A Miracle?

A Miracle?

1.    ​ The Hour (the time when the present world will end and the Hereafter begin) has drawn near and the moon is breached. The Qur’aanic Verse is the first one in Chapter 54, and the English translation is mine (refer QUR’AANIC STUDIES - A Modern Tafsir).

2.    And, the explanatory note on that translation reads as follows: The Arabic word shaqqa has a number of meanings. Most translators have given it here the meaning of ‘split’ and thus attributed to Prophet Muhammad [peace on him] the performing of the miracle of splitting the moon in two and then rejoining the two parts. Such a miracle – if it did happen – would have indeed been a unique one! The Qur’aan does say that the earlier Prophets were endowed with the gifts of performing various miracles. But none of such miracles involved moon or any other heavenly body! All those miracles were restricted to things of this earth. This miracle attributed to Prophet Muhammad is preposterous on another count as well. Nowhere else in the Holy Book does Allah Almighty mention performance, by Muhammad, of any miracle as those performed by earlier Prophets like Moses and Jesus! The Book, on the other hand, points out the fact that the earlier peoples had failed to follow their Prophets despite the latter showing them the miracles! The stress was therefore laid on Prophet Muhammad’s Ummah to look for miracles in the natural creation of their own selves and of all things around them, and thus attain to faith in Allah Ta’ala. That being the unmistakable tenor throughout in the Qur’aan, it was indeed preposterous for the Prophet to come up suddenly with such an unlikely miracle. Moreover, shaqqa alqamar is meant in this Verse to be the Sign for the approaching end of this world.  There were definitely no signs of the approaching Doom over 1400 years ago when this Verse was revealed. But there definitely are such signs now when nation after nation is engaged in piling up weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. And this piling up was preceded by Man’s first visit to the moon in the late sixties [Watch the Video]. This Verse foretold that visit, when the virginity of the surface of the moon was for the first time breached by human steps and man-made tools.

3.    It is now over 46 years since that event. So, how many more years this world may still have before its end? The exact number is of course known only to Allah Almighty; but the proximity predicted by the Qur’aan should surely have an upper limit. Does the Qur’aan give any indication of that limit? Let us try to find out.

4.    In the 97^th Chapter of the Qur’aan, it is said, 
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​  The night of divine Decree is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Spirit, by their Lord’s leave, descend in that night with all His decrees.

5.    Those two Verses do indicate that laylatu alqadr (Night of the divine Decrees) comes once in a thousand months with divine Decrees for the ensuing thousand months, equivalent roughly to 83.4 years.

6.    If that be true, this world is not going to survive 2053 AD!

Mohammad Shafi

Author of QUR’AANIC STUDIES - A Modern Tafsir

18^th July, 2015