The Claims of Religion: Islam Claims the Moon Split in Two

As Islam becomes more prevalent, those of us who have studied the claims of Christianity will most likely come to be just as familiar with new apologetics being offered to substantiate the claims of the Islamic Koran. If my experience with one of these apologetics is any indication, the claims will be novel enough to warrant perhaps more investigation without the burden of evidence than is usually offered to Christian apologists.

One such claim recently encountered has to do with this passage from the Koran:

"The Hour has drawn near,and the moon has been cleft asunder (the people of Makkah requested Prophet Muhammad [PBUH] to show them a miracle, so he showed them the splitting of the moon)." (Quran 54:1)

According to a Muslim apologist, the story in more detail states:

Sunnah books tell that five years before the immigration of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) from Mecca to Medina, a group of people from the tribe of Quraish came challenging him saying: Oh Muhammad if you were really a Prophet and a Messenger bring to us a miracle to establish this fact. So he asked them what do you want? They said in an effort to complicate matters for him: split the moon for us. The Messenger of ALLAH (PBUH) stood supplicating to Allah to support him and grant him victory in this hard situation. Allah may He be Exalted inspired him to sign towards the moon with his finger. Immediately, the moon cleft into two parts standing far from each other for several hours then cling back together.

What's interesting to note is how the Muslim apologists will all claim that NASA has verified this after the Apollo moon landings produced geological evidence. Yet, none of the apologists can point to a NASA article, or any science article for that matter, which confirms this. Further still, none of them can explain how a moon split could occur and yet not have any effect on the Earth's tides and tectonic activity. The most that is offered chalks it up to a "miracle", which renders the moon split nothing more than an appearance of splitting only. More on that in a bit.

First, let's point out how similar this claim is to those of Christianity, right down to the alleged confirmation by NASA or other scientific bodies. One such incident allegedly involves NASA engineers coming up with a calculation for the orbital positions of the Earth which indicate a "missing day" somewhere in history. The legend states that a Christian working with them told them of how the Bible records both the sun standing still in the sky and also how it alleged moved backwards in another passage. Using that data, the NASA engineers were able to then confirm such a thing had indeed occurred and were thus able to complete their orbital calculations. This urban legend has been debunked numerous times, yet it persists among those who are either scientifically ignorant or willfully deceptive in their evangelical efforts.



Another such claim involves Russian miners (you know, those "evil, atheistic communists") digging a very deep hole and suddenly breaking through a piece of the Earth's crust. They then claim that an intense amount of heat was detected from within the hole and sounds of people in agony and torture were heard and recorded. This one is so outlandish, even the Christian apologists have no problem dismantling it.



What all these claims have in common is they were each allegedly confirmed by non-Christian sources and are thus reliable evidence of some holy book authority. On one hand, religious evangelicals will proclaim loudly that gods and miracles need no proof and are to be accepted on faith alone while on the other they will do everything they can to dig up any evidence which confirms their claims. This is most evidenced by the advent of Christian-based "Intelligent Design" claims, examined in a coming article.

For now, let's get back to our alleged "moon split". The gist of these Muslim apologetics seem to indicate common basis on the Apollo moon landings and some kind of discovery made during that time. While each story indicates a different source for the NASA confirmation, they all seem to be based on a single photo, taken from Apollo 10 as it orbited the lunar surface.



The photo shows a lunar "rille", one of many which crisscross the moon's surface. How these rilles actually formed is still being investigated and many theories exist, including seismic activity. The above photo shows only one such rille and it gives the illusion of bisecting the entire body. This is, of course, incorrect as the rilles exist traveling in multiple directions and for varying mileage. No single rille travels the entire equator of the moon.

Still, this has not stopped Muslim apologists from touting this lunar feature as "evidence" that a moon split did indeed occur 1400 years ago, at the command of their god. The shakiness of their evidence is further compounded by the lack of apparent effects on the Earth such a split would have caused.

It is well known that the Moon exerts a gravitational influence on Earth, most noticable in the tides of large bodies of water. This is because the Moon's gravity actually distorts the shape of the planet into an ellipsoid, causing our rotation to "wobble" around the offset. Being on the surface, we see no effect at all, but water bodies respond by moving toward the gravitational tug during the course of the day. This effect also induces an effect known as kinetic heating, in which the constant tug on our planet results in a kneading effect, which produces some of our internal heating and has been linked to volcanic and tectonic activity.

For the moon to have split into two pieces, traveling far enough apart to be visible from the Earth's surface, means a dramatic change in this gravitational effect. Without a unified tug from a single direction, the Earth's shape would have immediately started to change, resulting in unprecedented earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and tsunamis all over the world. These events would have continued even after the Moon was "fused" back together and the Earth tried to resume its original shape.

Suffice it to say, such effects would have been very noticable to the inhabitants of the planet at that time. Every culture on Earth would have made note of it and it would be a period of intense study by current geologists, assuming the human race could have lived through such a time. After hearing the story, a simple call to NASA's Public Communications and Inquiries Management Office confirmed no such evidence for a moon-split exists or that NASA has ever made such a claim.

Instead, if any merit at all is to be applied to the Koranic story, what was most likely witnessed was a lunar eclipse. During such an event, the Earth moves to obscure the sun from the Moon's surface. Observers would see the Moon as being full and then g
radually blocked out, either partially or wholly. To an untrained observer, it might appear as though the Moon were suddenly halved, and atmospheric effects then gave the illusion of a piece floating away. Since lunar eclipses only last a few minutes, the Moon would be whole again shortly after.

This is merely a guess, however, and not supported by any research into notable eclipses from the time. However, it is worth noting that we know there were approximately 194 partial lunar eclipses during the period between 500 and 700 AD, and over 500 lunar eclipses of varying obscurance. Moreover, the Islamic flag shows variations on a partially obscured moon and single star:



Such an image is exactly like what a lunar eclipse might have looked like during that time and from that perspective.