Wisdom and Apocalypse (Q 54:1–5)

Abstract Chapter 3 examines the chronologically earliest ḥikmah passage in the Qur’an, Q 54:5 (Sūrat al-Qamar), where following a description of the splitting of the moon, the stories of the destruction of past nations are called ḥikmah. The chapter attempts to demonstrate that the use of ḥikmah in the passage aligns with its employment in pre-qur’anic Jewish and Christian texts that merge wisdom and apocalyptic traditions and call the news of the impending eschaton ‘wisdom’. This chapter argues that the reference to the splitting of the moon at the opening of the sūrah refers to a lunar eclipse that we can probably identify historically, and considers what implications that has for understanding ḥikmah.