And the Moon remains … out of reach

How an Islamic dawah miracle self-destructs

Jochen Katz

Several Muslim propagandists claim that the Qur’an predicted man’s journey to the moon, and they bring forward several passages to support this claim. I highly recommend Masud Masihiyyen’s masterful article, Islamic humor reaching for the moon, as a comprehensive examination of many aspects of these claims as they are put forward by Harun Yahya.

In this article I will examine Caner Taslaman’s version¹ of the same claim, comment on some of his peculiar details, and add a few important aspects into the discussion that have not been touched upon by Masud Masihiyyen.

In the following, we will see how Taslaman corrupts the Qur’an by twisting the clear structure and meaning of the passage, and then, ironically, doesn’t even take this own manipulated interpretation seriously since it results in a blatantly false prophecy for the Qur’an.

Let’s go through Taslaman’s sermon paragraph by paragraph.

Rhetorically, this paragraph is nicely done. But none of this has any relevance for showing that the Qur’an predicts a journey to the moon. And the second sentence is really scientific nonsense. In the lunar calendar the moon is the reference point. Does Taslaman want to tell us that the moon calculates itself? Moreover, one of the problematic features of the Islamic lunar calendar is that it cannot ever be calculated precisely because it depends on the visibility of the moon, not only its (calculated and actual) position. Most websites offering an Islamic calendar also add a precaution in that regard (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, ...).

The next three paragraphs provide the essence of Taslaman’s argument:

Taslaman again proves himself to be a master manipulator of the text of the Qur’an. The word “and” (wa) is called a conjunction because it conjoins or connects what comes before with what comes after. It does not stress or emphasize what comes after, it simply connects two pieces. If “wa” emphasizes anything at all, then it emphasizes the need for the reader to look at what comes before and not start the quotation in mid-sentence lest he misunderstands what the text intends to say.

So then, let us take the “wa” seriously and start quoting from the beginning of the sentence.²

Clearly, it is not the “wa” that is translated as “by” but the preposition “bi” in verse 16 that rules or spans all those nouns and expressions from verse 16 to 18 which together make up the full list of witnesses to this oath. The moon is simply one of the elements in the oath formula in verses 16-18.³

Let’s illustrate this with a little story. Assume that Caner Taslaman has a friend by the name of Mesut, who had promised him for a long time that he would visit him, but somehow the visit happened. Mesut doesn’t have a car, so he has to take the bus, and even has to change buses a number of times. Caner calls Mesut on the phone and the latter makes this vow: “I swear by the moon when it is full,⁴ next week I will surely ride from station to station.” Are we then supposed to understand that Caner Taslaman lives on the moon, and that in Turkey one can take a bus to travel to the moon?⁵ Or that the public transport system in Istanbul⁶ has a bus stop named “The Moon” which happens to be the one next to Taslaman’s home?

That would be a ridiculous interpretation, but that is essentially what Taslaman wants us to believe when reading this passage from Surah 84.

By ripping the moon out of the witness part of the oath formula and attaching it to the next clause that constitutes the content statement, Taslaman is tearing up the text of the Qur’an and re-assembling it again in order to inject into the text a meaning that is not there. Is Taslaman really only a semi-literate person who does not know the structure of an oath? Here is the Wikipedia definition:

In other words, an oath consists of two parts, (1) an appeal to a witness (one or more, someone or, in the case of the Qur’an, something), and (2) the content of the statement (of fact or promise). In our case, verses 16-18 are the “calling upon”, the appeal to the witness, and verse 19 presents the content, the statement that is affirmed and made serious by prefacing it with “I swear by … (that …)”  The moon is called upon to be a witness,⁷ but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the statement. To mix up the two parts of an oath is to expose oneself as uneducated and ignorant, or as a deliberate manipulator and corrupter of the meaning of the text. And if the text is passage of the Qur’an, this is surely a serious matter.

Taslaman then uses many words to force his pet idea:

Whatever the exact meaning of Sura 84:19 – and we will look into that shortly –, we have already seen that Taslaman has committed several serious linguistic errors, exposing either his considerable ignorance or his evil intent in a deliberate manipulation of the text.

The first of these errors was that he destroyed the structure of the text by starting the quotation of the passage in mid-sentence, hiding the beginning of the statement so that readers cannot clearly see the oath-structure of it. The second piece of corruption is that he removes the reference to the moon from the “witness part” of the oath and binds it to the “statement part” which is an unacceptable manipulation.

With this approach to interpretation, a Mafiosi’s vow, “By my father, I am going to kill this guy”, speaking of one of his competitors or even a police detective who prevented one of his drug deals, would then mean that his father is actually the object of the action, i.e. that he is threatening to kill his own father. Even if Taslaman should refuse to understand the flaw in his method of interpretation, and will not correct his errors but continue to spread the same claim, I am sure the majority of the readers have grasped the problem by now.

These observations alone effectively refute Taslaman’s interpretation and the discussion could end here. But just in case some Muslim readers are not convinced yet, let us continue as more blunders and contradictions are to be found in Taslaman’s exposition of the Qur’an.

[Readers who do not want to plough through each and every one of the many errors made by Taslaman, may want to jump directly the main scientific reason why his interpretation results in a false prophecy of the Qur’an.]

The third piece of his manipulation is the nonsense statement:

For somebody who writes a voluminous book about the Qur’an,⁸ who is a “Qur’an expositor”, and who even claims to know better than the earlier commentators,⁹ it is more than embarrassing that he does not even know the most basic linguistic rules and features of language. It is shameful. If he doesn’t know it, he is grossly ignorant. On the other hand, if he knows it but manipulates the meaning of words and sentence structures deliberately, then that is even worse and he needs to be publicly exposed for his fraud and deception that he actively spreads to a wide audience.

No, “wa” never means “by”, not even in the Qur’an. The conjunction simply extends the reach of “by” (in this case) or any other preposition over two or more entities. If I say, “I am going to travel through Germany and Switzerland next year”, then the conjunction “and” extends the reach of the preposition “through” to cover also the object “Switzerland”, i.e. “through Germany” and “through Switzerland”, but “and” does not mean “through,” and never will mean “through.” Taslaman’s explanation of Arabic is simply ludicrous.¹⁰

Taslaman is correct to say that earlier commentators on the Qur’an had different opinions about the meaning of Q. 84:19. And I agree that the statement in this verse is somewhat vague or mysterious – as the Qur’an often is. However, the fact that a passage is not entirely clear that does not mean we can do with it whatever we like. The fact that earlier commentators had different opinions on it is no justification for twisting the passage into a prophecy of a journey of the moon by destroying its literary structure.

Ironically, even where Taslaman is correct, he condemns himself. By reporting the interpretations of earlier commentaries he admits that he has studied their explanations and cannot plead ignorance about the syntax, grammar and literary structure of this passage. His manipulation of the meaning is not an honest mistake, because he did not know better, but he has consulted the commentaries and studied the passage. His subsequent corruption of it can only be called deliberate.

Even though the statement in verse 19 is somewhat mysterious,¹¹ that does not mean that we cannot be certain about anything or that it can mean anything we like. Let’s take a closer look.

Verses 16-18 are the “witness” part of the oath, verse 19 is the emphatic statement, the content of the oath, and verses 20-21 then ask the question why certain people do not believe the message of Muhammad / the Qur’an.

It is obvious that in regard to the original audience, the author of the Qur’an expected faith and submission to be the normal response to the statement made in verse 19. Note that verses 20-21 are in the present tense! Even though verse 19 may not be entirely clear to us, it was certainly supposed to be clear to the original hearers, as otherwise it would not make any sense to expect immediate faith from them based on this statement! In other words, we may not have the full context of the statement, not enough information to fully understand what verse 19 meant to the original audience, but it must be a meaning that made sense in their time. A prophecy of a journey to the moon 1400 years later is not such a statement. This cannot possibly have been the intended meaning. Just as Taslaman said, this would have been “unimaginable” and thus not a basis upon which to call people to faith in Muhammad’s time. The meaning of the statement must be such that people in the time of Muhammad could easily agree with it and would consider it to be a true statement – even if they did not all agree with the desired implication that they should therefore believe in Muhammad’s message and embrace the religion of Islam.

In fact, when we look at the pronouns, then Taslaman is guilty of corruption again. Verse 19 makes a general statement about “you”, i.e. speaking to all listeners. All of you will “ride from stage to stage” (and therefore the classical interpretation of “childhood to adulthood to old age to the next life” makes sense even if it is not explicit). Therefore, just as you have stages in this life, isn’t it natural to assume that there is another stage in a life to come, i.e. the hereafter? Therefore, when you think of life after death, of the resurrection and the judgment, how can you refuse to believe? How can you refuse to believe (my message) against common sense, against good evidence?

That is the inner logic of this dawah sermon. As the text itself says, (all of) you will go from this life to the next, but only some of you believe. There are others, “they”, who do not believe. The Muslims are those who believe this message, and the non-Muslims are those who do not believe (v. 20) and do not bow (v. 21). The “you” (v. 19) addresses all people, but the “they” (vv. 20-21) are the “unbelievers” and thus the “outsiders”, of whom is spoken in the third person.

Again, the text says YOU all will ride from stage to stage, but THEY do not believe. This makes clear that this ride is not restricted to a few people but refers to all people and cannot refer to Armstrong’s journey to the moon, but refers to a journey all of us take. And the split between believers and unbelievers that is in view in this passage happened already in Muhammad’s day, not only many centuries later.

In order to obtain Taslaman’s interpretation, the pronouns “you” and “they” need to be switched. THEY (some people far away) will take a ride; why then do YOU (here) not believe? Taslaman wants us to believe that verse 19 speaks not of the original audience (“you”) but of some other people in the distant future (“they”) who will travel to the moon. And based on this journey to the moon of a very few people (three people in Apollo 11), the Qur’an asks now all of us: Why then do you not believe?

No way, José! Dear readers, realize that you are taken for a ride. Switch on your critical thinking, detox your mind, and do not let the dawagandists and Qur’an manipulators deceive you!

If the author of the Qur’an had intended to say that “one day, some men will travel to the moon”,¹² nothing could have hindered him to state this. The words needed to say it clearly were all available; many of them are even present in these couple of verses and all of them are found in the Qur’an. It is not something that would have been “impossible to express” at the time of Muhammad.¹³

However, we are not done yet.

All of the above is irrelevant. It is already refuted. There is no prediction of a journey to the moon in this passage of the Qur’an. They only reason I wanted to quote these paragraphs, is to point out that with the words “may refer …” Taslaman finally admits that he is not so sure after all that his interpretation is actually correct.

Furthermore, there is one final but highly important detail that seems to have escaped Taslaman’s attention. Although I am clearly beating a dead horse by now, here comes the final blow.

A false Prophecy?

The verse Q. 84:18 does not simply mention “the moon”, but speaks about a specific phase of the moon. The very first line of Taslaman’s chapter states:

Why does Taslaman only import “the moon” from verse 18 into verse 19 but does not pay any attention to the specification of “what kind of a moon” is spoken about in verse 18? Let us rectify this careless oversight.

Taslaman clearly connects this “prophecy of the Qur’an” not with moon missions in general, but with one particular journey to the moon, when he writes:

Therefore, let us find the answer to the question: What was the phase of the moon during the journey of Apollo 11?

Gladly, the internet provides us today with wonderful tools, such as the “Moon Phase Calculator” that allows us to query for the phases of the moon in any year and country. Choosing the year 1969 and London as location since Universal Time is based on the Prime Meridian through Greenwich¹⁴ we get a table that contains the following line:

Noting that Apollo 11 was launched on July 16 (13:32:00 UT), arrived on the moon on July 20 (20:17:40 UT), departed the moon on July 21 (17:54:01 UT), and arrived back on earth on July 24 (16:50:35 UT), it is obvious that the “Journey TO the Moon” (Taslaman’s title) took place in its entirety while the moon, as viewed from the earth, was visible even less than half! In fact, Apollo 11 already left the moon for its return journey before the moon became half-visible from the earth!

In other words, if we accept Taslaman’s (manipulative and false) interpretation of the text, we obtain a blatantly false prophecy of the Qur’an. Neil Armstrong aboard Apollo 11 did not “ride from stage to stage” towards the moon when the moon was full, but when it was visible less than half. Thus, Taslaman failed on all counts to inject a scientific-prophetic miracle into the Qur’an.

Odds and ends

What about the other moon missions?

It is easy enough to obtain the list of all manned moon missions (*), i.e. Apollo 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and find their dates of departure and return, and then check with the Moon Phase Calculator whether these flights had a full moon or not.

[Note: Due to technical problems, the team of Apollo 13 did not land on moon as intended but returned after a single pass around the moon.]

Conclusion: It seems that, just to annoy the Islamic propagandists, God orchestrated the moon missions in such a way that not even one of the flights TO the moon would happen at the time of a full moon, and even most of the return flights were completed before the full moon arrived on the scene. Only at two missions, Apollo 12 and 15, the astronauts had a full moon “behind them” on the day before they arrived on earth again, i.e. they travelled “from stage to stage” towards the earth when the moon became full.

What about the rest of the oath?

If the last one of the witnesses to the oath, the moon, is included in the content statement, what about the first two witnesses? If the moon in v. 19 is turned into the destination of the ride, then surely the first two verses,

give additional prophetic information that (a) this journey would be started at twilight and (b) the travelling would then take place during the night!?¹⁵

Therefore, we ask: At what time did Apollo 11 start? The already referenced Apollo 11 facts page gives the answer:

So, we have a double contradiction regarding the time of the day. In the month of July, 9:32 AM local time is already bright day in Florida, certainly not “twilight”. Furthermore, the start was not late evening when the sun goes down and night falls, but in the morning and Apollo 11 flew into the day, not into and during the night.

Next we ask: What does “night” actually mean? A place being “in the night” means that it is in the shadow of the earth, so that the rays of the sun cannot reach it. However, in outer space, in most places there is no night because there are no bodies large enough to cover the sun.¹⁶ Moreover, the Lunar Module of Apollo 11 landed on the side of the moon that was illuminated by the sun, i.e. on the “day side” of the moon.¹⁷ No night there either.

Take a careful look at this graphic:

(Source: Wikipedia, Moon; 24 October 2011)

The journey of Apollo 11 towards the moon took place during the Waxing Crescent interval.¹⁸ The mission started from the day side of the earth and they landed on the day side of the moon. Looking at the above picture, it should be obvious that any reasonably direct trajectory does remain in full view of the sun and does not pass through the shadow of either the earth or the moon.

Since the above image is not drawn to scale, let’s also look at an approximation of the trajectory that shows the correct proportions.

(Source: Apollo 11's Translunar Trajectory; 24 October 2011)

The Sun would be located far away to the bottom of the “Top View” image, or above the “Side View” image of the trajectory, again illustrating that Apollo 11 would be at no time in the shadow.

To summarize, Apollo 11 started in bright day, and as soon as it was far enough from the earth, the likelihood for the trajectory to cross the earth shadow is quite small anyhow.¹⁹

And the return journey was no darker either:

Conclusion: the whole journey happened in bright day light. It seems that only thing “enveloped by the night” (v. 17) in connection with the Apollo 11 mission is Caner Taslaman’s mind.

Why Christians?

If this event is really so crucial to Islam as some Muslim propagandists want to make it appear (see the articles, “Allah’s timing?” and “Splitting the Moon”), and since there are not only one but several Qur’an miracles / prophecies claimed for the historical event of the Apollo 11 moon mission,²⁰ should Muslims not be baffled and find it rather strange that God would predict this event in multiple ways and code several details of it into the Qur’an and then send non-Muslims (“unbelievers”) to the moon, among whom was at least one very committed Christian,²¹ Edwin Aldrin,²² who celebrated the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ by taking Holy Communion on the moon? (1, 2)

Yet another hoax!

Somehow the triumph of Islam must be found in every major event of world history. Islam must harvest some of the fruits and get some of the glory, … somehow. Thus, it is not too surprising that some Muslim(s) invented the tale that Neil Armstrong heard the Adhan on the moon and later converted to Islam, cf. the article “How Neil Armstrong became a Muslim”.