Abū Nuʿaym then added (1): “Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; al-Ḥasan ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Rāzī narrated to us, from al-Haytham ibn al-Nuʿmān (2); Ismāʿīl ibn Ziyād narrated to us, from Ibn Jurayj, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:

The people of Mecca came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, ‘Is there a sign by which we may know that you are truly the Messenger of Allah?’ Gabriel descended and said, ‘O Muḥammad, tell the people of Mecca to assemble tonight; they will behold a sign—if only they would benefit from it.’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ conveyed Gabriel’s words to them, so they went out on the night of the splitting (3), the fourteenth night of the month. The moon split into two halves—one above al-Ṣafā and the other above al-Marwah. They stared at it, rubbed their eyes, looked again, rubbed their eyes once more, and looked yet again. Then they said, ‘O Muḥammad, this is nothing but passing sorcery.’ Thereupon Allah revealed: “The Hour has drawn near and the moon has split” (Q 54:1).

He also transmitted (5) from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:

Jewish rabbis came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, ‘Show us a sign so that we may believe in you.’ He asked his Lord, and He showed them the moon split in two halves—one upon al-Ṣafā and the other upon al-Marwah—which remained visible from late afternoon until nightfall while they kept watching it; then it disappeared. They said, ‘This is persistent magic.’ (7)

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī (8) said: ‘Aḥmad ibn ʿAmr al-Bazzār (9) narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Qaṭʿī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Bakr narrated to us; Ibn Jurayj narrated to us, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: The moon was eclipsed in the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and the people said, “The moon has been bewitched.” Then the verses were revealed: “The Hour has drawn near and the moon has split. Yet if they see a sign they turn away and say, ‘Persistent magic’” (Q 54:1-2).

This chain is sound, and it indicates that the eclipse occurred on that very night. It is therefore possible that the splitting coincided with the night of the eclipse, which explains why the event went unnoticed by many people on earth—perhaps it was a winter night when most people were indoors, or clouds concealed it from large parts of the world (10); yet, even so, it was witnessed in many regions.

It is also said that the incident was recorded in some parts of India, where a building was erected that very night and dated to the night of the moon’s splitting.