh Makka, Vol. 1, p. 187; see Wehr, Dictionary, p. 386, s.v.
‘Muzawwaq’.
283. Grabar, Formation, p. 80.
284. Al-Azraqī, Ta’rīkh Makka, Vol. 1, p. 187.
285. Al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, Vol. 2, p. 834.
286. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 4, p. 413.
287. See Sister Mary Agatha, ‘Our Mother of Perpetual Help’, available at <http://
www.cmri.org/05-our-mother-of-perpetual-help.shtml> (last accessed 28 April
2017); Londoño, Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
288. Tradigo, Icons and Saints, pp. 188–9; Londoño, Our Lady of Perpetual Help,
p. 7.
289. Available at <http://catholicstraightanswers.com/what-is-the-story-behind-
theimage-of-our-lady-of-perpetual-help> (last accessed 28 April 2017). For the
notes | 235
iconography and history of this ikon, see Tradigo, Icons and Saints, pp.188–9;
Ferrero, Story, esp. pp. 93–116; Connell, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pp. 1–3.
290. See Ferreira, ‘Mysterious Story’, available at <http://www.canisiusbooks.com/
articles/our-lady-perpetual-help_icon.htm> (last accessed 28 April 2017);
Redemptorists, New Novena Devotions, p. 4; Connell, Our Lady of Perpetual
Help, pp. 4, 6; Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, p. 175.
291. Collins, Glenstal Book of Icons, p. 51; Ferrero, Story, p. 68.
292. Ibid., pp. 55–59; Ferrero, Story, pp. 60–3; Connell, Our Lady of Perpetual
Help, pp. 4–7.
293. Fieldwork was undertaken by Ian Richard Netton at the shrine of Our Lady
of Perpetual Succour in the Church of San Alfonso in Rome on 4 July 2017.
294. Fieldwork at the Picture of Our Lady Who Unties Knots was undertaken by
Ian Richard Netton in the Church of St Peter Am Perlach, Augsburg on 1
July 2017. For details of this famous picture, see Roll, St. Peter am Perlach,
pp. 23–5; Meier, Mother Mary Undoing the Knots.
295. See Buhl, ‘Al-Lāt’, SEI, p. 287; Hawting, ‘Idols and Images’, EQ, Vol. 2,
pp. 481–4; Fahd, ‘Hubal’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 536–7.
296. See al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, Vol. 2, p. 834, Vol. 3, pp. 873–4; Hillenbrand,
Islam, p. 37; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 4, pp. 411, 417.
297. See Londoño, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pp. 8, 42–6; Redemptorists, New
Novena Devotions, p. 4; Connell, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pp. 16–17,
19–26.
298. Galatians 1:17: NJB, p. 1925; Trimingham, Christianity, p. 42.
299. NJB, p. 1925 note l.
300. Trimingham, Christianity, esp. pp. 308–11 and passim; see also Donner,
Muhammad, pp. 30–1, 241–2; Hillenbrand, Islam, pp. 27–8.
301. Hoyland, Arabia and the Arabs, p. 147.
302. Trimingham, Christianity, p. 258; see El-Cheikh, ‘Byzantines’, EQ, Vol. 1,
pp. 265–9; Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, pp. 436–45.
303. Nasr, Study Quran, p. 984; Abdel Haleem, Qur’an, 257; Khalidi, Qur’an,
p. 326.
304. Arberry, Koran Interpreted, Vol. 2, p. 105, Dawood, Koran, p. 192.
305. Pickthall, Qur’ân, p. 295.
306. Trans. Yusuf Ali , p. 1051.
308. See Trimingham, Christianity, pp. 288–9; Ullendorf et al., ‘Óabash, Óabasha’,
EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 2–8.
309. Doe, Southern Arabia, pp. 14–15.

310. Ibid., pp. 28–9; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 1, pp. 31–4; Trimingham, Christianity,
pp. 195, 289.
311. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 1, pp. 33–4; Bowersock, Crucible, pp. 16, 66,
103.
312. Ettinghausen and Graber, Art and Architecture of Islam 650–1250, p. 18. See
also Creswell, Short Account, pp. 1–3.
313. Beeston, ‘Abraha’, EI2, Vol. 1, pp. 102–103; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 1, p. 45;
Doe, Southern Arabia, pp. 29–30. See especially Q.105.
314. Abel, ‘Baªīrā’, EI2, Vol. 1, pp. 922–3; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 1, p. 182.
315. Vacca, ‘Warak·a’, SEI, p. 631; Ibn Hishām, Sīra, Vol. 1, p. 238.
316. Rubin, ‘Óanīfiyya and Kaʿba’, p. 291 n. 111.
317. See Procopius, Secret History, pp. 111–12; Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines,
pp. 338–43; Donner, Muhammad, p. 11; Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword,
pp. 185–8.
318. See Q.5:76; Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, pp. 133–41.
319. For example, Q.5:14; Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, passim.
320. See Q.4:157; Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, pp. 105–21; Lawson, Crucifixion,
passim.
321. See Q.5:85.
322. Exodus 25:16; see the whole of chapters 25–6, ibid., for the furnishings of the
Ark.
323. Exodus 25:17–21.
324. Exodus, NJB, p. 113 note i.
325. See Exodus 25:17–22, NJB, pp. 112–13.
326. Smith, Exodus, pp. 96–7 (trans. and commentary on Exodus 25:17–22); see
also Bussagli, Angels, pp. 204–8; Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, pp. 4, 105, 109,
112; Godwin, Angels, p. 20.
327. For the Cherubim, see Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, pp. 105–18; Godwin,
Angels, pp. 26–8. For the classical Order of Angels, see Rees, From Gabriel to
Lucifer, p. 39; see also Godwin, Angels, p. 23.
328. Smith, Exodus, pp. 96–7 (trans. and commentary on Exodus 25:17–22).
329. See Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, p. 131 citing Ezekiel 1:4–28.
330. The motif of the cherubim appears again in Exodus 37:6–9 in the description
of the actual building of the Ark by Bezalel.
331. See Foley, Marian Apparitions, pp. 212–14, 192.
332. Revelation 1:1.
notes | 237
333. Revelation 2–3.

334. Revelation 8:2–10:7.
335. Revelation 4:6–8; trans. NJB, p. 2034.
336. NJB, p. 2035 note h.
337. Cory, Book of Revelation, p. 32.
338. Revelation 12:1; trans. NJB, p. 2040.
339. Revelation 12:3–9 (my emphases).
340. Revelation 12:17.
341. See Luke 1:26–38; Q.19:17–21 (Sūra Maryam). In the latter the angel is
unnamed but the majority view is that it was Jibrīl (Gabriel) who is the Islamic
angel of the Annunciation to Mary: see Nasr, Study Quran, p. 768; Webb,
‘Gabriel’, EQ, Vol. 2, p. 278. See also Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, pp. 146–7,
138–40; Bussagli, Angels, pp. 560–614; Godwin, Angels, pp. 43–5.
342. Hawting, ‘Kaʿba’, EQ, Vol. 3. p. 78.
343. Ibid.
344. Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba’, SEI, pp. 196–7.
345. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-Buldān, Vol. 4, p. 463, s.v. ‘Kaʿba’; Hawting, ‘Kaʿba’, EQ,
Vol. 3, p. 78; Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba’, SEI, p. 196.
346. Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba’, SEI, p. 196.
347. Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba’, SEI, p. 197.
348. Porter (ed.), Hajj, p. 21; see Q.2:34.
349. Nasr, Study Quran, p. 58, note on v. 127; Wensinck, ‘Kaʿba’, pp. 196, 198;
Esposito, Oxford Dictionary of Islam, p. 314, s.v. ‘Tawaf’.
351. Q.52:4: trans. Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1283. As well as a heavenly Kaʿba, it is
suggested that this may be a reference to the earthly Kaʿba itself (see ibid., note
on v. 4). See also Corbin, Temple and Contemplation, p. 222.
353. For a further elaboration of traditions associated with the building of the
Kaʿba, see Corbin, Temple and Contemplation, p. 215.
354. Al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, Vol. 2, p. 834 (my emphases).
355. Hillenbrand, Islam, p. 37.
356. Al-Azraqī, Ta’rīkh Makka, Vol. 1, p. 189. See Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān,
p. 66.
357. See Guillaume, Life, p. 552 n. 3.
358. Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, p. 66.
359. See ibid., passim, but esp. pp. 20, 60–6.
360. See Grabar, Formation, p. 75.

361. See Burton, Secret Pilgrimage, pp. 388–90.
362. See Q.2:62.
363. See Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān, passim.
364. See Liddell and Scott, Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, p. 4, s.v. ‘angelos’.
365. For Hermes see Hornblower and Spawforth (eds), Oxford Classical Dictionary,
pp. 690–1, s.v. ‘Hermes’.
367. Waller, Walsingham: Chapter 6: ‘Walsingham’s Victorian Chaucer: Agnes
Strickland’s The Pilgrims of Walsingham’, pp. 133–50.
368. Ibid., p. 132.
369. Strickland, Pilgrims of Walsingham.
371. Ibid., p. 134.
372. Strickland, Pilgrims of Walsingham, p. 348; see Waller, Walsingham, p. 149
373. Strickland, Pilgrims of Walsingham, p. 348; Waller, Walsingham, p. 149. See
also Gregory, The King’s Curse, p. 175.
375. Gregory, Three Sisters, Three Queens, pp. 326, 373.
376. Ibid., p. 358.
377. Coleman, ‘Engaging Visions?’, p. 87.
378. Ibid., p. 86.
379. Ibid., p. 87.
380. Ibid.
381. See Netton, ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’ and Ibn Baz, Hajj.
382. See Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust, pp. 174–5.
383. Ibid., p. 175.
384. See Coleman, ‘Engaging Visions?’, p. 87.
386. Ibid.
Notes to Chapter 6
1. Joshua 10:1–12.
2. Joshua 10:12–13; trans. NJB, p. 296.
3. Porter, Illustrated Guide, p. 71; Coogan, ‘Joshua’, p. 121.
4. Coogan, ‘Joshua’, p. 121.
5. Ibid.
notes | 239
6. Ibid. For a more secular, and non-miraculous, interpretation, see Kraemer,

‘Solar Eclipse’, p. 22.
7. For example, see Nasr, Study Quran, pp. 29 (Q.2:58), 287 (Q.5:23), 824
(Q.21:85), 1111 (Q.38:48).
8. Q.18:60; Nasr, Study Quran, p. 749.
10. Ibid., pp. 286–7.
11. Ibid., p. 287.
12. Al-Kisā’ī, Tales, trans. Thackston, p. 260. For the original Arabic text, see
al-Kisā’ī, Qi‚a‚, p. 241.
13. Ibn Kathīr, Qa‚a‚, p. 287; Heller, ‘Yūshaʿ B. Nūn’, SEI, p. 646.
14. Joshua 6.
15. Ibid.
16. See Marsden, ‘Why Church Was Cautious’, p. 9.
17. See Pearlman, Fatima, p. 39.
18. For succinct summaries of the content of each apparition, see Borelli, Fatima,
pp. 42–95; De Oliveira, Fatima Commented, pp. 35–65; Fincham, ‘Our Lady
of Fatima’, pp. 20–2; Dictionnaire, pp. 316–46.
19. See Grant and Overy, World War 1, pp. 208, 240–5; Gilbert, First World War,
Vol. 2, pp. 446–8.
20. Grant and Overy, World War 1, pp. 210–11; Gilbert, First World War, Vol. 2,
pp. 459–61; Pearlman, Fatima, pp. 38–9.
21. Birmingham, Concise History, pp. 127, 147–51; Davies, Europe, p. 804;
Pearlman, Fatima, pp. 39–40.
22. Johnston, Fatima, p. 23; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 25–8;
Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, p. 5; Baldwin, Fatima, pp. 13–14;
Pearlman, Fatima, p. 40; Burke, ‘Into the Future’, p. 44; Birmingham, Concise
History, p. 147; Kucharcyk, ‘Portugal – Freemasonry – Fatima’, pp. 28–31.
23. Johnston, Fatima, p. 23; Pearlman, Fatima, p. 142.
24. Pearlman, Fatima, p. 65.
25. See Marsden, ‘The Children Chosen’, p. 9; Anon, ‘Fatima Seers’, p. 13;
Pearlman, Fatima, pp. 42–53; Baldwin, Fatima, pp. 14–16.
26. Maunder, ‘No More Secrets’, p. 7; Kondor (ed.), Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words
[hereafter referred to as Kondor/Lucia], p. 182.
27. Birmingham, Concise History, p. 152; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 23.
28. Davies, Europe, p. 917. See also Thiel, Fatima Shock!, p. 18.
29. Rubin, Mother of God, p. 418.

31. Fincham, ‘Our Lady of Fatima’, p. 24.
32. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. IX.
33. Borges, ‘The “Apparitions” at Fatima’, pp. 131–2.
34. Kondor/Lucia, p. 76. See also p. 170; Foley, Marian Apparitions, p. 231.
35. Borelli, Fatima, pp. 34–41; Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, pp. 6–13;
Baldwin, Fatima, pp. 18–20; Foley, Marian Apparitions, pp. 231–4; Pearlman,
Fatima, pp. 54–9; Johnston, Fatima, pp. 24–7; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 83.
36. Kondor/Lucia, p. 170; see also pp. 171–3, 141–2; Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 43.
37. Pearlman, Fatima, pp. 55–6, 59; Borelli, Fatima, p. 34; De Oliveira, Fatima
Commented, p. 15; Johnston, Fatima, p. 25.
38. See Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, p. 11; Johnston, Fatima, pp. 26–7.
39. For the Marian apparitions to the children, see back n. 18 and Kondor/Lucia,
pp. 174–5, 44–5, 143–7; Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, pp. 13–56;
Baldwin, Fatima, pp. 20–30; Foley, Marian Apparitions, pp. 234–45;
Pearlman, Fatima, p. 68 and passim; Johnston, Fatima, pp. 27–52; Thavis,
Vatican Prophecies, pp. 82–3; Bullivant and Arredondo, O My Jesus, pp. XIV–
XX; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 21–5; Antoine Marie, Letter (17
January 2018); Dictionnaire, pp. 316–46.
40. See Netton, ‘Islamic Pilgrimage’, pp. 119–21.
41. For a selection of the voluminous literature on the Miracle of the Sun, see,
inter alia, Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, pp. 52–60; Baldwin, Fatima,
pp. 27–30; Foley, Marian Apparitions, pp. 245–50; Pearlman, Fatima,
pp. 161–181; Borelli, Fatima, pp. 92–5; De Oliveira, Fatima Commented,
pp. 61–5; Johnston, Fatima, pp. 50–66; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations,
p. 25; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, pp. 83–4, Kramer (ed.), Devil’s Final
Battle, pp. 8–12; Nagasawa, Miracles, pp. 43–4; Piotrowski, ‘I will work’,
p. 47; Antoine Marie, Letter (17 January 2018), p. 2; Dictionnaire, pp. 320–2.
Relevant cinema/DVDs include Fatima: The Thirteenth Day: A Story of Hope;
Fatima: Heaven’s Peace Plan; The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima; Miracles (full
details in the Bibliography).
42. Kondor/Lucia, p. 182.
43. Borelli, Fatima, p. 95; De Oliveira, Fatima Commented, p. 65.
44. Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, pp. 57–8; Crean, A Catholic Replies,
p. 56; Broussard, 20 Answers: Miracles, pp. 47–8.
45. Foley, Marian Apparitions, pp. 247–8; Johnston, Fatima, pp. 60–2; Broussard,
20 Answers: Miracles, pp. 46–7; Crean, A Catholic Replies, pp. 55–6.
notes | 241
46. Crean, A Catholic Replies, p. 56; Broussard, 20 Answers: Miracles, p. 47. See
also Foley, Marian Apparitions, pp. 246–7, 249; Madigan, What Happened at
Fatima, p. 57.
47. Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, pp. 58–9.
48. See Crean, A Catholic Replies, p. 155; Baldwin, Fatima, p. 28.
49. Johnston, Fatima, pp. 54–5.
50. Ibid., pp. 62–3; Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, pp. 59–60; Foley,
Marian Apparitions, pp. 246–7.
51. Johnston, Fatima, pp. 55–9; Foley, Marian Apparitions, p. 247; Maunder, Our
Lady of the Nations, p. 25; Crean, A Catholic Replies, p. 56; Baldwin, Fatima,
p. 29; Broussard, 20 Answers: Miracles, p. 48.
52. See Pearlman, Fatima, p. 42; Borelli, Fatima, p. 94.
53. Johnston, Fatima, pp. 58–9; see also pp. 59–60.
54. Foley, ‘Spiritual Battle’, p. 13.
55. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 22; Birmingham, Concise History,
pp. 156–78 esp. p. 160.
56. Birmingham, Concise History, pp. 160–1, 174; Kramer, Devil’s Final Battle,
p. 23.
57. Walford, Heralds, p. 112; see also pp. 122, 182–6; Piotrowski, ‘Repent and
Believe’, pp. 8–10.
58. Interested readers may study the three secrets and their controversies in detail in
the following texts: (1) see firstly Lucia’s own words on the subject in Kondor/
Lucia, pp. 122–3, 199–233, together with Ratzinger, Message of Fatima; (2)
after those two texts, the text written by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, The Last
Secret of Fatima, is essential reading. See also Socci, The Fourth Secret of Fatima.
(3) The secrets are also surveryed, inter alia, in: Maunder, Our Lady of the
Nations, pp. 29–39; Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, pp. 84–7; Walford, Heralds,
pp. 112–21; O’Connor, I Am Sending You Prophets, pp. 238–48; Pearlman,
Fatima, pp. 95–6; Borelli, Fatima, pp. 54–82, 119–31, 144–51; Kramer,
Devil’s Final Battle, passim; Piotrowski, ‘First and Second Secrets of Fatima’,
pp. 11–14; Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 44. See also Scott, Miracle Cures, pp. 61–3
for a more sceptical interpretation.
59. Birmingham, Concise History, p. 160.
60. Ibid., p. 174.
61. Borges, ‘The “Apparitions” at Fatima’, pp. 130–1.
62. Thiel, Fatima Shock!, p. 233.
63. Dawkins, God Delusion, pp. 116–17; Crean, A Catholic Replies, pp. 57–8.
64. Borges, ‘ The “Apparitions” at Fatima’, p. 131.

65. Foley, Marian Apparitions, p. 249; Borelli, Fatima, p. 95; Madigan, What
Happened at Fatima, p. 57; Baldwin, Fatima, p. 29; Johnston, Fatima, p. 60;
Kramer, Devil’s Final Battle, p. 12.
66. Johnston, Fatima, p. 60.
67. Foley, Marian Apparitions, p. 258.
68. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 64–5; see also Scott, Miracle Cures,
p. 60.
69. Kondor/Lucia, pp. 84–8; Madigan, What Happened at Fatima, pp. 29–31.
70. Johnston, Fatima, pp. 26–7.
71. Kondor/Lucia, p. 222; Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 49; Ratzinger,
Message of Fatima, pp. 25–9.
72. See CCC, p. 22 # 67. But see also O’Connor, I Am Sending You Prophets,
pp. 245, 353. See, too, Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 49.
73. Tester, Review of Our Lady of the Nations . . . by Chris Maunder, p. 363.
74. See Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 45–9; Ratzinger, Message of Fatima,
p. 2; Dictionnaire, pp. 632–3; Norget et al. (eds), Anthropology of Catholicism,
p. 221, see also p. 224.
75. Kondor/Lucia, p. 223; see Dictionnaire, p. 39.
76. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, p. 194; Tester, Review of Our Lady of the
Nations, p. 364.
77. See above pp. 13–14. See also Dictionnaire, pp. 1195–224.
78. Tester, Review of Our Lady of the Nations, p. 364.
79. Foley, Marian Apparitions, p. 252.
80. Ibid., p. 260.
81. Norget et al. (eds), Anthropology of Catholicism, p. 79.
82. Kraemer, Devil’s Final Battle, pp. VII, 21.
83. Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 30, 35–6.
84. Ibid., p. 36; Fincham, ‘Our Lady of Fatima’, p. 20; Crean, A Catholic Replies,
p. 141; Walford, Heralds, pp. 112–13.
85. Kondor/Lucia, p. 177; Kramer, Devil’s Final Battle, p. 12. For the claimed
miraculous cure from bronchial pleurisy of Padre Pio after his intercession of
Our Lady of Fatima, see Campanella, ‘Padre Pio and the Fire of God’s Love’,
p. 18.
86. Foley, ‘Greatest Miracle’, p. 11.
87. Torres, ‘Zola, Lourdes and the New Religious Crowd’, p. 20; Norget et al.
(eds), Anthropology of Catholicism, p. 79.
notes | 243
88. Torres, ‘Zola, Lourdes and the New Religious Crowd’, p. 21; see Dictionnaire,
pp. 560–8.
89. Torres, ‘Zola, Lourdes and the New Religious Crowd’, p. 21.
90. Thavis, Vatican Prophecies, p. 70; de la Cruz, Mother Figured, p. 268 n. 10.
Compare the Filipino experience of a ‘dancing sun’: see ibid., pp. 2, 193, 195,
206.
92. Piotrowski, ‘Repent’, pp. 8–10.
93. De Mattei, Second Vatican Council, pp. 2–3; Dictionnaire, pp. 732–3.
94. De Mattei, Second Vatican Council, pp. 2–3. See also Kelly, Oxford Dictionary
of Popes, pp. 310, 319. For the original dogmatic documents, see Denzinger,
Enchiridion, pp. 573–5, 808–909.
95. See Q.41:53; Wehr, Dictionary, p. 36, s.v. ‘āya’; Fatani, ‘Aya’ in Leaman,
Qur’an, p. 85; Jeffery, ‘Āya’, EI2, Vol. 1, p. 773.
96. Badawi and Abdel Haleem, Arabic–English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage,
pp. 68–9, s.v. ‘āyatun’.
97. Neuwirth, ‘Structure and the Emergence of Community, p. 142.
98. Q.41:53.
102. Q.91:1–2; trans. Yusuf Ali, p. 1742. Compare Q.53:1 and Q.74:32–4.
103. See Hawting, ‘Oaths’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 561.
104. See Robinson, Discovering the Qur’an, p. 213; Neuwirth, ‘Cosmology’, EQ,
Vol. 1, p. 44; Varisco, ‘Moon’, EQ, Vol. 3, pp. 414–15; Kunitzsch, ‘Sun’,
EQ, Vol. 5, pp. 162–3; Kunitzsch, ‘Planets and Stars’, EQ, Vol. 4, p. 108;
Rodinson, ‘Al-K·amar II’, EI2, Vol. 4, p. 518; Schacht, ‘Hilāl I: In Religious
Law’, EI2, Vol. 3, pp. 379–81.
108. Beverley, ‘Muhammad’ in Leaman (ed.), Qur’an, p. 423.
109. Q.54:1.
110. Yusuf Ali, p. 1454; see Badawi and Abdel Haleem, Arabic–English Dictionary of
Qur’anic Usage, pp. 491 (s.v. ‘inshaqqa’), 698 (s.v. ‘furija’), 716 (s.v. ‘infa†ara’).
111. Q.54:1.
113. Yusuf Ali, p. 1454; Khan and al-Hilali, Interpretation, p. 670.

114. Pickthall, Qur’ân, p. 404.
115. Abdel Haleem, Qur’an, p. 259; Qarā’ī, Qur’ān, p. 748; Arberry, Koran
Interpreted, Vol. 2, p. 247; Khalidi, Qur’an, p. 437.
116. Asad, Message of the Qur’ān, p. 931.
117. Maulana Muhammad Ali, English Translation of the Holy Quran, p. 663.
118. Droge, Qur’ān, p. 363.
119. Dawood, Koran, p. 112.
120. Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1300.
121. Badawi and Abdel Haleem, Arabic–English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage,
p. 491.
122. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, pp.1787–9; see Nagasawa, Miracles, p. 25.
123. See Irwin, ‘al-Suyū†ī’, EAL, Vol. 2, p. 746.
124. (My trans.) Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, p. 528.
126. Jalālayn, Tafsīr, p. 528.
127. Al-Bukhārī, Translation of the Meanings of Sahîh, [dual Arabic–English edn],
Vol. 4, pp. 501–2: Kitāb al-Manāqib, nos 3636, 3637, 3638.
128. Al-Ghazālī, Iªyā’, Vol. 2, p. 383 (my trans.). For the full listing see pp. 383–7.
129. Ibid., p. 385.
130. Ibid., p. 383; see also Peters, God’s Created Speech, pp. 97–9.
131. See Gril, ‘Miracles’, EQ, Vol. 3, p. 398.
132. See Q.3:144, Q.7:157, Q.62:2.
133. Q.69:41–2.
134. Zebiri, ‘Argumentation’, p. 275.
135. Glassé, Concise Encyclopaedia, pp. 271, 274; see also Geivett and Habermas, In
Defence of Miracles, p. 204.
136. Asad, Message of the Qur’ān, p. 931 n. 1; Abdel Haleem, Qur’an, p. 529 note
c; Maulana Muhammad Ali, Quran, p. 663 note a (1); Droge, Qur’ān, p. 363
n. 2.
137. Asad, Message of the Qur’ān, p. 931 n. 1; Maulana Muhammad Ali, Quran,
p. 663 suggests a similar explanation.
138. NJB, p. 1747 note f.
139. Ibid., p. 1629 note j.
140. Q.41:53.
141. Q.2:39.
142. Q.54:2.
notes | 245
143. John 10:25–6; trans. NJB, p. 1768.

144. Matthew 12:38–40; see NJB, p.1629 note j; Luke 11:29–30; John 6:30–33.
145. See Knapp, Dawn of Christianity, p. 196 and passim.
146. Nasr, Study Quran, pp. 1299, 1300 n.1.
147. Muhammad al-Ghazali, Journey through the Qur’an, p. 415.
148. Yusuf Ali, p. 1454 n. 5128.
149. Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1299.
150. Abdul-Raof, Qur’an Outlined, p. 109.
151. Matthew 24:29; trans. NJB, p. 1650.
152. Yahya, Allah’s Miracles in the Qur’an, p. 326.
153. Ibid., pp. 325–6.
154. Ibid. For the abjad system, according to which each letter in the Arabic alpha-
bet is endowed with a numerical value, see Weil and Colin, ‘Abdjad’, EI2, Vol.
1, pp. 97–8.
155. Yahya, Allah’s Miracles in the Qur’an, p. 326.
156. Bigliardi, ‘Interpretation of Miracles’, p. 282.
157. See Q.33:40.
158. See Q.71 passim; Q.7:73–9, 85–93.
159. See Rodinson, ‘Al-K·amar II’, EI2, Vol. 4, p. 518.
160. Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1300 n. 1.
161. Asad, Message of the Qur’ān, p. 931 n.1; Yusuf Ali, p. 1454 n. 5128; Robinson,
Discovering the Qur’an, p. 29.
162. See Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, pp. 139–41, 182; O’Regan, ‘Our Lady’s
Wishes’, p. 26; [Leaflet] Padre Pio (trans. of a copy of a personal letter written
by Padre Pio addressed to the Commission of Heroldsbach appointed by the
Vatican. The revelations described in the letter span the dates 31 December
1949 – 7 February 1950); Gallagher, Padre Pio, p. 189.
163. See Q.54 passim.
164. Q.54:54–5.
165. Compare Luke 15:7.
166. See Q.41:53.
167. See Q.91:1–6; see also Yusuf Ali, p.1742 nn. 6148, 6149, 6150.
168. See Torres, ‘Zola, Lourdes and the New Religious Crowd’, pp. 6, 20, 23, 37.
169. See the Qur’ān and Gospels passim.
170. See above p. 163.
171. See Q.54:2, 6–8.
172. See Maunder, Our Lady of the Nations, passim.
Notes to the Envoi
1. See Lonergan, Method in Theology, passim.

2. Ibid., p. 127.
3. For the construction of this narratological sieve, see pp. viii–ix, 25–6, 187 n. 8.
4. See Whitehouse and Laidlaw (eds), Ritual and Memory, p. 137; Gerrig,
‘Memory’, p. 299.
5. See McDonough, ‘Hope’, EQ, Vol. 2, pp. 448–9 for an Islamic appreciation.
For a Christian perspective see Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi: On Christian Hope,
passim.
6. Munro-Hay, Quest for the Ark of the Covenant.
7. See <http://www.azquotes.com>authors>G>George_Bernard_Shaw> (last ac
cessed 4 September 2017)
8. Ibid.
9. See <https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/george_bernard_shaw> (last acc
essed 4 September 2017).
10. For an excellent Introduction to St Augustine, see Chadwick (trans), Saint
Augustine: Confessions, pp. IX–XXIX.
11. Augustine, On the Gospel of John, Homily 24:2 in Augustine, Homilies on the
Gospel According to St. John, Vol. 1, pp. 373–4. For the original Latin text, see
Augustine, ‘In Joannis Evangelium S. Augustini’, Tractatus 24, Caput 2 in
Migne (ed.), Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, Vol. 35, col. 1593.
12. Augustine, On the Gospel of John, Homily 24:2, p. 374.
13. Q.41:53.
bi bli og ra phy | 247
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Index
Aaron, 50, 51 90–1, 96, 121, 123, 125, 126, 128,

Abbott, H. Porter, 25–6 130, 131, 134, 139,140, 143, 144,
ʿAbd al-Jabbār, 21 145, 146, 147, 150, 151, 152, 153,
ʿAbd al-Mu††alib, 76 156, 157, 159, 162–3, 169, 185
Abdel Haleem, Muhammad, 173 cherubim, 150
Abdul Raof, Hussein, 178 Dionysian ninefold order of angels, 150
Abraha, 149 seraphim, 150
Abraham see Ibrāhīm see also Gabriel; Fatima
Abruzzo, 37 Anglo-Saxons, 134
Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī, 79 Annunciation, 131, 150
Abū ˝alªa, 43 Sūra Maryam, 150
Abyssinia see Ethiopia see also Mary, Virgin
Acutis, Carlo, 36 Anthony, St, 35, 40
Adad, god, 124 St Anthony’s bread, 35
Adam, 17, 18, 90, 91, 126, 127, 143, 144, apocalypse of St John, 132, 149, 150
151 apparitions see visions and apparitions
Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 101 Aquerò see Mary, Virgin
agency, Divine, ix, 4, 49, 80, 84, 85, 115, Aquinas, St Thomas, 15
121, 124–5, 126, 128, 129, 143, 153, Arabia, 148
158, 159, 160, 175, 178, 179, 181, ʿArafāt, 164
182, 184, 186 wuqūf, 164
Ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book), 153 Aram, King of, 73
Aijalon, Vale of, 158 Arco, Anna, 69
ʿajā’ib, 4 Arditti, Michael, 64–5, 69–70, 82, 83, 84,
ʿalaq (blood clot), 86–7, 89, 90, 91 85
Alatri, Miracle of, 49 Jubilate, 64, 69–70, 84, 85
Alexander Cycle, 129 ark, boat, fulk, safīna, 121, 122, 125, 129,
Water of Life, 129 130, 139, 153, 154, 155, 156
Alexander 111, Pope, 13 Ark of the Covenant, 130, 131, 132, 149,
Alf Layla wa Layla, 26, 47 150, 151, 155, 156, 160, 185
Ali, Yusuf, 29, 30, 53, 172, 173, 177 al-tābūt, 130
Aljustrel, 162 Armstrong, Neil, 22–3; see also moon
Allāh, 45, 46, 48, 106, 107, 111, 124 landing
Allegri, Renzo, 36, 93 Ashʿariyya, 5, 21
Alverno, Mt, 96–7 Ashurbanipal, King, 120
Ambrose, St, 131 Assumption, Dogma of, 170; see also Mary,
Anā ’l-Óaqq see al-Óallāj Virgin
anámnēsis, 16, 24, 33, 47 Assyria, Royal Library of, 120
Ancona, 139 Atlantis, 128, 156, 185
angels, 34, 38, 55–6, 75–6, 81, 83, 84, atonement, 16
282
i ndex | 283
ʿA††ār, Farīd al-Dīn, 110, 111, 112, 113 blood clot see ʿalaq
Ilāhī-Nāmā, 110 blood libel, 95
Tadhkirat al-Awliyā’, 110, 111 boat see ark
Augsburg, 147 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 26
Augustine, Abbey of, 7 Decameron, 26, 47
Augustine of Hippo, St, 1–2, 9, 17, 131, Bolsena (Santa Cristina), 86, 87, 91–4, 97,
186 98, 101, 114, 115
authority, Church, viii, 9–10, 13, 63, 65, Chiesa di Santa Cristina, 92, 93
66, 68, 69, 70, 105, 171 Lago di Bolsena, 92
authority, Islamic, viii, 114, 152 Boly, 60
awliyā’, 5 Bordeaux, apparitions at , 38, 40
āya, āyāt, 18; see also signs, semiotics Borges, Fr Prof. Anselmo, 162, 167
Ayoub, Mahmoud, 118, 125, 156 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 13
Ayyūb see Job Boss, Sarah Jane, 64
al-Azraqī, 145, 152 Bosworth Field, Battle of, 133
Bouhouhorts, Croisine, 68
Babylonia, Babylonian, 122, 149 Boyd, Charlotte, 137
Bachelard, Gaston, 127 BRAIS see British Association for Islamic
Badawi, Elsaid M., 173 Studies
Baghdad, 106, 108, 113 Brethren of Purity see Ikhwān al-Íafā’
Baªīrā, 149 Britheva, 98
baptism, 54, 56, 73, 89 British Association for Islamic Studies,
Barlow, Frank, 98 vii
Barthes, Roland, 25, 46 British Museum, 120
Basinger, David, 1 Brixen, 103
Ba‚ra, 26, 105 Bronze Age, 128
al-Bay∂āwī, 42–3 Brown, Colin, 15
al-Bayt see Kaʿba Brown, Peter, 7, 8
Becket, St Thomas à, 7, 97–8, 99, 154; see Bucaille, M., 90
also Canterbury; Fitz Urse; Hugh of Budge, E. A. Wallis, 120
Horsea Buenos Aires, 38–40
belief, viii, 2, 3–4, 6, 8, 9, 14–15, 16, 22–3, al-Bukhārī, 20, 74, 75, 142, 174–5
39–40, 47, 62, 64, 65, 69, 70, 81, 85, Íaªīª, 75
93, 100, 102, 112–13, 115, 141, 142, Bultmann, Rudolf, x, 11–12
152, 154, 156, 157, 161, 164, 165, Burton, Richard, 145
167, 169, 179, 182, 183, 186 al-Bū‚īrī, 24
Benedict, monk of Canterbury, 97 Burda, 24
Benedict XIV, Pope, 12, 13, 192 n99 Butler, Alban, 104
Benedict XV, Pope, 162 Lives, 104
Benedict XVI see Ratzinger Bynum, Caroline Walker, 89, 94, 95, 99,
Benedict of Nursia, St, 34 100
Bening, Simon, 102 Byzantium, 148
Bergoglio, Jorje see Francis, Pope Sūrat al-Rūm, 148
Bernadette see Soubirous, Bernadette
Bethesda, Pool of, 55–6 Campania, 34
Bilgames, 123; see also Gilgamesh Cana, wedding feast at, 87–8, 97
Birmingham, David, 167 Canaan, 158
Black Death, 136; see also plague canonisation, 12–13, 101, 161
Black Stone (al-ªajar al-aswad) see Kaʿba Canterbury, 7, 97, 132, 135, 154
blood, 86–119 Carlos 1, King, 161
liquefaction, 94, 98–9, 100, 103, 105 Carolingian Age, 9
writing in blood, 105, 106, 109, 111, catalyst, narratological, ix
112, 113, 114, 118 Catherine of Sienna, St, 37–8
caution, viii, 4, 9, 12–13, 14, 62, 64, 102, Degreteau, John, 38

104, 112, 115, 135, 141, 151, 160, Delort, Fr, 38
167, 168, 177, 183 deluge see flood
Chalcedon, Council of, 149 delusion, 41, 103
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 26, 154 Dennett, Daniel C., 3, 13
Canterbury Tales, 26, 154 Deucalion, 127
Chelsea, 136 dhikr, 24, 106
China, 20 Dhū ’l-Óijja (Month of Pilgrimage), 164,
Chodkiewicz, Michel, 2 172
Christian–Jewish disputes, 49 Dionysius the Carthusian, 88–9
Christianity in Arabia, 147–9 Dionysus, god of Wine, 88
Chrysippus of Jerusalem, 131 disbelief, doubt, scepticism, viii, 2–3, 9, 10,
Chrysostom, St John, 17–18, 114, 118 11, 12, 15, 20, 39–40, 42, 47, 49, 51,
Homily of Praise, 114, 118 52, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 81, 85, 91,
clay, healing, 116 92, 93, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104,
Clifford, Richard J., 29, 30 112–13, 115, 133, 135, 141, 142, 153,
Cline, Eric, 127 154, 156, 157, 160, 161, 164, 165,
Cobbold, Lady Evelyn, 145 166, 167–8, 170, 171, 174, 176, 177,
Coelho, Domingo, 165 179, 182–3, 186
Coimbra University, 165 Dissolution of the monasteries, 133, 135,
Coleman, Simon, 155 136, 142
Colet, John, 142, 155, 156 Dominic, St, 34
commandments, ten, 130, 149 Donation of Constantine, 103
communism, 41 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 11
Copts, 148 The Brothers Karamazov, 11
Corbin, Henri, 118 doubt see disbelief, doubt, scepticism
Co-Redemptrix, Mary, 130, 227n120; see Douglas, Mary, 90
also Mary, Virgin dreams, 48, 76, 80, 100, 134
Corpus Christi, Feast of, 94 Dubowska, Sister Julia, 40–1
cosmology, 117, 158–83 Duffy, Eamon, 11, 61, 102
Counter-Reformation, 61
Crane, Peter, 15–16 Ea, god, 122, 124, 125
Crean, Thomas, 3 East Anglia, 133
Cromwell, Thomas, 136 eclipse, 158, 176
Cruz, Joan Carroll, 93 ecstatic utterances see sha†aªāt
cures and healing, miraculous, 7, 8, 10, 12, Edward VI, King, 154
14, 40, 52, 53, 54, 55–6, 57, 60–1, 63, Egypt, 17, 28, 31, 33, 51, 60, 72
64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71–2, 73, 78, war with Israel (1967), 60
79, 80, 82, 84, 85, 88, 94, 98, 100, Eliade, Mircea, 91
112, 116, 134–5, 136, 139, 140–1, Elim, 52
142, 147, 175, 185 Elisha, 31, 73
Cuthbert, St, 97 Elizabethan Age, 136
embryology, 90
da Silva, Correia, Bishop of Leiria, 169 Enlightenment, 11
Damascus, 148 Ephrem, St, 131
David, prophet, 131 Erasmus, Desiderius, 133, 140, 141, 142,
David of Augsburg, 88–9 155, 156
Davies, Norman, 58, 161 Eric, King, 13
Dawkins, Richard, 2, 3, 167 Ernst, Carl, 109
de Almeida, Avelino, 165–6 eschatology, comparative, 180–1
de Metz-Noblat, Joseph, Bishop of Langres, Ethiopia, 148
101 Eucharist, 16, 27, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36,
Decalogue see commandments, ten 46, 47, 48, 89, 102, 111, 115
i ndex | 285
Eucharistic miracles, 34, 36–41, 42, 45, 47, al-Ghazālī, Abū Óāmid, 21–2, 49, 175–6
48, 49, 87, 95, 101, 115, 185 Iªyā’, 175
Eugenius 111, Pope, 13 al-Ghazali, Muhammad, 177
Euphrates, River, 128 Gibeon, 158, 159, 160
Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Feast of, 96 Gilgamesh, 120–30, 156
Exultet, 17 Epic of Gilgamesh, 120–2
Ezekiel, 150 Gillett, H. M., 133, 137
Godiva of Canterbury, 98
Fatima, apparitions at, 59, 100–1, 160–71, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 56
174, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182 Faust, 56
Angel of Peace, 162–3 Gómez, Ricardo Castañón, 39
Angel of Portugal, 163 Goscelin of St Bertin, 7
consecration of Russia, 164, 166 Goulder, Mgr Laurance, 138
Cova da Iria, 160, 164, 167, 169 Grabar, Oleg, 145
Lucia, Francisco, Jacinta, 161–70, 181, grace, 73, 139, 140
182 Gramlich, Richard, 19
secrets of Fatima, 164, 166, 169, 241n58 Green, Nile, 106
see also Miracle of the Sun Gregory I, Pope St, 102, 103
Ferretti, Ludovico, 38 St Gregory’s Mass, 102
First World War, 100–1, 161, 164 Gregory VII, Pope, 13
Battles of Arras, Ypres and Passchendaele, Gregory, Philippa, 153
101, 161 Three Sisters, Three Queens, 155
Fitz Urse, Reginald, 97; see also Becket; Grignion de Montfort, Louis-Marie, 67
Hugh of Horsea Gril, Denis, 4, 19, 20
Flight into Egypt, 8 Guild of Our Lady of Ransom, 137
flood, deluge, storm, 120–9, 130, 131, 143, Guillaume, Alfred, 43, 44
144, 153, 154, 156, 157, 180
Foley, Donal Anthony, 166, 169 Hades, 18
‘folk’ Islam, 23–34 Óadīth, 20, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 78–80, 144,
food, 27–49 152, 159, 172, 211n263
Foucault, Michel, 127 Hagar see Hājar
frame stories, 26, 46–7, 85, 155 Haggada, 159
Francis, Pope/Bergoglio, Jorge, 14, 39, 99, Hājar, 24, 73, 75, 76, 77, 81, 82, 83, 85,
137 143, 155, 157, 170
Francis of Assisi, St, 96–7, 105, 107; see also Óajj see pilgrimage
stigmata al-Óallāj, 105, 107–14, 119
fraud and deception, 5–6, 41, 44, 62, 102, Anā ’l-Óaqq, 108, 109–14
103, 181, 186 Kitāb al-˝awāsīn, 108
Freeman, Charles, 92 Halm, Heinz, 118
fulk see ark al-Halu, Layla, 79–80
Óanafiyya, 26
Gabriel, Archangel (Jibrīl), 73, 75, 76, 82, al-Óaqq,109, 110, 112
85, 89, 125, 126, 128, 131, 134, 139, Harrington, Daniel J., 32
143, 144, 146, 150, 153, 163; see also Hassan, Nasra, 23
angels; Fatima Hastings, Battle of, 134
Galilee, Sea of, 55 Hawting, Gerald, 143
Garabandal, apparitions at, 59 Hazrat Bibi Fatima, Miracle of, 23–4
Gardet, L., 5 healing see cures and healing, miraculous
Garnier, Mother Marie-Adèle, 101 Hebrew etymology, 29–30
Garrett, Prof. Dr Almeida, 165 Hell, 167, 181, 182
Gave, River, 60 Vision of Hell, 163, 182
Gell, Alfred, 116 see also Fatima, apparitions at
George, Andrew, 120 hematidrosis, 107
Hemmings. F. W. J., 65 Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, 146, 153

Henry II, King, 98 Virgin of the Passion, 146
Henry VII, King, 133, 136 Virgin of the Thumb, 146
Henry VIII, King, 133, 142, 154, 155 illness, misfortune, 6
Hermes, 153 illusion, 5–6
Herod, King, 31 Immaculate Conception of Mary, Dogma
hesychasm, 107 of , 61, 62, 64, 66, 67, 68, 171; see also
hijra, 174, 176 Mary, Virgin
Hillenbrand, Carole, x, 152 immortality, eternal life, search for, 121,
Himyarites, King of, 148 122, 123, 129
Óirā’, Mt, 174 Index of Forbidden Books, 66
Holy Sepulchre, Church of, 131 India, 108
Holy Spirit, 54, 55, 73 indulgences, 6, 103
Hong-sun, Julia Youn, 102 Ingielewicz, Fr Jacek, 40
hope, 185–6 Innocent 111, Pope, 13
hospitality, 34, 35 inshiqāq al-qamar see Miracle of the Splitting
Host, profanation of, 91, 94, 95, 99–100, of the Moon
101 intention, 78–9, 80, 82
Hoyland, Robert, 148 intertextuality, ix, 31, 32, 33, 44, 46, 48, 73,
Hubal, 147 76, 80, 85, 87, 89, 107, 112–13, 115,
al-Óudaybiyya, 74 117, 118, 121, 125, 132, 140, 141,
Hugh of Horsea, 97; see also Becket; Fitz 149, 150, 156, 157, 175, 178, 179,
Urse 182, 184, 185
Hujwīr, Afghanistan, 106 intervention, Divine, 6, 16, 121, 124, 129,
al-Hujwīrī, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112 156, 158, 159
Kashf al-Maªjūb, 106, 107 Iran, 108, 111, 148
Hume, David, 2–3, 8, 12, 15 Iraq, 120, 128
al-Óusayn, 116–17, 118, 119, 156 Iron Age, 134
ʿĪsā see Jesus
Iblīs, 108 Isaacson, Rivka, 69
Ibn al-ʿArabī, 2 Isªāq, 72
Ibn Ba††ū†a, 5, 20, 78, 144–5 Ishmael see Ismāʿīl
Riªla, 78 Ismāʿīl, 73, 75, 76, 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85,
Ibn Óanbal, 159 127, 142, 143, 144, 155, 157, 170
Ibn Isªāq, 44, 142 Israel, 60
Sīra, 44 war with Egypt (1967), 60
Ibn Jubayr, 77–8, 144–5, 211n263 Israel, children of, people of, 17, 27, 28,
Ibn Kathīr, 72, 73, 75, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 30, 31, 33, 34, 48, 51, 130, 131, 158,
84, 143, 144, 151, 159, 160, 173, 174, 159, 160
206n219 Italy, 139, 155
Ibn al-Nadīm, 109
Ibn ˝alªa, ʿUthmān, 142 Jackson, Deirdre, 9, 55, 71, 97
Ibrāhīm, 34, 72, 75, 76, 80, 81, 83, 127, Jaki, Fr Stanley, 167
142, 143, 144, 151, 152, 155 Jalālayn, 174
Ice Age, 127 James 1, King, 10
idols in the Kaʿba, 142–3, 147, 151, 152; see James, St, Apostle, 34
also Hubal; Manāt Janab Sayyida Tahira see Hazrat Bibi Fatima
Ikhwān al-Íafā’, 25 Januarius, St (San Gennaro), 98, 99, 100,
Rasā’il, 25 103, 104, 105
ikons, 145–7, 151, 152 Jericho, 159, 160
Glykophilousa, 146 Jerusalem, 131, 132, 133, 135, 160
Hodegetria, 146 Jesus (ʿĪsā), 3, 8, 9, 31–4, 38, 41–6, 55, 61,
instruments of the Passion, 146–7 73, 74, 86, 87, 107, 111, 145–7, 149,
i ndex | 287
150, 151, 152, 153, 164, 168, 169, al-Khajūj, 144

177, 181, 185 Khalifa, Nouha, 26
agony in Garden of Gethsemani, 107 Khansā (Hang-Chow), 5
baptism, 54 king’s touch, 10
blind man at Siloam, 55 al-Kisā’ī, 126, 127, 143, 155, 159, 160
Calvary, 16, 32, 86, 111, 114, 115 Knock, apparitions at, 59
Cana, wedding feast at, 55 Knysh, Alexander, 106
divinity and humanity, 16 Kol, King, 13
Emmaus, 33, 34, 35 Kouyunjik, 120
feeding of 5,000/4,000, 31–4, 42, 43, 47,
80, 121 Lahore, 45, 46
incarnation, 15, 16, 17, 18, 45 Lanciano (Anxanum), 37, 38, 40, 87, 91
infirm man at Bethesda, 55–6 Lane, Edward William, 5
Jesus Prayer, 107 Larmer, Robert A., 1
Last Supper, 32–3, 34, 35, 36 Last Day, Day of Judgement, 172, 173, 174,
new Moses, 54, 121 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182
passion, crucifixion and death, 16, 17, Latapie, Catherine, 61
18, 32, 33,88–9, 94, 111, 113, 117, Laurentin, René, 60, 68, 82, 84
146–7, 149 Lawrence, Bertrand Sévère, Bishop of
resurrection, 3, 15, 17, 18, 32, 33, 35 Tarbres, 63, 68
Jibrīl see Gabriel Lawrence, Bruce, 18
al-Jīlānī, ʿAbd al-Qādir, 22 Layard, Sir Austen Henry, 120
jinn, 19, 90–1 Le Goff, Jacques, 7, 34
Job, 71–2, 73, 77 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 161
Johansen, T. K., 128 Leo XIII, Pope, 138
John, Jeffrey, 121 Lisbon, 165
John XV, Pope, 13 Linoli, Edoardo, 37
John Paul 11, Pope, 96, 169 Logos doctrine, 45, 46
John the Baptist, 6, 31, 54, 56, 106, 107 Lonergan, Bernard, viii, 2–3, 184
Johns, Anthony H., 53, 72 Method in Theology, viii, 184
Jordan, River, 73, 159 Longinus, 37, 87, 88, 89, 94, 101
Joseph, St, 8, 164 Loreto, Holy House at, 139, 155
Joseph (Yūsuf ), 72, 100 Loreto, Sisters of, 38
Joshua (Yūshaʿ b. Nūn), 158, 159, 160 Lot, 180
fatā, 159 Lourdes, 9, 12, 56–70, 76, 77, 78, 82, 84,
Judaism, Jews, 23–4, 32, 33, 66, 90, 95, 85, 138, 140, 141, 160, 169, 170,
130, 148; see also Israel, children of, 177; see also Peyramale, Dean Marie
people of Dominique; Pius X Basilica
al-Junayd, 106, 108, 110 Lourdes Medical Bureau, 63
Juynboll, G. H. A., 43, 44 Lucian of Samosta, 9
Lucie-Smith, Alexander, 69
Kaʿba, 75, 78, 79, 81, 126–7, 130, 139, Luke, St as painter, 146
142–53, 155, 156, 160 Luzzatto, Sergio, 12
al-Bayt, 143
al-Bayt al-Maʿmūr,151 McCaffrey, James, 16
Black Stone, 126, 144, 145 McLaughlin, Brian P., 4
ikons in, 145–7, 151, 152, 156 Macquarrie, John, 3
Kadesh, 50, 51 Madonnas and Miracles Exhibition, vii
karāmāt, 4, 5, 21, 22; see also muʿjizāt Magdeburg, 6
Karbalā’, Battle of, 116, 125, 156 magic, sorcery, 9, 10, 11, 22, 49, 116, 167,
karibu, 149–50 174, 176, 177
Katherine of Aragon, Queen, 154, 155 Main, John, 107
Khadīja, 149 Makkī, ʿAmr b. ʿUthmān, 108
Mālik b. Anas, 43, 44, 74 Milan, 131

Malta, 128 Mildred, St, 7
Mamre, oak of, 34 Minā, 173, 181, 182
Manāt, 147 Miracle of the Splitting of the Moon, 19,
manna, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 46, 47, 20, 22, 171–81, 182, 183
48, 50, 52, 53, 121 Miracle of the Sun, 160–70, 174, 178, 179,
Manuel II, King, 161 180, 181, 182, 183
Marah, 50, 51, 52 Miracles, attitudes to, ix
Marcion of Sinope, 3 definitions, 1–6
Marie, Antoine, 39 significance, ix, 184
Marsden, Fr Francis, 14, 36, 92 see also Hazrat Bibi Fatima; karāmāt;
Marto, Manuel Pedro (Ti-Marto), 165 muʿjizāt
martyrdom, Shīʿite, 118 miʿrāj, 19, 20
al-Marwa, 24, 76, 81, 83, 85; see also al-Íafā Mojaddedi, Jawid, 109
Mary I, Queen, 154–5 Molière, 25
Mary, Virgin, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 42, 56–70, Monophysitism, 148
73, 82, 84–5, 88, 95, 100–1, 117, 130, Montmartre, Paris, 101
131, 132–42, 145–7, 149, 150, 151, moon, 181, 182, 183
152, 155, 156, 160–71, 182, 185 in Qur’ān, 171, 173, 178, 179, 182
Aquerò, 56, 60, 82, 85 landing, 22–3, 178
Star of the Sea, 141 standing of, 158, 159, 160
see also Lourdes; New Ark of the Covenant see also Armstrong, Neil; Miracle of the
Maryam see Mary, Virgin Splitting of the Moon
Mason, Herbert, 108 Morocco, 79
Mass, 6, 16, 17, 33, 37, 40, 70, 86, 91, 92, Moses, 27, 28, 31, 38, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,
96, 101, 102, 104, 114, 115; see also 56, 77, 121, 130, 159; see also rock and
Gregory I, Pope Moses; staff, branch and Moses
Massah, 30, 50, 51 Mosul, 120
Master of Mary of Burgundy, 7 motifs, metamotifs, viii, 184 and passim
Book of Hours, 7 definition, 26
al-Masʿūdī, 126 Mucci, Fr Prof. Giandomenico, 59, 103
Matthew of Canterbury, 98 Muhammad, The Prophet, 4, 19, 20, 21, 24,
Mattioni, Michele, 93 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 73–4, 75, 77, 80,
Maunder, Chris, 59, 67, 100, 161, 162, 168 89, 116, 142, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149,
Mayblin, Maya, x 151, 152, 155, 172, 173–4, 175, 176,
Mecca, 20, 76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 140, 141, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185
142, 144, 145, 147, 149, 151, 173, Farewell sermon, 155
174, 175, 181, 182 not a miracle worker, 44, 45, 73, 176,
Mechtild of Magdeburg, 101 178
Medina, 44, 176 opening of chest, 20
Mediterranean Sea, 128 see also miʿrāj
Medjugorje, apparitions at, 12, 13, 14, 59, Mujāhid, 79
62, 168, 169–70, 192n110 muʿjizāt, 4, 5, 22, 174, 175; see also
Medjugorje seers (Mirjana et al.), 170 karāmāt
memory and memorialisation, viii, 9, 16, Müller, Cardinal Gerhard, 192n110
17, 62, 64, 67, 70, 102, 104, 113, 116, multifacetedness, viii, 26, 84, 114, 118, 155,
128–9, 141, 142, 152, 153, 154, 155, 181, 184, 186
156, 167, 169–70, 179, 180, 182, multivalency, 126, 186
185–6 Muʿtazila, 5, 20, 21, 26
Meribah, 30, 50, 51 mystery, sense of, 4, 6
Merseburg, See of, 6 myth, 64, 102, 127 128, 135, 136, 141,
metánoia, 107, 181; see also repentance 151, 167, 185
Michael, Archangel, 146, 150, 163 Virgin’s milk, 141
i ndex | 289
Naaman, General, 73 Ovid, 127

Nabataeans, 148 Metamorphoses, 127
Najrān, 148 Oxford Movement, 137
Naples, 98, 99, 103, 104
narratology, viii–ix, 25–6, 46–9, 62, 82–5, Padova, 35
114–19, 122, 153–7, 181–3 Padre Pio see Pio of Pietrelcina, St
definitions, 25–6 Pagani, Vincenzo, 139
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 177 Palestine, 29, 32
Nasser, President, 60 Paradise, 33, 48, 81, 119, 144, 145
Nazareth, Holy House at, 134, 135, 139, Paris, 79
155 parousía, 181
Neoplatonism, 25 Parrinder, Geoffrey, 42, 43, 45, 152
Nevers, Convent of Saint-Gildard at, 67, 69 Paschal Vigil, 17
New Ark of the Covenant, 130, 131, 132, Passover, 16, 33, 34, 35
149, 150, 151, 155, 156; see also Mary, Patella, Michael F., 107
Virgin Patten, Fr Alfred Hope, 137, 142
New Testament, x and passim Paul 11, Pope, 156
Nicholas IV, Pope, 93 Paul, St, 147–8
Nicholas II, Tsar, 161 Epistle to the Galatians, 148
Nicholas of Cusa, Cardinal, 103, 105 Pelagius 11 Pope, 102
Nicholson, Reynold A., 107, 110 Pepys Library, Magdalene College,
Nicodemus, 54 Cambridge, 135
Ninevah, 120 Perkins, Pheme, 88
Nippur, 122 Persia see Iran
Noah, Noe, Nūª, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, Peter of Prague, 92–3
126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 139, 143, Petre, Sir William, 136
156, 180 Petrograd, 161
Sūra of Noah, 124 Peyramale, Dean Marie Dominique, 61–2,
Noailles, Fr A., 38 67, 68; see also Lourdes
Noe see Noah, Noe, Nūª Pezet, Fr Alejandro, 38
Norfolk, 132 Pharaoh, 108, 180
Norman Conquest, 134 Pharisees, 55, 179, 181; see also
Nūª see Noah, Noe, Nūª Nicodemus
numerology, 31–2, 42, 47 Philip, Earl of Arundel, 136
abjad, 178 The Wracks of Walsingham, 136
pilgrimage/ªajj, ix–x, 6, 8, 24, 81, 84, 85,
Old Testament, 3 and passim 92, 93, 130, 132, 136, 138, 139, 141,
O’Neill, Michael, 14 143, 144, 145, 151, 152, 153, 155,
Origen, 9 156, 157, 159, 160, 164
original sin, 61, 73, 118–19 manāsik, 24, 33, 81, 85, 90, 143, 144,
Orthodox Church, 17, 35, 107, 146 155
Orvieto, Umbria, 91, 93 ʿUmra (Minor Islamic pilgrimage), 79
Cappella del Corporale, 93 walking pilgrimages, 138
Orvieto Cathedral, 92–3 Walsingham Walkers, 138
Otto 11 of Germany, 6 Pio of Pietrelcina, St, 12, 96, 105, 107; see
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 164; see also also stigmata
Mary, Virgin Pius II, Pope, 37
Our Lady of Perpetual Succour see ikons; Pius IX, Pope, 61, 67, 171
Mary, Virgin Pius XI, Pope, 67
Our Lady of Sorrows, 164; see also Mary, Pius XII, Pope, 170
Virgin Pius X Basilica, Lourdes, 70
Our Lady Who Unties Knots, 147; see also plague, 6, 135, 136
Mary, Virgin plagues of Egypt, ten, 16, 31, 51
Plato, 4, 128 revolutions, 19th-century European, 58, 63

Timaeus, 128 Richard 111, King, 133
Po Valley, 128 Richeldis de Faverches, Lady, 134, 139, 140,
Poland, 40–1 157; see also Walsingham
Polynesian religion, 115–16 Robertson, Morven, 128
Popiełusko, Fr Jerzy, 41 rock and Moses, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54
Porter, J. R., 158 rock and Santa Christina, 92
Portugal, 160, 161, 165, 166, 169 Roman Catholic revival, 137
Portuguese Missionary Society, 167 Romans, 134
Portuguese Press, 165–6, 169, 170 Rome, 92, 132, 133, 146, 147, 160
power, Divine, 10, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 55, Rubin, Miri, 58, 149, 162
56, 85, 86, 115, 119, 129–30, 131, Ruini, Cardinal Camillo, 14
160, 171, 176, 180, 181, 182, 185 Runcie, Archbishop Robert, 137
presence, Divine, 1, 4, 44, 48, 51–2, 65, 70,
81, 94, 95, 101, 104, 129, 130, 131, Sabbath, Jewish, 28–9, 159
142, 147, 152, 154, 157, 160, 169, sacred, sense of, 4, 6
179, 185, 186 al-Íafā, 24, 76, 81, 83, 85; see also al-Marwa
sakīna, 130, 228n127 safīna see ark
Promethius, 127 Sahin, Harun, 90
Protestantism, x, 11–12, 35, 142, 147 St Alphonsus, Church of, Rome/Chiesa di
Pynson, Richard, 135, 140 San Alfonso, 146, 153
Pynson Ballad, 133, 134, 135, 138–9, 140, St Peter Am Perlach, Church of, Augsburg,
141, 155, 157 147
Saints, cult of, 6–7 and passim
Qādiriyya, (Íūfī Order), 22; see also Íūfīs, Saggs, H. W. F., 127
Íūfism Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira, 166
quails, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 47, 53 Íāliª, 180
Qur’ān, 4 and passim Salsabīl, 81
Qur’ān as miracle, 18–22 and passim salvation history, 16, 17, 47, 54, 94, 101, 181
Quraysh, 174, 175, 177, 179, 181 Samaritan woman, 54–5
Santa Christina see Bolsena
Raju, Alison, 92 Santiago de Compostella, 132, 133
Rama∂ān, 24, 90, 172 Santorini, 128
Ramli, Harith Bin, vii Sara (Sarah), wife of Ibrāhīm, 34, 75–6, 83
Ratzinger, Joseph/Benedict XVI, Pope, 88, Sasanians, 148
89, 99 scepticism see disbelief, doubt, scepticism
Red Sea, 148 Schimmel, Annemarie, 106, 108, 109
Redemptorists, 146 School of Oriental and African Studies
Reformation, 11, 136, 137, 142 (SOAS), University of London, vii
relics, 7, 8, 10, 141 Schütz, Bernhard, 93
Renaissance, 10 Scott, Robert A., 14, 59
repentance, 105, 106–7, 163, 164, 170, Scott, Timothy, 46
180–1, 182 Second Vatican Council, 58, 166, 168
repetition, ix, 26, 47, 48, 50, 52, 84, 115, secrets and apparitions, 59, 164, 169; see also
118, 156, 184 Fatima, apparitions at
Rephidim, 50 Seeing is Believing Workshop, vii
representation of the human form, semiotics see signs, semiotics, āyāt
prohibition on, 152 Sennacherib, King, 120
revelation, private, 64, 168, 171, 183, Shaʿbān, month of, 77
192n110 Shādhiliyya (Íūfī Order), 24; see also Íūfīs,
Revolution, French, 67 Íūfism
Revolution, Portuguese, 161 Shamesh, sun god, 158
Revolution, Russian, 161 sha†aªāt, 109, 110, 112
i ndex | 291
Shaw, George Bernard, 186 Sun god, 122

Shaw, Jane, 11 see also Miracle of the Sun
Shīʿa, 5, 116–17, 118, 125, 156 superstition, 6
al-Shiblī, 108 Sūra of the Cave (Sūrat al-Kahf ), 159
Shihadeh, Ayman, vii Sūra of Joseph (Sūrat Yūsuf ), 48
shrines, 51–2, 56–70, 92, 132–42, 153, Sūra of the Moon (Sūrat al-Qamar), 173–4,
154, 155, 160; see also Canterbury; 178, 180
Walsingham Sūra of Noah (Sūrat Nūª), 124
Shuʿayb, 180 Sūra of the Table (Sūrat al-Mā’ida), 41–6, 47,
Shuruppak, 122 48, 53
Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, 91 Swinburne, Richard, 2
signs, semiotics, āyāt, 4, 6, 19, 24, 25, 32,
33, 46, 47, 51, 54, 56, 94, 101, 105, al-˝abarī, 29, 43, 52, 53, 90, 91
111, 114, 129–30, 132, 149, 153, 162, Tabernacles, Feast of, (Sukkot), 55
171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 181, Table, Miracle of see Sūra of the Table
182, 186 tafsīr, 80, 90, 172, 176, 179, 209n219
Siloam, Pool of, 55 tamarisk, 29
Sinai, 29, 51 al-Tanūkhī, 26
Singer, Stella A., 133 †awāf, 149–50, 151
Slipper Chapel, Houghton St Giles, 137 tawªīd,46
Smith, George, 120 taʿziya/taʿziyih, 111–12
Smith, Mark S., 51 Tester, Keith, 168
SOAS see School of Oriental and African testing, 28–30, 42, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53,
Studies, University of London 123
Sokołka, 38, 40–1, 200n109 Thamūd, 180
sorcery see magic, sorcery Thavis, 98, 99, 100, 103
Soubirous, Bernadette, 57–70, 76, 83, themes, metathemes, viii, 184 and passim
170; see also Lourdes; Mary, Virgin; definition, 26
Peyramale, Dean Marie Dominique Thibaut, Mgr, Bishop of Montpellier, 68
Soubirous, François, 67, 82, 84, 85 Thiel, Bob, 167
Spinoza, Baruch, 9 Thiselton, Anthony C., 11
splitting of the moon see Miracle of the Thomas, David, 19, 20
Splitting of the Moon Thomas, Sir Keith, 10
springs and wells, 52, 53, 61, 64, 66, 68, Thousand and One Nights see Alf Layla wa
71–81, 125, 139, 140, 154; see also Layla
Salsabīl; Zamzam throne, Divine, 151, 152
staff, branch and Moses, 50, 52, 53 Tigris, River, 111, 113, 128
stars in Qur’ān, 171, 172, 173 Torres, Eduardo, 170
stigmata, 12, 94, 95–7, 100, 105, 107, transubstantiation, 35–6, 37, 40, 46, 86, 91,
219n180; see also Francis of Assisi, St; 92, 99, 100, 102, 104
Pio of Pietrelcina, St Trent, Council of, 14
stone see wood and stone Trimingham, J. Spencer, 147–8
storm see flood, deluge, storm Trinity, 34, 149
Strickland, Agnes, 133, 154 Trotsky, Leon, 161
The Pilgrims of Walsingham, 133, 154 trumpets, horns, 159, 160
structuralism, structure, 25, 84 Tudor Age, 133, 135
Íūfīs, Íūfism, 5, 22, 24, 86, 87, 105, 106, Turkey, 22, 99
107, 108, 109, 112, 117, 118, 119; see Tustar, Khuzistan, Persia, 105–6
also Qādiriyya; Shādhiliyya al-Tustarī, Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh, 105, 106,
Sumption, Jonathan, 8–9 107, 108
sun, 181, 182, 183 Tyburn, London, 101
in Qur’ān, 171, 172, 173 Tyburn Nuns see Adorers of the Sacred
standing of, 158, 159, 160 Heart of Jesus
types and antitypes, typology, ix, 17, 18, 31, Weigel, George, 66
32, 48, 54–5, 85, 89, 115, 118, 121, wells see springs and wells
125, 151, 152, 156, 182, 184 Werfel, Franz, 64, 65, 66–9, 70, 82, 84
The Song of Bernadette, 64, 66–9
ʿulamā’, 9 see also Lourdes; Mary, Virgin; Soubirous,
Umbria see Orvieto Bernadette
umma, 119 West, Morris, 30
universality, viii, 184 The Devil’s Advocate, 30
Urban IV, Pope, 93, 94 Westminster, 133
Transiturus de hoc mundo, 94 wholeness, viii, 64–5, 68, 70, 81, 85, 104,
Uruk, 122 113, 129, 142, 152, 170
Uta-napishti, 122, 123, 125 Willesee, Mike, 40
Wilson, Angus, 83–4
Vaglieri, Veccia, 116 wine at wedding feast of Cana, 87–8
Vatican, 12, 14, 99, 170 Winterson, Jeanette, 121
Vauchez, André, 9, 13, 91 wonder, sense of, 2, 4, 6
Venetian plain, 128 wood and stone, 120–57
Vesuvius, 98 Woodward, Kenneth, 49, 74, 96
Victorian Age, 145, 154 wrath, Divine, 6, 123, 124, 129, 136, 153
Vinzent, Markus, 3
Virgin Birth, Dogma of, 61 Yahweh, 124
visions and apparitions, 13, 38, 56–70, Yahya, Harun, 178
84–5, 100–1, 102–3, 134–5, 139, 142, Yaʿqūb, 72
155, 156, 157, 160–71, 181, 185, Yeary, Clifford, 35
192n110; see also Fatima; Garabandal;
Knock; Lourdes; Medjugorje; al-Zamakhsharī, 20
Walsingham; Zaytun Zamzam, spring, well of, 24, 76–81, 82, 83,
Vowell, Prior of Walsingham, 136 140, 152
zandaqa, 109
Waller, Gary, 134, 135, 141, 154 Zaytun Old Cairo, apparitions at, 59, 60
Walsingham, 8, 130, 132–42, 144, 153, Zdrodovvski, Fr Filip, 40
154, 155, 156 Zechariah, 89
England’s Nazareth, 133 Zola, Émile, 62–3, 64, 65–6, 67, 68, 69, 70,
Walsingham litany, 132 82, 83, 84, 85, 177
see also Richeldis de Faverches, Lady; Lourdes (novel), 63, 65–6, 67, 68, 69, 70,
Slipper Chapel, Houghton St Giles 83, 84
al-Wāqidī, 74, 145, 151 Paris (novel), 84
Kitāb al-Maghāzī, 74 Rome (novel), 84
Waraqa ibn Nawfal, 149 Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels,
Warner, Marina, 61, 62, 162 84
water, viii, 23, 30, 50–85, 113, 142, 152, Zoroastrians, 148
156, 157, 175 Zugibe, Frederick, 39

Christianity Realms Miraculous: Islam

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Christianity Realms Miraculous: Islam

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I A N R I C H A RD N ET T ON

Ian Richard Netton

© Ian Richard Netton, 2019

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

Typeset in 11/15 Adobe Garamond by

ISBN 978 0 7486 9906 3 (hardback)

1 Miracles and Religion 1

5 Wood and Stone 120

Bernard Lonergan’s seminal work Method in Theology6 may today appear

• outline of the miracle event: Proto-miracle/Christian miracle/Islamic

In terms of narrative theory, chosen aspects of which will shortly be elaborated

• similarities and differences in content

However, this volume is much more than just a dissertation on narratological

Although consciously self-cultivating Catholics . . . do exist, it is also

BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

Across the Mediterranean Frontiers (ed. with D. A. Agius)

M iracles are problematic! Global communications and religious diversity

The way of understanding miracles that appeals to breaks in the natural

Other New Testament scholars have shared in a tradition of scepticism

scholar and lexicographer, Edward William Lane (1801–76),31 for example,

Gardet stresses the public nature of a muʿjiza: it is prefaced with a proclama-

1.2 The Medieval Mindset: Milieu, Continuity and Contrasts

Deirdre Jackson concludes:

The miracles that are reported to be worked in their temples are by no

The miracles of the New Testament have ceased to be miraculous, and to

Hume’s scepticism about the possibility of miracles has continued to pervade

Miracle-hunters must be scupulous scientists or else they are wasting their

In this present volume the visionary experience will be included as belong-

of Cardinal Camillo Ruini.107 However, to date, the Catholic Church has

that it is possible for miracles to occur.113 Such attitudes have an ancient

This is the Paschal Festival, in which that true Lamb is slain,

The eloquent and eponymously named preacher, St John Chrysostom (c.

Islam, too, inhabits a world of miracles. If the miracle of the incarnation in

Say: ‘If the whole of mankind and Jinns

instructs Muhammad to tell his opponents that he is a mere human, albeit an

He (alone) knows the Unseen

acqainted with His mysteries,

al-qamar) should not be taken as proof of Muhammad’s prophethood since

According to tradition in the sub-continent, only women may recite or hear

Like Christianity, Islam too participates in a process of anámnēsis whereby

Ramadhān is the (month)

Narrative is universal. As H. Porter Abbott puts it: ‘Narrative existed long

The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is first and

mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without

Narrative can be multifaceted and appear within a framework as the classic

The main elements of the above narratological framework, already alluded to

2.1 A Proto-miracle: Manna from the Desert

T he miraculous feeding of the followers of Moses in the desert with

And We gave you the shade of clouds

And remember ye said:

So beseech thy Lord for us

‘I have never seen a miracle.’

logical perspective, makes no judgement either for or against the miraculous

2.2 The Feeding of the Five Thousand: Christianity

Eucharist, who conceived it as a miracle of transubstantiation, have been

many, the following narratives provide a flavour of widespread belief in the

Lanciano (Ancient Anxanum) (c. 750)

St Catherine of Siena (1347–80)

Wondrous things occurred during these Holy Communions. While it was

Buenos Aires (1996)

event began on 15 August as follows: a Host was accidentally dropped by

Sokółka, Poland (2008)

2.3 Jesus, the Test and the Table: Islam

[Sahl al-Tustari] used to bring his disciples to perfection in self-mortification