By OmarKN
bit.ly/_otime
”Do not curse dahr (time), because dahr is God”, Prophetic hadith.[18]
The presented texts are from the Islamic tradition, with one exception (section 4) about 'linear time' in the modern setting. They are a collection of short texts from different perspectives regarding time and specifically linear time. It is not a simple topic, and as evoked in the prophetic tradition about time, human capacity is insufficient to reach essential knowledge about it, except for what is clear from the quranic revelation. (See section 2.3)[n1]
Regarding 'linear time', which is the default for how most people understand or 'experience' time, it is almost synonymous to 'progress', and takes a negative connotation in the critique of (post-)modernism.[19] Progress as generally as the idea of humankind improving itself over time, but the question remains improving what - for what aim?
In short what has happened during the last 250 years is the 'flattening' of those concepts, including time, and the emergence of new variations of utopianism, ideas which pretend to lead to the perfect life (or at least a 'better life') in this world of change (dunyā ).[28]
And even if those tall utopian stories have crumbled (like Communism, Fascism…) the utopian idea itself morphed into an undercurrent of sorts in all areas of human life: when the abode of the Hereafter can longer be conceptualized, all focus, planning and hope for improvement of the human lot or liberation is on this 'abode which is close to us' (dunyā ).[28] But as those ideas are not grounded on metaphysical truth, their effects are disappointment and destruction.
The idea of linear time is also a symtom for the loss of the metaphysical perspective, which would allow for a more humble and holistic approach to time. See section 5 and 6.
In contrast to the secularization of knowledge, of time and the rest, has the Islamic Tradition through the Quran and the hadith - thanks to the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him - taken quite a different approach on human life, human responsibilities, and on time as such. The quranic focus is twofold:
(a) on a certain time or 'day' when play and illusions will come to an end, and where everyone will be finally confronted with the Truth, which is God - Allah (may His Majesty be exalted). And
(b) as a consequence, the Quran reminds us also to prepare ourselves in this life, the (dunyā ), to get ready for this time which will absolutely come, the life beyond (al-ākhira) the Hereafter.
The important point is to know what you use your limited time for → for the pleasure of Allah (may His Majesty be exalted) and not to waste it for anything else.
Therefore form the right intention as a Muslim!
Earn good deeds - Allah will provide!
The Quran uses different concepts of time, and here quoting Sh Hamza Yusuf[6]
| Saʿat | not historical time, but the |
| moment when the universe | |
| comes to an end, "The Hour” | |
| Zaman | historical time, also period |
| Akhiru zamaan: | the last period of time |
| Dahr | time streched out, time-space |
| ʿAsr | period, epoch |
In this regard Sh Hamza Yusuf describes the continuity of the prophetic mission:
The essential events in human history are the emergence of those many prophets (peace upon all of them!), who - in periods conflict and oppression - brought the divine message against oppressors and tyrants, with the emblematic story of Firaun & Musa (a.s) as the most repeated story in the Quran![6]
Surah ʿAsr is a clear reference to time: { Wa al-ʿAsr}, which means { by (the) time (or: time period)}, an oath to enhance the importance of what follows in this surah:
That man (and woman) is in a state of serious loss, except for those who use their time carefully for good works – good counsel, { watawā saw bi-l-haqq watawā saw bi-s-ṣabri - and enjoin upon one another truth } (i.e. the beliefs and practices of Islam) { and enjoin upon one another patience } (from committing acts of disobedience).
And with An-Nawawi[21] good works include learning, teaching and writing.
Imam Shafīʿi said famously:
"Time is like a sword: if you don't cut it, it will cut you.[20]
Section 3 - Quoting Prof Hallaq[7]
People have not yet understood the signifcance and the implications of this linear concept of time.[1] So one of his[2] valuable contributions to this issue in his own work is to highlight the different conceptions of an ethical time, that it's not really about time.[3] There’s nothing important about anything that we are doing today just because it happened to be in the 21st century.
There might be things that happened 5, 7, 10, 15 centuries ago that are actually, heuristically[4] at least, much more valuable and when we say heuristically the ethical gains are a huge entry, a huge door, to enter into the debate.
Because once you say history can be heuristic, not merely preparing a step for the next step, as a matter of cause and effect, then what you are saying is that I can learn from something that happened 2000 years ago.
It doesn’t mean that you can replicate that thing and the institutions that arose around that thing in that culture, but it means that it can teach you something, and in fact all critique that is worthwhile in modernity[5] is really based and derives its inspiration not from any call to re-enact history and to bring back historical institutions, this is something inconceivable to me and actually utterly mad, but rather to learn from others.
Just because we sit in the 21st century it doesn’t mean that we are more perceptive or wiser in particular than people who lived literally 2500 years ago.
Section 4 - Quoting Chris Hedges[8]
This sense of a linear or teleological [9] sense that we are moving somewhere, that we are the culmination of something, is foreign to most other societies, certainly to Oriental society, as it was to be ancient Greeks. They understood life as being about birth, growth, degeneration, Decay, and death and not just individual life, but the life of societies as well. And what happened I think was that the Enlightenment [10] grasped on to this Hebraic and and Christian notion of time as linear, but dropped the wisdom of original sin [11]
They dropped the understanding that because of the endemic flaws within human nature [12] we will never go and create the city of God, the perfect world, that this could only be created by the Divine.
And this was a powerful check on utopian movements within the Church[13] but the Enlightenment bought into this notion of linear time and thought that science, knowledge and education could somehow a perfect the human species, move the human species foreward, and of course I think it was a very short step from that belief-system to the Jacobins in Revolutionary France who created the 'Committee of Virtue'[14] and the reign of terror.
Section 5 - From OmarKN
Prophets are granted visions[29] or are informed about something from the Unseen (or: unseen worlds - al-ghayb ). We are all both in the 'seen' as well as in the unseen (worlds), they are not separate from us, but only the pious faithful (al-mutaqqūn ) are aware of the Unseen, the ghayb.[33]
Allah (may His Majesty be exalted) says in the Sura of the Cow: { Those who believe in the unseen worlds. } Sura 2-2. And the Prophet ﷺ called it the beautiful vision.[30]
The Islamic Tradition describes many reports from the Unseen, number 1 of which is of course the revelation of the Quran. Pre-modern man in general had no problem with it. [31]
One example among others where the usual time-space dimensions were breached is witnessed in the report from the Prophet ﷺ regarding the events of the battle of Mu'tah when he - the blessings and peace of Allah upon him - informed the people of the martyrdom of Zayd, Jaʿfar and Ibn Rawāha before the news of their death reached. He was not there in body but was aware of what had happened ! [16]
Another example is the Mirāj of the Prophet, which is a major event in the Prophet's life (the blessings and peace of Allah upon him), and at the same time it is extremely important for the faithful (al-mu'min ) for the purification of the self - as ascent to the knowledge of God.[35] But there are many other reports of timelessness or 'breaches' in the time-space dimension.
Existence and nonexistence are one reality,[34] and human concepts such as time and space or 'linear extension'[15] don't count in the unseen worlds. However, in the cosmos what manifests itself is the Infinity of the Real, of Allah. Its signs are apparent everywhere in this lower world (dunyā ). These are signs of the self-manifestation of the Real. It is the 'eternal, the non-delimited', it is Infinity.[37]
This self-manifestation of the Real is ongoing, every day, and every moment[32] we usually don't realise it and { Allah is subtle to His bondmen }[25]. However in dreams we may occasionally perceive something of it, as dreams may be - in the best of cases - allusions to the Heavenly Spheres.
And there are certain moments when such sparks of enlightenment - of light - can be experienced when awake, such as in the visions of the prophets and the awliyā, the saints of Allah. And visions as well as dreams need interpretation, and interpretations are dependent of the state (the sincerity, righteousness, God-wariness) of the person.
In any case such special experiences are not the goal of the spiritual path.
Allah knows best and most !
Section 6 - Quoting Sh. Muyiddīn Ibn ʿArabi[22]
1.
God says, narrating the words of a people who are the speakers, { nothing makes us perish save time } 45-24. They speak the truth, because it has been affirmed that the God’s messenger ﷺ (may Allah bless Him and grant Him peace) said, ”God is (the) time (aeon).”[18] Hence nothing makes them perish save God, and this is the actual situation.
2.
Know that “time” is a relation that has no wujūd in its entity. (And that…) time is a relation (which) arrives newly[27] at the question, "When?" (matā )? (And similar questions). All the conditional particles in grammar[23] are the names of time, but the named thing is an affair of nonexistence.[34] These particles are like the word nonexistence, which is a name that names no object that has an entity, even though its property is rationally understood…
3.
In respect to newly-arrived things,[27] this is “time”, but in respect to the Eternal, it is “eternity without beginning”. What the rational faculty understands from time is something imagined, extended, and lacking the two sides.[n2]
4.
(There is the past, and there are the days of the future and there is) the present state (ḥāl ). This last is called the instant (al-ān). Although the instant is a time, it is a limit for what is past in time and what is future. It is like a point that we suppose upon the circumference of a circle. Wherever we suppose the point to be, origin and end are designated for the circumference.
5.
“Eternity without beginning” and “Eternity without end” are the nonexistence of time's two sides, for it has no first and no last. Rather it has perpetuity (dawām), and perpetuity is the time of the (present) state, while the state processes perpetuity. Hence the cosmos never ceases to be under the ruling property of the time of the (present) state, and God’s ruling property in the cosmos never ceases to be in the ruling property of time. That of it which is past and future never cease to be in the ruling property of the (present) state.
6.
Do you not see that the Speech of God reports to us concerning affairs that have come to an end with the expression of past time, concerning affairs that are coming with expression of future time, and concerning affairs that are being engendered with the expression of the (present) state? As for the (present) state, He says { each day He is a upon some task } 55-29.[24]
7.
At all of this, we seek an entity of wujūd within which all of it would be, and entity that would be like its container. We do not find such an entity in reason or sensation, but rather in a containing imagination. This container is itself the contents of an infinite, imagined container that is judged to be so only by imagination. Hence - if you have understood - nothing is understood by imagination, reason, or sensation save the Real Wujūd that supports us in our wujūd.
8.
Because of this relation, God named Himself for us as dahr “the time (or: the Aeon)”. He did so in order that the ruling property would belong only to Him not to the property of time that is imagined, for there is none that displays properties save God. In Him the entities of things become manifest through their properties.
9.
He is perpetual wujūd, and the entities of the possible things become manifest through their properties from behind the veil of His wujūd, because of its subtlety.
We see the entities of the possible things - which are our entities - from behind the veil of His wujūd, but we do not see Him.
10.
In the same way, we see the stars from behind the veils of the heavens, but we do not see the heavens, even if we understand that between us and the stars are the heavens. However, they have such subtlety that they do not veil what is behind them.
11.
{ God is subtle to His servants } 42-19[25]. Part of God's subtlety is that it is He who comes to them in everything in which they are, but the servants' eyes fall only upon the occasions (al-asbāb) that they witness, so they attribute what they are in to these occasions.[26] Thus the Real becomes manifest by being veiled, so He is the Manifest / the Veiled. He is the Nonmanifest because of the veil, not because of you, and He is the Manifest because of both you and the veil.
12.
So glory be to Him who veils Himself in His manifestation and becomes manifest in His veil! No eye witnesses anything other than He, and no veils are lifted from Him.
End of quote of Sh. Muyiddīn Ibn ʿArabi
This linear concept of time is our default conception of time: what comes before, what is now, and what comes after. ↩
Referring to the orignal author Abdurrahman Taha, whose work was translated and commented on by Prof Hallaq in: Reforming Modernity…, see note 7
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time as we in (post-)modernity understand it. ↩
Def: enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves; also a heuristic process or method. (Oxford Dictionary of English) ↩
A critique of modernity as proposed by Alistair McIntyre and Charles Taylor and others. □ comment: We have not verified their thesis. ↩
The Concept of Time - Hamza Yusuf - YouTube
Quote from the video:
”What these prophets did is shut down the Megamachine, i.e. the idea of this massive social project that relates to the world, (like) the Pharao has his pyramids…
Quote from: Lewis Mumford's The Myth of the Machine:
”He gets down to the nitty-gritty about what makes us human, asserting that too great an emphasis has been placed on man as a "tool-making" or "tool-using" animal (as opposed to, say, one who makes music). This emphasis, he writes, has led us to equate technical advances with human progress, an equation Mumford challenges. For example, the ancient military-bureaucratic system that enabled the building of the pyramids made slaves out of generations of Egyptians. As such, Mumford asks, do the pyramids really stand as evidence of advanced civilization, instead of the most uncivil, inhumane enterprise of their time?”
Short review:
Rage against the Megamachine
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Reforming Modernity: Ethics And The New Human In The Philosophy Of Abdurrahman Taha by Prof Hallaq, linear time, ethical time - YouTube, @57:30
Reforming Modernity is a sweeping intellectual history and philosophical reflection built around the work of the Morocco-based philosopher Abdurrahman Taha, one of the most significant philosophers in the Islamic world since the colonial era…
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Chris Hedges: ”One of the most dangerous legacies of perhaps the Christian faith and the Hebraic tradition is this notion of time as linear, that somehow we progress morally the way science progresses, or the way technology progresses.”
I Don't Believe in Atheists Chris Hedges
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teleology is in philosophy the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes. (Oxford Dictionary of English) ↩
and the Enlightenment was a blessing as well as the curse. ↩
Not only that, but much of Christianity's transcendant function. What is more the concept of 'original sin' is an (often misunderstood) Christian concept; in Islam there is the concept of the original, pure state of human being: the fitra, which we are called to recognize and realize in our lives, part of it is the comprehension, that this life is an important, but only a very small 'part' of the greater life after death, for which we must be prepared, and that this wordly life is not for play.
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as Augustine wrote in City of God, City of Man. ↩
What is wrong with utopianism? see: The Idea of An Earthly Utopia
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The reference here is to ‘the Committee of Public Safety’, see for ex.:
Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety
The period of the Jacobin rule known as the Reign of Terror, under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre, was the first time in history that terror became an official government policy with the stated aim to use violence to achieve a higher political goal.
As a result of Robespierre's insistence on associating terror with virtue, his efforts to make the republic a morally united patriotic community became equated with the endless bloodshed.
Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety | History of Western Civilization II ↩
The meaning of dimension is: 'a mode of linear extension,' and since there are in the unseen worlds no human concepts such as time or 'linear extension'. Any dimension would mean limitating Infinity, which is impossible.
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Via @aspiringabd 2021-06 21:42
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more: The Paradox of Our Condition, Quotes on Modernity, by Sh. Abdulhakim Murad Winter
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The complete hadith:
Allah said, 'The offspring of Adam abuse (curse) Ad-Dahr (Time); though I am Ad-Dahr (Time). In My Hands are the night and the day.'
(Sahih al-Bukhari 6181, Book 78, Hadith 205).
Or: ”Oh the disappointment of time.”
قَالَ اللَّهُ يَسُبُّ بَنُو آدَمَ الدَّهْرَ، وَأَنَا الدَّهْرُ، بِيَدِي اللَّيْلُ وَالنَّهَارُ
More in section 6
Another version here:
Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, said: 'The son of Adam displeases Me by abusing Dahr (time), whereas I am Dahr - I alternate the night and the day.'
(Sahih Muslim 2246b, Book 40, Hadith 2)
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These concepts of time, progress, human materialistic development, freedom etc. have of course historical roots, which in this case go back to the Christian tradition from the Middle Ages, through the 'Renaissance' and the so-called Enlightenment to the modern period, when the transcendent view was lost.
Many pages at Living Islam - Islamic Tradition deal with those tragic developments and their impact on human thought, religion and philosophy, and in consequence at human life in general.
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He is also attributed with saying:
If you don't busy it with right, it will busy you with wrong.”
Although there are other versions with other attributions:
If you don't busy yourself with what is right, you will busy yourself with what is wrong.”
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From: The Concept of Time from Our Scholars, Tushar Bhuiya - ProductiveMuslim.com
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'The Self-Disclosure of God'; W C Chittick; p. SDG128-9
See also:
Full text of "Ibn Arabi - Time and Cosmology", Mohamed Haj Yousef
”Ibn 'Arabi considers time to be imaginary and without real existence; it is only a tool used by the mind to chronologically arrange events and the motion of the heavenly spheres and physical objects.” (However…)
See also:
Ibn Al-Arabi's Concept of Time Gerhard Böwering
Ibn Al-Arabi wrote a work entitled "The Book of Time” (Kitāb az-zamān ), which was in part incorporated into the "Meccan Revelations,” where it is cited by title. (p4) …
Ibn 'Arabī created a vision of time that links three principal notions which had been
current in Islam for centuries: dahr, zamān and waqt…
It combines an atomistic notion of time as waqt and a theological vision
of time as dahr with a partly cosmological, partly relative understanding of time
as zamān.”
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such as ḥīn, idh and idhā (when)
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Or: { Every day He exercises (universal power.) } 55-29
So for the (present) state 55-29; as for the past 19-9, and as for the future 16-40, 7-146, 21-37)
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Or: { Allah is gracious unto His slaves. }, or: { Allah is gentle to His bondmen (in this world) } 42-19
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The occasions or secondary causes (al-asbāb ) are those causes, which seem to be at work in the cosmos, and therefore refer to the existent things in general. This should of course not lead to disregard the Causer of Secondary Causes, but Sh. Muyiddīn explains that the secondary causes are important, because they are the names of God through which we come to know Him.
SPK44, The Sufi Path Of Knowledge, Ibn Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination; W C Chittick; p44
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newly-arrived things: or 'temporally originated': ḥādith
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Many verses in the Quran refer to (dunyā ):
{ Every soul will taste of death. And ye will be paid on the Day of Resurrection only that which ye have fairly earned. Whoso is removed from the Fire and is made to enter paradise, he indeed is triumphant. The life of this world is but comfort of illusion (or: enjoyment of delusion). } 3-185
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… and sometimes saints are granted visions, too, not the least the visions granted to Sh Muhyiddīn Ibn ʿArabi.[36] Generally anyone can have visions, in dreams, but how to interpret those dreams, when they risk being satanic nightmares?
→ More at next footnote
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Allah says:
{ For them are glad tidings, in the life of the present and in the Hereafter; no change can there be in the words of Allah. This is indeed the supreme felicity. } 10-64
Commentary in Al-Qushayrī:
It is said: ”This is the beautiful vision, which the man sees or which is shown to him.” It is reported from Abu d-Dardāʿ: I asked the Prophet regarding this verse (10-64). He ﷺ said: ”No-one has asked me about it regarding it. It is the beautiful vision, which the man sees or which is shown to him.”
(Also…) as reported from Abū Qatāda: The messenger of Allah said: ”A good dream that comes true is from Allah, and a bad dream is from Satan, so if anyone of you sees a bad dream, he should seek refuge with Allah from Satan and should spit on the left, for the bad dream will not harm him.” (Abū Qatāda)
- Das Sendschreiben Al-Qushayrīs über das Sufitum, Übers. Richard Gramlich; Wiesbaden 1989, (Risālat Qushayrī) 53.1
- Sahih al-Bukhari 6986, Book 91, Hadith 5; Sunnah.com
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It wasn't until the onslaught of the blight of secularism that the Unseen and God itself was seemingly discarded.
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It manifests itself also in cases when modern science cannot fullfil its own presumptions, f. ex. to measure what is there.
In Quantum physics, it is difficult to measure the shortest time, as a limit to what is possible, ”the shortest possible time is in fact 10^-13 seconds, which is called Planck's time.” (?)
Full text of "Ibn Arabi - Time and Cosmology"
More: Planck's time: How many Planck times are in one second? There are 10^43 Planck times in a second…
”Planck's time is the time it takes for light to travel Planck's length. Actions across lengths less than this boundary have no meaning because distance/relativity stop and quantum mechanics take over at Planck's length. The smallest length (Planck's length) divided by the fastest speed (the speed of light), is the time it takes for the fastest thing to travel the shortest distance. Thus, times shorter than Planck's time do not make sense...” [to be updated, inshah Allah]
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Al Baydāwi on the Unseen, Al-Ghayb :
What is meant is something hidden, imperceptible, and unintuited. It is of two types: (i) what has no proof { With Him are the keys of the unseen, the treasures that none knoweth but He. } Sura 6-59; and (ii) what was given proof, such as the Maker, His Attributes, the Last Day and its events. … [n3]
If you say it is a participial state … then it means absence and invisibility. That is, ”they [i.e. the godwary - al-muttaqqūn in Sura 2-3] believe even when away from you (yu'minūna ghā'ibīn, unlike the hypocrites … (2-14)” or, when away from the one who is the object of belief (i.e. Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) on the basis of the narration from Ibn Masʿūd (rḍ): ”By Him besides Whom there is no god, none has better belief than belief without seeing,” then he recited this verse.
(Saʿīd b. Manṣūr … with a chain that meets the standards of al-Bukhārī and Muslim…)
[n3]: Such proofs were given (i) textually by Allah in His revelation (the Qur'an and the Prophetic Sunna); (ii) inferentially and analogically through the observation and study of the observable macrocosm and microcosm (including the observers themselves) by all reasonable people as repeatedly commanded in the same sources, which observation consistently gives rise to the overwhelming conclusion that there is a Maker, that He possesses the attributes of an All-Powerful and All-Wise One, that there is good and evil and capacity for each in created beings as well as purpose in the design of creation, and hence there is accountability, reward and punishment on the part of the All-Just, and so forth. This is why al-Razi considered the human mind itself a veritable Rasul [messenger] already sent to each and every rational human being per the verse { We never punish until We first send forth a Messenger. } (al-Isrā' 17:15), which is more reflective of the position of the Maturidis than that of his own Ashʿari school. (Sh Gibril F Haddad, 20210306)
BAY264/5, The Lights of Revelation & the Secrets of Interpretation, Al-Baydawi
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Related:
What does it mean that the cosmos is qualified by nonexistence ?
On Being and Existence 1
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Recommended Reading on the Mi'rāj:
The Prophet's Night Journey and Heavenly Ascent by Gibril Fouad Haddad
This is the fourth edition of the complete English translation by Gibril Fouad Haddad of al-Anwār al-Bahiyya min Isrā' wa-Mi'rāj Khayr al-Bariyya, "The Resplendent Lights of the Night-Journey and Ascension of the Best of Creation [the Prophet Muhammad],” which he gifted in person -- at the time of his 1999 Hajj pilgrimage -- to the original author in his home and school in the Rusayfa district of Mecca, the beloved and distinguished late Sunni and Sufi educator Shaykh Muhammad b. Alawi al-Malaki al-Hasani (1367-1425/1948-2004).
Shaykh Muhammad b. Alawi said he had written it "as a separate monograph so as to allow its access to the people at large. In this way they can familiarize themselves with that text and recite it in the public meetings and great celebrations in which Muslims gather to commemorate al-Isrā' wal-Mi'rāj, as is the custom in many countries, especially in the two Holy Sanctuaries." He added that the book includes most of the different Hadith narrations on this subject…
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In his own words, Sh Muhyiddīn Ibn ʿArabi recounts that the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam was handed to him by the Prophet ﷺ in a ”heralding vision” (mubashshira ). SPK xvii
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”The Infinite, according to the etymology of the term which designates it, is that which has no limits…”
More: R Guénon The Multiple States of Being
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Related texts
Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi, Presentation of Some 30 Texts
