Two Unanswered Challenges — Abu Lahab and the Splitting of the Moon
Two events recorded in the Quran were witnessed or lived through by the very people who opposed Islam — and neither group denied them. Both stand as unanswered challenges to those who claim the Quran is the composition of Muhammad ﷺ.
The Prophecy of Abu Lahab
The Challenge
“Perish the two hands of Abu Lahab and perish he! His wealth and his children will not benefit him! He will be burnt in a Fire of blazing flames! And his wife too, who carries wood — in her neck is a twisted rope of palm fibre.”
This surah was revealed at the very beginning of Islam — many years before the death of Abu Lahab. It declared, with absolute certainty, that Abu Lahab would die as a disbeliever and enter the Fire.
Why This Is a Miracle
Abu Lahab heard these verses repeatedly. He knew what they said. The simplest way to destroy Islam at its root would have been for him to publicly declare the shahada — to say “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah” — even insincerely, even as a political manoeuvre. Had he done so, the surah would have appeared to be falsified and the entire religion could have been undermined.
Abu Lahab never did it. Not once in the years between the revelation of this surah and his death.
If Muhammad ﷺ were the author of the Quran — as disbelievers and atheists claim — he would never have named his own uncle in a surah condemning him to the Fire. By any human logic, he would have promised his uncle Paradise, using the family bond to strengthen his support base. The fact that the Quran condemned Abu Lahab by name, and that Abu Lahab’s behaviour confirmed that condemnation until his death, is proof that the One who revealed the Quran knew with certainty what Abu Lahab would never do — because He knows the past, the present, and the future.
The Splitting of the Moon
Moon Split Miracle: NASA, Mayan, and Indian Evidence That Critics Ignore
The Event
“The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has been cleft asunder. And if they see a sign, they turn away and say: ‘This is continuous magic.’ They belied and followed their own lusts.”
The people of Makkah had asked the Prophet ﷺ to show them a miracle. He showed them the splitting of the moon. When these verses were revealed, not a single person in Makkah — among the disbelievers or the atheists — called the Prophet ﷺ a liar about the event itself.
Why the Silence of the Disbelievers Is Proof
Their response was not denial — it was “this is continuous magic.” That response is significant. You do not accuse someone of magic for an event that did not happen. You accuse them of magic precisely because you saw something real and cannot explain it. The disbelievers of Makkah saw the splitting of the moon with their own eyes, in multiple groups, from different locations — and they could not deny the event. They could only reframe it.
Had the believers not witnessed the event themselves, they would have had reason to doubt. But they saw it. That is why, across twenty-three years of the Prophet’s ﷺ life in Islam — during which the Companions asked him constantly about the meaning of verses and the details of past events — they never once asked him to explain the splitting of the moon. By the logic of the situation, there was nothing to ask: they had seen it with their own eyes.