Some writers assert that Habib having asked the Prophet to perform a miracle, in order to prove the veracity of his mission, Mohammad gave an order to the moon which incontinently split into two equal parts; one ascending towards the East and the other to the West. According to the opinion of the most trustworthy doctors of Islam, such as Al Baidawi and Zamakhshri, this verse really means: "The hour (of the Day of Resurrection) approacheth and (to announce it) the moon will be cleft." The truth of this assertion is proved by the verses that follow almost immediately: "_Turn away then from them (The Unbelievers)! On the day when the summoner shall summon to a horrible affair, * With downcast eyes shall they come forth from their graves, as if they were scattered locusts._" (THE QUR'AN, LIV, 6 AND 7.) Besides, this supposed miracle is so flagrantly contradicted by numerous verses of the Qur'an that it is not possible to admit it. "_Nothing hindered Us from sending thee (Mohammad) with the power of working miracles, except that the people of old treated them as lies._" (THE QUR'AN, XVII, 61.) There was such slight efficacity in miracles! The Israelites bowed down to the Golden Calf immediately after the miracle wrought by Moses to save them from the waves of the Red Sea and Pharaoh's hosts. The idolaters of Makkah would not have been more greatly impressed by the sight of the most astonishing miracle. "_With their most binding oath have they sworn by Allah, that if a sign come unto them, they will certainly believe it; Say: Signs are in the power of Allah alone: and what shall make ye to understand that if they were wrought these men would not believe it * And though We had sent down the Angels to them, and the dead had spoken to them, and We had gathered all things about them in hosts, they had not believed, unless Allah willed it._" (THE QUR'AN, VI, 109, 111.) [Sidenote: THE MIRACLE OF THE QUR'AN] Nevertheless there was one miracle, the only one placed to Mohammad's credit, and which was the cause of great anxiety among the Quraish idolaters: the miracle of the "Ayates," a word generally rendered by "Verses," but really meaning: "miraculous signs" of the Qur'an. The miracles wrought by earlier Prophets had been transient, so to say, and for that very reason, rapidly forgotten, while that of the Verses may be called "The Permanent Miracle." Its activity was unceasing. Everywhere and at all hours, each Believer, by reciting the Verses, helped to realise the miracle, and in this can be found the explanation of many sudden conversions, incomprehensible for the European who knows nothing of the Qur'an, or judges it by cold and inaccurate translations.