Allah the Exalted said: “The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has split.” What is the view of the Salaf regarding the splitting?

The Shaykh: , What is the view of the Salaf regarding the splitting? And how can one answer the spectators who claim that man has reached the moon?
What is the problem with this?
The view of the Salaf is, without a doubt, that the moon split, without a doubt. First: because of this verse, as it is explicit in reporting, . Second: because of the arrival of hadiths in “al-Sahihayn” and others, from the hadith of Ibn Mas’ud and Anas ibn Malik and others—also—whose names do not come to my mind, all of whom said: The polytheists asked for a sign from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), so he pointed to the moon, and it split into two halves until one half fell behind the mountain. This is an authentic hadith, and the Ummah accepted it, and it explains this verse: . So there is no problem for us with this prophetic miracle, among the tens, rather miracles, rather hundreds of miracles established for the Messenger (may Allah’s prayer and peace be upon him).
As for the questioner’s statement: How can one answer the spectators who claim to have reached the moon?
Are we, in our capacity as Muslims, obligated first to convince every disbeliever of every legal truth we have? The answer is: No. And second: Is the principle of sound research to begin research with the disbeliever on a detail of the details of the religion, or do we begin with him on the root of roots? So we begin first with his faith in Allah: is he a believer or an atheist? If he is a believer, we take a second step: is he a believer in the prophets and messengers, or is he a disbeliever? If he is a believer, we move to his faith in Islam, the Qur’an and the Sunnah. At that point, the problem ends naturally. But if he is not a believer in any of these truths, it is not permissible to begin with him on the problem of the moon’s splitting, but rather we begin with the more important, then what is below it, and so on.
Therefore, I advise the questioner not to consider it a problem that he cannot convince the disbeliever of the moon’s splitting; because the moon’s splitting is nothing compared to their denial of the existence of the Creator of the moon, the existence of this Great Creator who taught man what he did not know, and enabled him to ascend to the moon. So this is a blessing by which Allah favored His servants, but they denied it and disbelieved in it, so they forgot Allah, and He forgot them. Therefore, the questioner should not be surprised that it is not possible for a Muslim to convince the disbeliever of the occurrence of this prophetic miracle; because this is secondary compared to the other legal truths which are more important than this.
Then it appears from the questioner’s question that he thinks and imagines that when the moon split, it became, what should I tell you? Like a tree if you split it, it joins back, but what remains in it? A trace of the joining remains. So it seems the questioner imagines that Allah (Mighty and Majestic), who made the moon two halves by His power, is unable to return the half to its sister, so that the moon becomes as it was before, such that a person at that moment, the moment of the joining of each of the halves to the other, does not see a trace of what? The splitting. As if the questioner thinks that there must be a very deep gap that appears to those who rode the moon today that indeed a splitting occurred. It is not necessary... he imagines this imagination. I do not say: this is impossible. It is possible that there is in fact a trace of the split, and perhaps it will appear, and it is possible that there is no trace for it. So what is the danger that our brother the questioner imagined!
However—our brothers—the truth is that because of our weakness, we Muslims, because of our lack of trust in ourselves first, and our blind trust in these disbelievers; we give them more trust and knowledge than they acknowledge for themselves. That this disbeliever ascended to the moon; did he discover the whole moon? Did he encompass both sides of the moon as is said today, encompassing it by scanning, tourism, and discovery? I, with my little reading and perusal, have not known this, and my opinion is that they have not discovered of the moon to this day except as the common people say: “except the ear of the camel.” So is it necessary that this split appears to them if it has a trace? It is not necessary.
In summary: This is a matter I see that—our brothers—should not occupy their minds in it, because it is very secondary, and the great problem is to try to convince these people of Islam and faith in it.