ٱقْتَرَبَتِ ٱلسَّاعَةُ وَٱنشَقَّ ٱلْقَمَرُ
One of the most debated opening sentences in the Qurʾān. I shall look first at the words, then at the grammar, then at the disagreement — because the disagreement arises precisely from the grammar.
Root: ق-ر-ب. To be near. This root has been treated earlier in this commentary — in al-Maʿārij by way of qarīb (near), and in al-Nabaʾ and al-Dhāriyāt again in the context of nearness in time. The issue here is not the sense of the root but its form.
The verb is on the pattern إِفْتِعَال (iftiʿāl, Form VIII): iqtaraba. The basic load this form carries in Arabic is that the act is realised upon the agent himself, with an added effort or intensity. Kasara (he broke) → iktasara (he broke for himself, he took by breaking); jamaʿa (he gathered) → ijtamaʿa (they gathered together).
The difference between qaruba and iqtaraba, in the form the lexicographers transmit it, is this: qaruba states being near, iqtaraba states the movement of drawing near — it is approaching, the distance is closing.
"The reckoning of mankind has drawn near, while they turn away in heedlessness." (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/1) "The Hour has drawn near and the moon has split." (al-Qamar 54/1)
As was recorded in al-Takāthur, sūras that open straight into a statement without any preamble are few, and these two are on that list. The reader is set down in the middle of the scene.
Another trace of the same root in this sūra: the form مُقْتَرِب is not present here, but the pattern of iqtaraba is the same as that of مُقْتَدِر in verses 42 and 55 (the active participle of Form VIII). This is a relation of pattern, not of root; I draw no meaning from it, I only record it.
Root: ش-ق-ق. This root was treated in full in al-Inshiqāq and I do not repeat it here. Of what was recorded there, this is what is needed for this verse:
- The concrete sense of the root is to split, to divide in two, to break something apart by cracking it.
- شِقّ (shiqq) is one of the two pieces of what has been split; the Turkish word şık, "an option, one of the alternatives", comes from it.
- مَشَقَّة (mashaqqa) is hardship — on the lexicographers' explanation, what splits a person.
- شِقَاق (shiqāq) is separation, the division between communities (al-Baqara 2/137).
- شَقِيق (shaqīq) is a full brother — one split off from the same stock.
And the threefold distinction established in the section on al-Inshiqāq holds here too: falq opens what is closed; faṭr splits and founds out of nothing; shaqq divides what has already been founded. The splitting of the moon is told with shaqq of these three: there is no birth and no founding here; there is the dividing of something that stood together.
The verb is again on the pattern إِنْفِعَال (infiʿāl, Form VII): inshaqqa. As was recorded in the section on al-Inshiqāq, this form conveys the middle sense — undergoing an outside action, submitting to it. The moon does not crack of itself; it yields to something done to it. The agent is not named, but the form implies that there is one.
| Verse | What splits | What it opens onto |
|---|---|---|
| al-Qamar 54/1 | the moon | a sign |
| ʿAbasa 80/26 | the earth | grain, provision |
| Qāf 50/44 | the earth | the coming forth of the dead |
| al-Furqān 25/25 | the sky | the descent of the angels |
| al-Raḥmān 55/37 | the sky | a change of colour |
| al-Ḥāqqa 69/16 | the sky | dissolution |
What is striking in the table is this: the only heavenly body on the list is the moon. In all the other uses of the root what splits is either the earth or the sky itself. The moon is the one single body.
And the whole disagreement arises from this. For in Arabic a perfect verb can also relate an event that has not yet happened — and it does so on two different grounds:
One — as an expression of certainty. A future event whose occurrence is certain is related as though it had happened. The Qurʾān uses this often:
"The command of God has come; do not seek to hasten it." (al-Naḥl 16/1) — the command has not yet come. "And the trumpet was blown." (al-Zumar 39/68) — the scene of the resurrection in the perfect. "And Hell was brought that day." (al-Fajr 89/23) — treated in the section on al-Fajr.
This is not a stylistic preference but a settled possibility of Arabic, and it is treated under a heading of its own in the classical books on the language.
Two — the relating of an event that really is past. This is the perfect verb's own proper job, and it requires no separate justification.
Now the question is this: the first verb (iqtarabat) is beyond dispute of the first kind — the Hour has not yet come, yet "has drawn near" is said. And the second verb? Is inshaqqa, coming in the same sentence, with the same connective, in the same tense, also of the first kind, or of the second?
On this question I issue no definite ruling. Per the method (Method) I give the disagreement with its evidence and I do not impose a preference. There are two main views and one reconciling view.
| (a) An event that occurred in the past | (b) A sign of the Hour related in the perfect | |
|---|---|---|
| What it says | The moon actually split at Mecca in the Prophet's time; the verse reports that event | The moon will split on the Day of Resurrection; the perfect is for certainty |
| The tense of the verb | Perfect, in its proper job: past | Perfect, for certainty: future |
| Its relation to the first verb | The two verbs are in two different times: one future (the drawing near), one past (the splitting). The wāw sequences them, it does not equate them | The two verbs are on the same temporal plane: both future, both in the mood of certainty |
| Its strongest evidence | The second verse. "If they see a sign they turn away and say, 'a passing magic'." For a thing to be called "magic" requires that the thing have been seen | The internal consistency of the sentence. For two verbs joined by a single connective in the same sentence to be in different times is forced |
| Its second evidence | The transmitted material. Reports stating that the moon split are found in al-Bukhārī and Muslim, and in classical exegesis these reports are widely attached to this verse | The sūra as a whole opens with the Hour and closes with it (al-sāʿa in 1 and 46); the splitting of the moon fits that frame |
| Its weak side | That two verbs in the same sentence should be in different times requires explanation | Calling it "magic" becomes difficult: no one calls an event that has not yet happened "magic" |
| Who holds it | The majority of the exegetes | A minority. In the classical sources it is generally transmitted as ascribed to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī |
A note is required. The ascription of the second view to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī is widely transmitted in the classical commentaries; I do not speak with certainty about the soundness of the ascription, since I have no verified chain of transmission before me. The view itself is present in the sources; whose it is is another matter.
There is also a third, reconciling reading, adopted by a not inconsiderable number of exegetes: the event occurred in the past and is at the same time a sign that the Hour has drawn near. On this reading the two verbs are joined not as cause and effect but as sign and thing signified: the Hour has drawn near; as a token of this the moon has split. This reading tries to hold together both the transmitted ground of the first view and the concern for the unity of the sentence in the second.
No preference is adopted in this commentary. Both readings have a ground in the text, and neither blocks the reading of the rest of the sūra: whichever reading you take, from the second verse onward what the sūra says does not change — a sign is shown, it is turned away from, it is called "magic".
There is a kind of claim that circulates widely around this verse: the claim that some geological formation on the surface of the moon (most often a fissure or a rille) is the "scientific proof" of this verse, together with the various accounts that accompany it.
This commentary does not use these claims. The ground is an explicit clause of Method: "No hunting for scientific miracles. No modern piece of knowledge is forced onto a verse."
One. The claim itself has no support — what is said about the dating of formations on the lunar surface and about the mechanisms that produced them is not of a kind that can be made a support for this claim.
Two, and more important: the claim works against the verse, not for it. If you tie the truth of a text to a current scientific interpretation, then when the interpretation changes you have brought the text down with it. This is in any case not the Qurʾān's own answer in the second verse; that verse relates what those who see a sign do — not the physical explanation of the sign.
I record one further observation, and I state that it is my own reading: the verse itself does not relate the event, it only records it. Two words. No date, no place, no witness, no duration, no manner. If the purpose of the text were to present a miracle, the least it would do is to describe the event. The text does not do this; in the very next verse it moves to the reaction. What the verse is concerned with, then, is not the sign itself but the stance taken towards the sign.