The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5) — Page 136
CH. 54 PT. 27 07 ركوعاتها ٣ سُورة الْقَمَرِ مَكِّيَّةٌ ٥٤ بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ (AL-QAMAR) 1. "In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. 4005 2. The Hour has drawn nigh, and the moon is asunder. 4006 rent اقْتَرَبَتِ السَّاعَةُ وَانْشَقَّ الْقَمَرُ 4005. Commentary: See 1:1. 4006. Important Words: "See 1:1. 21:2. (is rent asunder) is derived from They sayi. e. he split, clave, tore or rent the thing. means, he broke the staff, i. e. he separated himself from the community. An Arab would say, i. e. he created disunion and dissension among the Muslims. means, the moon was or became rent asunder; or according to some, the affair became manifest (Lane, Aqrab & Mufradāt). eans, the. . قمر الشيء the moon) القمر described as unimpeachable. At the same time no one can presume to have fathomed all divine mysteries or fully comprehended or encompassed all the secrets of nature. It is not possible to imagine that such an event, affecting a considerable area of the globe, should have remained unnoticed in the observatories of the world or that it should have remained unrecorded in books of history. But the incident having found a mention in such reliable collections of Ḥadīth as Bukhārī and Muslim and having been narrated successively in traditions of reliable authority and reported by such learned Companions of the Holy Prophet as Ibn Mas'ud and Ibn 'Abbās, does show that some natural phenomenon of unusual importance must have taken place in the time of the Holy Prophet. Some commentators of the Quran―Rāḍī among them have sought to solve the difficult problem by declaring the incident to be a lunar eclipse. Imām Ghazālī and Shāh Wali Allah also hold the view that the moon had not in fact been rent asunder, but that God had so contrived that it appeared to the beholders as such. However, 3032 light of the thing became intense. ✓ means, the night became bright with the light of the moon. means, the moon in its third night and after; the moon absolutely. أقمار العلم و means, the ulema or learned men of the people. and the moon (Lane & Aqrab). Commentary: means, the sun Whether or not "splitting of the moon" into two parts, observable by the naked eye, contravened any physical law of nature, it cannot be denied that the event lacks historical evidence which could at all be