By Babatunde Jose
Humankind has always been concerned with time, the passage of time, the measurement of time, and the scientific qualities of time. We talk about time travel, the relativity of time, the direction of time and the wheel of time.
Time even has economic value. Time is money. Time has social and personal importance; we use our concept of time to place events appointments and milestones in sequence. We order our lives around time, in Islam lives are structured around the daily prayers.
In the 11th century, Avicenna (Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn bin ʿAbdillāh ibn al-Hasan bin ʿAlī ibn Sīnā) doubted the existence of physical time, arguing that time exists only in the mind due to memory and expectation. Islamic and Christian theologians adopted the idea that time is linear. Verses from the Bible tell us there is a time for everything. Ecclesiastes 3:1
Another perspective of time relativity is the changing forms of man mentioned in the Quran. When mankind will be resurrected, they will think that they stayed in the Earth for a brief period: And on the Day when He will gather them, [it will be] as if they had not remained [in the world] but an hour of the day…. (Quran 10:45)
Allah talks of the bodily resurrection on the Day of Judgement. Most Muslims have consensus on the belief, and it is also considered as a necessary principle of faith. All the believers in heavenly religions have consensus that resurrection would be bodily, and it is a necessary principle of faith. After the blowing of the trumpet and the death of all men; and the changing and sinking into themselves of the general systems of the earth and the heavens, the trumpet would be blown once again, and all the human beings present in Barzakh would become alive again and present themselves before the Almighty Allah for accounting of their deeds. See Quran 83:4-6; 4:87; 19:66-67; 30:19; 30:27; 22:5-7. Sadruddin Shirazi writes: The fact is that in resurrection, this same worldly body will return and not something like it; in such a way that if one sees that, he will say: He is so and so person that was present in the world. Biharul Anwar, Vol. 7, Pg. 47.
There is no doubt, Islam is a meta-historical religion. The key “events” which determine man’s metaphysical makeup all take place outside the flow of time as we know it. They take place in a different plane of existence than this material plane – in a “trans-historical” or “meta-historical” plane, where time has a different flow and flux so that the relation of that world to this must be viewed as a hierarchical rather than a linear relationship.
One of these events is the creation of Adam and the teaching of the names to him. See Quran 38:72… These events take place outside of the flow of history as we understand it. They are metaphysical, rather than physical in nature. Contrast to the Genesis 2 narrative, the implication of which is that the garden of Eden is on terra firma. This conforms to the Sumerian epic which also talks of Eden as a place in the ‘Fertile Crescent’.
Most religions are however, not rooted in a single historical event through which God enters history – instead most key events take place outside history, in pre-eternity, in a different hierarchy of existence. Then a “descent” to this world takes place through which these timeless events enter the realm of cause, effect, and chronological, linear time.
Another event spoken of in the Quran is the pre-eternal covenant made between God and the human spirits (all the descendants of Adam). Allah asked: “Am I not your Lord?” Quran 7:172. They all answered in the affirmative, the implication being that everyone who is born into this world has agreed in substance to this covenant, and that although we may have no conscious knowledge or memory of this pact, its reality is woven into our very nature.
The purpose of religion is to awaken to consciousness an awareness of this bond between God and man as well as all the concealed potentials that flow from this bond. All the Prophets have come throughout the entirety of history to remind men of their promise of fidelity to this pact. It is a reminder that beyond the horizontal aspect of our existence is a truly vast vertical dimension, an unseen ocean of possibilities and nascent potentials.
Everything, when lost, can be regained, except time. That is why time is the most precious thing that can ever be possessed in this life. Islam is a religion that acknowledges the importance of time and appreciates its seriousness. See Quran 10:6.
The concept of a meta-historical religion is not unique to Islam. In the Judeo – Christian religion are many references to historical events that are metaphysical in nature: The creation of Adam is described in Genesis 2:7: And God placed him in the Garden of Eden. Adam was given the task of naming all the animals. As Adam was lonely, God formed a wife, named Eve, out of one of Adam’s ribs. The Fall of Man (Genesis 3:1-24) are all in the realm of non-lineal time. There are also references to Yahweh leading the children of Israel into war. Fantastic stories of visitation by Angels in human form to Biblical personages such as the visit of the three angels to Abraham and later Lot, or the visit to Noah and instructions on how to construct the Ark; Moses and the ‘burning bush’ and the Ten Commandments etched on tablets of stone, including the declaration of the voice of God after the baptism of Jesus, also the supposedly abduction of Ezekiel and Enoch by aliens and their ascension to heaven. There is also the story of Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God: Genesis 14:18–20, without beginning and without an end. Further evidence could be gleaned from the story of celestial visitations to Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist; Mary, Luke 1:26-56, Matthew 1:18-25., and to Zacharia. Of-course, the Prophets of the pre- Islamic religions all had encounters with God or His emissaries. The visitation to Prophet Muhammad in the cave of Hira falls into this category.
Man’s lifespan or time is his huge capital about which he will be asked on the Day of Judgment. He will be asked about how he spent it and how he dealt with it.
Time has characteristics that are specific to it. The first is the quick passage of time; No matter how long man lives in this life, his life is short: It will be, on the Day they see it, as though they had not remained [in the world] except for an afternoon or a morning thereof. (Quran 79: 46)
Second is the irreplaceability of time; whatever goes by thereof does not return and cannot be compensated for. Finally, it is the most precious thing that man can ever own; this is attributed to the fact that it is the container of all deeds. Man’s life is nothing but the time that he is given from the day of his birth till the day of his death.
The truth is that the real life of man is not the years that he spends from the day of his birth till the day of his death: Rather, his real age is determined according to the good deeds recorded for him by Almighty God.
*Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend.*
Babatunde Jose
