KerrDepression

@KerrDepression

37 Tweets • 2021-02-17 23:20:55 UTC •  See on Twitter

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[Thread]

Islam and the splitting of the moon

This thread is about some errors made in the video and an alternative approach for
Muslims, one that is far more effective in my opinion

http://youtu.be/bJEaAinrccg
As mentioned in the video, Rasulallah (ṣallā -llāhu ʿalayhī wa-sallam) had split the
moon as a miracle. This is also mentioned in the Qur'an (first few verses of Surah Al-
Qamar, the 54th surah).

The video also mentions authentic ahadith from multiple eyewitnesses (companions)

The video moves on to non-Islamic sources from India, namely an account of a

Malabar king who saw this event and converted to Islam. This account is actually
historically questionable (I will discuss why later on in the thread).

If we were to remove this Indian account, we are left only with Islamic accounts (at
least as far as I know). The Qur'an and various accounts across the hadith literature.

The obvious question people ask is "Why aren't there major non-Muslim accounts of
this astronomical event?"

Before we can answer this question, we should ask:

"What quantity of historical reports would be expected for an event of this nature?"

To try and answer this, let's look at the historical accounts for the supernova of 1054CE
that produced the crab nebula.
This supernova was bright enough to be visible even during the day, for many days (a
few weeks!), not just one day. It's not an event only viewable from some parts of the
earth either (so it would visible in basically any land)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation
How much historical data is there? The main sources are some Chinese accounts,
& a couple Japanese accounts writing later. There's 1 arab account of Ibn Butlan
(discovered in 1978)

Also some "proposed, but doubtful, references from European sources"

See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054
The page mentions how "lack of accounts from European chroniclers has long raised
questions" and mentions some of the issues with the suggestions for possible European
accounts

There's also North American stone carvings some speculate could depict it, but we can't
know for sure

Now this supernova was visible in both night and daytime for many days (on the order
of a couple weeks). Especially at it's peak, it was the brightest object in the sky after the
Sun & Moon. It was visible on every continent. It's no exaggeration to say
MILLIONS of people saw it
Yet the number of sources (even if we include the questionable and speculative stuff
like stone carvings), is not high. It's not thousands, hundreds, or even 50. A pitiful
fraction of the number of people who saw it. Excluding the questionable and doubtful
accounts makes it worse

This is not that shocking. Most people couldn't read or write so most of those millions
wouldn't record anything. Among those who can, most writings from ~1000 years ago
have not survived to the present day.

Now the splitting of the moon took place at night in Mecca. If we assume it was early in
the night (eg 7pm in Mecca), lands to the west (eg Europe) are still in daytime &
may not be able to see the moon. If it was very late into the night, lands East of Mecca
would be morning

So already, depending on the time of the event, some portions of the world may simply
not be able to see it, unlike the supernova visible on all continents

Additionally the moon didn't remain split for long (eg many days/nights). It would
have returned to normal the *same night*

If you say "sometimes I can see the moon during the day", note that this only occurs
sometimes. You can see the moon early mornings some time after a full moon. You can
see it in the evenings past new moon, until a few days before a full moon.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/our-solar-system/46-our-solar-
system/the-moon/observing-the-moon/114-on-which-days-can-i-see-the-moon-
in-the-evening-morning-and-why-is-this-so-beginner
So sometimes you can't see it at all. Additionally some reports mention that this miracle
occurred during a full moon. In the "early in the night" scenario, Europe would be in
evening and thus not able to see it.

Screens: note 14th refers to lunar month

https://questionsonislam.com/article/miracle-splitting-moon-0
I also think the "early in the night" scenario is more likely as the pagan Arabs probably
were not staying up the entire night waiting until 5 in the morning or something.

But in either case, the point is parts of the world simply would not have been able to see
the moon at all

Also, the reports don't specify how long (a few hours? minutes?), but it is clearly an
event not visible anywhere near the length of time that the aforementioned supernova
was visible for.

Even in a country that could see it, if it was cloudy that one night, you'd be out of luck

Also, for those people who could see the moon, many would be asleep anyways, further
lowering the number of witnesses (vs the supernova visible during even the day)

So we can say the number of people who saw the event was considerably less compared
to the supernova
To add to this, on average, the closer a time is to the present day the greater percentage
of written records from that time survive. The amount of writings produced in 1800CE
that survive today is a much higher survival rate then writings from 100CE

So if the supernova of 1054 had not happened in 1054, but say 1900, we'd have way
more sources. If it had happened in 600, we'd have fewer sources vs 1054. This is
simply because less writings would survive.

The hijra was in 622CE. The splitting of the moon was before the hijra.

Also, there would be little incentive to hide the supernova of 1054CE. To refuse to
transmit it, or for a scribe to tamper with accounts of it

This is unlike the splitting of the moon. A non-Muslim (christian, Jewish etc) obviously
has an incentive to not transmit this account

As writings from the period are transmitted to us via scribes who copied texts, a
hypothetical European account of the event might be edited out by a later (non-
Muslim) scribe, who could have easily heard the famous Muslim claim about it

All these factors would tell us that we should expect there to be considerably *less*
sources for this event then the supernova of 1054CE, which itself doesn't have that
many clear sources anyways

So what are the sources we have for the split?

* The Qur'an, a contemporary document

* Various hadiths with authentic chains to multiple eyewitnesses, like Ibn Masud, Anas,
Jubair bin Mutim, etc. The last one had not yet converted to Islam at the time
* That Indian story

The first few verses of Surah Qamar in the Quran (as well as some reports) state that
the pagans saw it, but denied it by claiming it was magic/sorcery. There is no record of
pagan opponents rejecting this, even though many other arab pagan criticisms against
Islam are recorded
It would not make sense to just make up that part of the Qur'an as the pagan Arabs
would very easily be able to refute it in front of everyone, unless it was a known fact
that they saw it and that claims of sorcery was their defense

Additionally we have multiple eyewitnesses. Can we believe in these accounts

attributed to eyewitnesses as legitimate? I'd argue yes, we have multiple sound
eyewitness accounts, but this is getting in to "how reliable is the hadith literature",
which would require its own thread
Others have written on making a case for the reliability of the hadith corpus (I may link
some of that material later)

Additionally, Muslims are exactly the people we expect to transmit the event.

After all, who else that night was looking to the sky, at the right time, waiting for a
miracle? Of course Arab and Muslim accounts would record it. To expect tons of
sources across the globe is not reasonable due to the nature of the event, and the points
I've mentioned

Now that Indian account from the video. It's a tad questionable, and a skeptic would
have reasonable grounds to reject it. It's based on a book centuries later, and that book
itself relies on a manuscript by an anonymous author.

See:

https://www.academia.edu/17121060/Qissat_Shakarwati_Farmad_a_tradition_concer
Though it does seem this oral legend has been in that local Muslim community in India
for some time
The conclusion is that it is difficult to tell how much of this anonymous work, "Qissat
Shakarwati Farmad", is historical. But it was definitely composed/originated from that
region in India as mentioned in the paper.
 Basically, it can't really be used as "solid proof" of anything. Though it's technically
possible someone did see something and it became an oral tradition in the community.

The "solid" accounts are exclusive to the Qur'an and ahadith. As I mentioned though,
it's a non issue

I'll save making a case that hadith are indeed reliable for another day, others like
@AbdullahBiqai have already written on it. I might link some material under this tweet
later

Now some people mention the lack of non-Muslim sources for the event as a
"refutation" of Islam. The absence of sources of non-Muslims supposedly proves this
event is a pure fake. I think this thread makes clear why this is a non-issue

Worst case scenario: The lack of non-Muslim texts for the event will prevent you from
convincing people who are not Muslim, making this difficult to use for dawah

There's literally no good reason for a Muslim to deny this happened or claim "it's just a
metaphor bro"

One final point: Imagine for a second that there were hundreds of accounts from the
time period across the globe. That would prove to every human the moon did split.

Would people believe? No!

The disbelievers would say after it already happened Muslims claimed it for themselves

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