The Splitting of the Moon

The people of Quraysh were continuously asking for a sign — "Show us a sign" — as if the Qurʾān was not sufficient, even though the Qurʾān is the greatest miracle of any Nabī. They were asking for a sign, so Allah (swt) revealed to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), through Jibrīl, "If they are asking for a sign, We will split for them the moon." The moon would be split. And the time was set; the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) called the unbelievers and said, "The moon will be split." And the unbelievers gathered at night, and there, right in front of them, they saw the moon split into two halves, and then it came back together. This is a very unique miracle, and it is firmly established in hadith, in Bukhārī and Muslim, and in the Qurʾān. The hadith in Bukhārī — Bukhārī mentions that the splitting of the moon came between the embracing of Islam of ʿUmar and after the migration to Abyssinia. And in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, it states that the Meccan people requested Allah's Messenger to show them a miracle, and so he showed them the splitting of the moon. Again in Muslim, another hadith — this hadith has been transmitted on the authority of ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd, who said: "We were along with the Messenger of Allah, may peace be upon him, at Minā. The moon was split up into two; one of its parts was behind the mountain, and the other one was on this side of the mountain. The Messenger of Allah, may peace be upon him, said to us, 'Bear witness to this.'" Allah (swt) says:

When they saw the sign of Allah, what did they say? They said he threw or cast magic on their eyes. They accused the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) of performing magic. This was not an optical illusion — the moon actually did split up.

And there are some doubts that could be brought up to attack the claim of the Muslims that Allah has split the moon as a miracle for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Some arguments could be presented: if the moon was split, how come nobody saw it? How come other people in other parts of the world did not see it? Well, to respond to that: number one, the world is in different time zones, so half of the world is daytime — so one crosses out half of the world automatically. And then within the other half, it could be very late for some people, so they would not see it; or it could be that the moon is not apparent to them in their particular area, because it has already set, or because of overcast weather — so that would eliminate parts of the half of the world which is night. So we have eliminated now most of the world. Now, with the part of the world that had a chance to see the moon — because when the moon is apparent in Makkah, it would have already set in other parts of the world — so with the other parts of the world that can see the moon, one usually does not find people running around at night staring at the sky; people tend to ignore what is going on above them unless they are told to look up. So the moon could have split, but people did not see it, because they were not attuned to the fact that it would split — that eliminates some other people.

And the third answer or response would be that in those days documentation was weak. In many parts of the world the people were illiterate, and where people were literate, they did not document everything that would happen — so one could easily have important events of history going down the annals of history without anybody caring to write them down. So that would eliminate the possibility of some people seeing it, but the news not being reported to us. Having said that, there are some scholars who say that this event was documented in India and China, and they say that there are some old writings in China that say that this particular event happened the year when the moon was split, and they use that as a reference point for them to document history — and one needs to do more research to take a look at the original documents that mention this. So it is firmly established that this event did happen; this is mentioned without basing a lot or counting on it, until more research is done. It is mentioned by some astronomers — and again, this information needs to be verified — that there is what appears to be a long divide that goes around the moon, sort of like satellites are able to detect continental rifts; so there is such a rift that is going around the moon. If that is true, then that is a clear sign to prove the splitting of the moon, but again, that is something that needs to be verified — this has been heard from more than one source, but it should not be counted on until it is firmly established.

Al-Khaṭṭābī, one of the classical scholars, says that the splitting of the moon was a great sign that cannot even be compared to the signs given to prior messengers — this is because it was witnessed in the vastness of the universe, and traversing beyond the laws of nature; with this, the confirmation of the Messenger's (peace be upon him) message was by preponderance. What al-Khaṭṭābī is saying is that no miracle was greater than this, because this was a miracle that happened on earth and in the heavens, while every other miracle of other prophets happened on earth, was limited to earth, but this was a sign that was both for the heavens and the earth.