The absence of a surviving foreign record does not disprove the event, but it does challenge one particular version of the argument: that the moon must have undergone a globally obvious, astronomically permanent rupture. The Quran and authentic hadith do not require that interpretation.
Why the objection sounds powerful
The objection is reasonable if the claim is framed this way: the entire moon physically split for a substantial period, everyone on the night side of Earth could see it, and the event should therefore appear in Chinese, Indian, Persian, or Byzantine astronomical records. Those civilizations did preserve observations of eclipses and comets. If such a worldwide spectacle left no independent trace, one may argue that the historical case is weak.
That is a fair challenge to that specific reconstruction. It is not, however, the same as showing that the Quranic event did not occur.
What the Quran and hadith actually report
The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has split. Yet whenever they see a sign, they turn away and say, "Ongoing magic."
Quran 54:1-2
The verse presents the splitting as a sign witnessed by people who then rejected it. It does not say that every nation on Earth saw it, that it continued for hours, or that it produced a lasting change detectable by later astronomers. The Arabic expression is compatible with a miraculous sign occurring at a particular place and time.
The moon was split into two parts during the lifetime of the Prophet (PBUH), and one part was seen on one side of the mountain and the other part on the other side of it. The Prophet (PBUH) said, "Bear witness."
Sahih al-Bukhari 3636, in translation
Other reports in Sahih al-Bukhari describe the Meccans requesting a sign and the Prophet (PBUH) showing them the splitting of the moon (Sahih al-Bukhari 3868). The mainstream classical interpretation, including that of al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir, understood these reports as referring to a real miracle, not merely an eclipse or a metaphor. The hadith, however, describes what was seen around Mecca; it does not establish a hemisphere-wide astronomical event.
What missing records do and do not establish
A miracle is not required to operate like a natural event whose effects can be predicted, measured, and repeated. A localized sign could have been visible only from part of the region, for a short time, under conditions in which many people were asleep, indoors, or affected by clouds and haze. Ancient records are also selective and unevenly preserved. The fact that we do not possess an independent foreign report is therefore not the same as evidence that no one could have seen it.
At most, the objection shows that we should not casually claim that every civilization on the night side of Earth witnessed a permanent astronomical rupture. It does not refute the Quran or the authentic reports, which describe a witnessed miracle granted to the people confronting the Prophet (PBUH), not a global scientific event designed to enter every civilization's chronicle.