La Luna: A “Bite-Size” Lunar Miracle
As I was pondering a passage in the Qur’ān in which the word “al-Qamar” — the Arabic word for “the Moon” — appeared, I wondered if the word had any other meanings or metaphorical usage. When I looked at the (excellent) Quranic Arabic Corpus page, I noticed that it lists a total of 27 occurrences of al-Qamar in the Qur’an.
“Twenty-seven?” I thought to myself. “That’s only a few days shorter than the length of the lunar month.”
You see, this possible association — between 27 occurrences and the 29.5-day-long lunar month — popped up so naturally in my mind because as someone who has been reading the Qur’an since my childhood, it is impossible not to be overpowered by its never-ending wonders and miracles that greet you seemingly every time you open its pages.
Yes, miracles, some of which are so profound and comprehensive that it would take volumes to show them in all their glory; others that are “bite-size,” so to speak — delightful wonders that can potentially be noticed by anyone who reads the Qur’an with an open mind and a sincere heart, and it would increase their faith and warm their heart.
So, I had this nagging feeling because the Qur’an never has a near miss. Never. Anytime it dangles a “marvel” or a “sign” in front of us that looks close-but-not-exact, you can be sure that there is a twist that we missed. And when we finally figure it out, we realize that the connection is even more perfect and beautiful than we had initially suspected.
As I was pondering these, I remembered a verse that mentions the “new moon.” Because there is a separate word for “crescent” in Arabic — al-Hilāl (الهلال) — this verse was not in the list for al-Qamar I had just looked up.
It turns out, the verse I had in mind was the singular appearance of al-Hilāl in the Qur’an (Q2:189):
…يَسْـَٔلُونَكَ عَنِ ٱلْأَهِلَّةِ قُلْ هِىَ مَوَٰقِيتُ لِلنَّاسِ وَٱلْحَجِّ
They ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about (the phases of) the crescent moons. Say, “They are a means for people to determine time and pilgrimage…
Notice that the verse actually mentions al-Hilāl in plural form, “the crescent moons”, which refers to the gradual growth of the new moon in the days after its first appearance. We will return to this detail later.
This verse brought the total mentions of the moon to 28.
This discussion about the new moon made me think of the “full moon” but I didn’t remember it being mentioned in the Qur’an. My loyal friend chatGPT reminded me that the Arabic word for the full moon “Badr” is also the name of a location between Mecca and Madina, which happens to be where the most famous battle of the Islamic history was fought — the Battle of Badr. And this battle is mentioned by name in the Quran (Q3:123):
وَلَقَدْ نَصَرَكُمُ ٱللَّهُ بِبَدْرٍ وَأَنتُمْ أَذِلَّةٌ ۖ فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
Indeed, Allah made you victorious at Badr when you were ˹vastly˺ outnumbered. So be mindful of Allah, perhaps you will be grateful.
What is perhaps more surprising is that although this battle is recounted several times in the Qur’an, the name Badr occurs only once — just like the full moon appearing in only one single night!
(Those with unlimited curiosity might wonder: what day of the lunar month did the Battle of Badr took place? Because Muslims used a lunar calendar at the time, and because this battle is so famous, we do now the exact date: on the 17th Day of the lunar month of Ramadan — only two days after the full moon, when the sky is almost as bright as the full moon!)
This verse brought the total mentions to 29 — but with a very elegant twist: rather than repeating the generic name al-Qamar 29 times, the Qur’an has one verse specifically about the “new moon,” another verse about the “full moon,” and 27 others with regular moons.
This of course makes us wonder — how about the “old moon”, or the last day of the waning Gibbous?
Lo and behold! Here is verse 39 of Sūrat Yasin (Q36:39):
وَٱلْقَمَرَ قَدَّرْنَـٰهُ مَنَازِلَ حَتَّىٰ عَادَ كَٱلْعُرْجُونِ ٱلْقَدِيمِ
As for the moon, We have ordained ˹precise˺ phases for it, until it ends up ˹looking˺ like an old, curved palm stalk.
The verse begins with “al-Qamar” and describes how it gradually shrinks until it becomes a curved branch of a date tree — the last word of the verse. In other words, the verse does not only mention the “old moon” but it gives a poetic description of how the moon shrinks into waning Gibbous, ending up as the “old moon” at the end.
This mention brings the total to 30! — and does so while raising the bar further, by giving a precise account of twenty-seven (regular) moons, one new moon, one full moon, and one old moon. Not one of them is too few or too many — each exactly as it is supposed to be.
Notice also how the mentions of the new moon (Q2:189) and the old moon (Q36:39) — the bookends of the lunar month — are dynamic, the former referring to “crescent moons” to emphasize its growth, while the latter similarly describes how it goes through its “ordained phases” until it becomes the old moon.
This suggests another thought: How are the mentions of the new, full, and old moons, ordered in the Qur’an?
The table below shows the list of mentions in order.
The Ordering of Moon Phases
Notice the order in which the three special names of the moon appear in the Qur’an:
The very first mention of the moon (Q2:189) is of the new moon!
Not only does the new moon appear before the other two phases but also before any of the other 29 mentions of the moon in the Qur’an, just as the new moon is the beginning of the lunar cycle.
The new moon is followed by the full moon (Q3:123), and the old moon is in last place and comes much later in (Q36:39). So, the three special phases of the moon appear in the Qur’an exactly according to their astronomical order.
This made me curious about the very late appearance of the old moon (in Surah 36), so I counted how many times the regular moon “al-Qamar” appears between the full moon and the old moon in the list. The answer is 15 — or exactly half the lunar month!
And perhaps, to make the answer even more exact (for those nitpickers like me), the 15th appearance of al-Qamar happens to occur in the same verse (Q36:39) as the “old moon” (urjūn’il qadīm), so that there are 14 verses separating the full moon from the old moon, as is the case when the lunar month is 29 days.
Speaking of 29-day months, notice that al-Qamar occurs twice in verse Q41:37, meaning that we see “the moon” in 26 verses, not 27.
Adding the three occurrences of special phase names to these 26 gives us 29 verses in which different phases of the moon is mentioned. This seems to be a nod to the fact that the lunar month is sometimes 29 days and sometimes 30, averaging 29.5 days. And when it is 29, the three special phases of new, full, and old, are always intact, with one fewer day of the generic moon. Just like in this alternative calculation.
Summary
Wow. What started with a small curiosity, from noticing the 27 occurrence of al-Qamar, revealed one surprise after another until we were presented with a remarkable order within the Qur’an.
Let’s summarize what we found:
The Qur’an mentions the moon 30 times — 27 of which are the generic name for the moon and three of them spell out the new moon, the full moon, and the old moon.
The name of the full moon — Badr — is also the name of a famous Battle, which is recounted at length in the Qur’an, yet the name occurs only once.
The new, full, and old moon appear in the Qur’an exactly according to their astronomical order.
The new moon is mentioned in Chapter 2 and is the first of the 30 mentions of the moon names.
There is exactly 15 mentions of “the moon” between the mentions of the “full moon” and “old moon” and 14 verses in which these occur.
Al-Qamar occurs twice in one verse, so the moon appears in 26 verses, for a total of 29 verses, with distinct moon names. Perhaps a nod to the 29-day lunar months, which is half of the year.
When we consider these six facts collectively, it is clear that the chances of all of these occurring at once by chance is practically zero.
If someone beset by excessive doubt is tempted to suggest that one can carefully craft these features into a book since these astronomical facts were known in ancient times, that is indeed true. However, they will be sorely disappointed to learn that this is but one of thousands of such miracles in the Qur’an, especially in the precision of its counts, orderings, and broad structure, which collectively makes any kind of tampering beyond any human capacity. We will share more of these bite-sized miracles about the Qur’anic order and precision in upcoming articles.
Final Thoughts
The Qur’an is an endless ocean of knowledge and wisdom as it states itself (Q18:110), so as much as I find these signs of meticulous and masterful design in the Qur'an delightful and increasing our faith in it every day, I am also the first to recognize that this article probably only scratched the surface of the secrets about the mentions of the moon in the Qur’an.
Let me give a few examples for further investigation.
What can the contents of the 27 verses with the mentions of the moon tell us? How are they organized? Are they in any way linked to each other? Furthermore, in 20 of these 27 verses (and of 30 total), the moon is mentioned together with the Sun, the others are not (Corpus link). Anything to learn from these?
Why does the mentions of the “new moon” and “full moon” appear back-to-back (in chapters 2 and 3), and the “generic” moon is not mentioned until chapter 6? Since there are 30 occurrences of the moon in the Qur’an, and the full moon and old moon are separated by 14 or 15 moons as we saw above, couldn’t the “full moon” appear in 15th place in the table and the old moon in the 30th place?
I don’t know the answer to these questions but what I know with certainty is that there is a really compelling wisdom in the way it is currently arranged. I can say this with utmost confidence because I have never been able to find a single case where any human can think ahead of the Qur’an.
If it occurs to us, the Creator who sent us the Qur’an has always known about it. He only wants us to ponder some more and be ready to be awed when we find the answer.