The Moon
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[54:1]
THE LAST HOUR draws near, and the moon is split asunder!

---

* v.1 : Most of the commentators see in this verse a reference to a phenomenon said to have been witnessed by several of the Prophet’s contemporaries. As described in a number of reports going back to some Companions, the moon appeared one night as if split into two distinct parts. While there is no reason to doubt the subjective veracity of these reports, it is possible that what actually happened was an unusual kind of partial lunar eclipse, which produced an equally unusual optical illusion. But whatever the nature of that phenomenon, it is practically certain that the above Qur’ān-verse does not refer to it but, rather, to a future event: namely, to what will happen when the Last Hour approaches. (The Qur’ān frequently employs the past tense to denote the future, and particularly so in passages which speak of the coming of the Last Hour and of Resurrection Day; this use of the past tense is meant to stress the certainty of the happening to which the verb relates.) Thus, Rāghib regards it as fully justifiable to interpret the phrase inshaqqa ’l-qamar (“the moon is split asunder”) as bearing on the cosmic cataclysm – the end of the world as we know it – that will occur before the coming of Resurrection Day (see art. shaqq in the Mufradāt). As mentioned by Zamakhsharī, this interpretation has the support of some of the earlier commentators; and it is, to my mind, particularly convincing in view of the juxtaposition, in the above Qur’ān-verse, of the moon’s “splitting asunder” and the approach of the Last Hour. (In this connection we must bear in mind the fact that none of the Qur’anic allusions to the “nearness” of the Last Hour and the Day of Resurrection is based on the human concept of “time.”)