The moment drew near, and the moon was split.
Translation endnotes
[54:1] Hadith narrators and collectors misunderstood this verse and tried to support their misunderstanding by the fabrication of a hadith reporting that Muhammed split the Moon by pointing at it with his finger. Some narrators did not stop there and claimed that half of the Moon fell in the backyard of Ali, Muhammed's son-inlaw. The believers of this hadith are silent to the critical questions about the event. Why didn't populations of other countries witness this incredible event? If there were such an astronomical event, many people from China to Africa would have noticed and recorded it. Besides, this traditional interpretation contradicts the Quran, which specifically limits the signs given to Muhammed to be the signs contained in the Quran alone (29:50-51). The splitting of the Moon was fulfilled when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and astronauts took some rocks from the Moon back to earth in July 1969. The word shaqqa, which we translated as "split," does not necessarily mean splitting in half (see 80:26; 50:44). When this event was happening, Dr. Rashad Khalifa was uploading the Quran to his computer in St. Louis. Splitting the surface of the Moon was the start of his work, which led to the historical discovery of the miraculous mathematical system based on code 19, prophesied in chapter 74, which happened in 1974. Thus, the following verse relates to this discovery. See 74:1-56; 27:82; 38:1-8; 40:28-38; 46:10; 72:28.