count.(Surat al-Hajj, 47)
What we call time is actually a way of comparing one moment with
another. For example, it we strike an object, it makes a certain
sound. If we strike the same object again a bit later, it will make a
similar sound. You probably think that there's an interval between the
first and the second sound—an interval called "time." However, when
you hear that second sound, the first one is only a record in your
brain and an item in your memory. By comparing the sound you recall
with the moment you hear it again, you form the concept of time.
Without making this comparison, you would have no concept of time.
In the same way, a person who enters a room and sees someone sitting
in an armchair in that room makes a comparison. The moments of seeing
the person in the armchair, opening the door and walking into the
center of the room are only data in his mind. The concept of time
arises when he compares the sight of person in the armchair with these
"previous" data.
The Formation of the Concept of Time
Today, it is scientifically accepted that time is a concept born of
our habit of arranging the changes and movements of objects in a
definite serial progression. Were it not for the human memory, the
brain could not make such interpretations, and the concept of time
would not arise. In his book The Possible and the Actual, Francois
Jacob, a Nobel Prize winner in Genetics, refers to the importance of
the concept of being invariably formed with reference to an organized
series:
Films played backwards make it possible for us to imagine a world in
which time flows backwards. A world in which milk separates itself
from the coffee and jumps out of the cup to reach the milk-pan; a
world in which light rays are emitted from the walls to be collected
in a trap (gravity center) instead of gushing out from a light source;
a world in which a stone slopes to the palm of a man by the
astonishing cooperation of innumerable drops of water which enable the
stone to jump out of water. Yet, in such a world in which time has
such opposite features, the processes of our brain and the way our
memory compiles information, would similarly be functioning backwards.
The same is true for the past and future and the world will appear to
us exactly as it currently appears.
Because our brains are accustomed to arranging things in a certain
series, we assume that the world operates as Jacob describes—and that
time always flows forward. However, this is a decision the brain
makes—"from inside," as it were—and is therefore totally relative.
Indeed, we can never know how time flows, or even if it flows at all.
This is because time is not an absolute, "outside" reality, but just a
subjective concept. You may, for example, think you have fallen
asleep in your armchair for merely a moment, when your watch tells you
that hours have passed.
The General Theory of Relativity
The idea that time is a concept was substantiated by the noted
physicist, Albert Einstein, in his book General Theory of Relativity.
Lincoln Barnett, in his book The Universe and Dr. Einstein, writes
these words:
The subjectivity of time is best explained in Einstein's own words.
"The experiences of an individual," he says, "appear to us arranged in
a series of events; in this series the single events which we remember
appear to be ordered according to the criterion of 'earlier' and
'later'. There exists, therefore, for the individual, an I-time, or
subjective time. This in itself is not measurable. I can, indeed,
associate numbers with the events, in such a way that a greater number
is associated with the later event than with an earlier one."
Einstein himself pointed out (as quoted in Barnett's book): "Space and
time are forms of intuition, which can no more be divorced from
consciousness than can our concepts of colour, shape, or size."
According to the General Theory of Relativity, time is not absolute;
apart from the series of events according to which we measure it, it
has no independent existence. Since time is based on perception, it
depends entirely on the perceiver and is therefore relative.
The speed at which time flows differs according to the references we
use to measure it, because there is no natural clock in the human body
to indicate precisely how fast time passes. As Lincoln Barnett wrote:
"Just as there is no such thing as colour without an eye to discern
it, so an instant or an hour or a day is nothing without an event to
mark it."
The Relativity of Time in the Qur'an
The relativity of time is plainly experienced in dreams. Although what
we see in our dreams seems to last for hours, in fact, it only lasts
for a few minutes, and even a few seconds.
The conclusion to which we are led by the findings of modern science
is that time is not an absolute fact as supposed by materialists, but
only a relative perception. What is most interesting is that this
fact, undiscovered until the 20th century by science, was revealed to
mankind in the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago. There are various
references in the Qur'an to the relativity of time.
It is possible to see in many verses of the Qur'an the scientifically
proven fact that time is a psychological perception dependent on
events, setting, and conditions. For instance, a person's entire life
is a very short time, as we are informed in the Qur'an:
On the Day when He will call you, you will answer His Call with words
of His Praise and Obedience, and you will think that you have stayed
in this world but a little while!(Surat al-Isra': 52)
And on the Day when He shall gather them together, it will seem to
them as if they had not tarried on Earth longer than an hour of a day:
they will recognize each other.(Surah Yunus: 45)
Some verses indicate that people perceive time differently and that
sometimes people can perceive a very short period as a very lengthy
one. The following conversation of people held during their judgment
in the hereafter is a good example of this:
He will say: "What number of years did you stay on Earth?" They will
say: "We stayed a day or part of a day, but ask those who keep
account." He will say: "Brief indeed was your sojourn, if you had only
known!"(Surat al-Mu'minun: 112-114)
In some other verses. Allah states that time may flow at different
paces in different settings:
. . . Truly, a day in the sight of your Lord is like a thousand years
of your reckoning.(Surat al-Hajj: 47)
The angels and the spirit ascend to Him in a day the measure of which
is like fifty thousand years.(Surat al-Ma'arij: 4)
He rules all affairs from the heavens to the Earth: in the end all
will ascend to Him in a single day, the measure of which is a thousand
years by your reckoning.(Surat as-Sajda: 5)
These verses are clear expressions of the relativity of time. That
this finding, which was only recently understood by scientists in the
20th century, was communicated to man 1,400 years ago in the Qur'an is
an indication of the revelation of the Qur'an by Allah, Who
encompasses the whole of time and space.
The Relativity of Time Explains the Reality of Fate
As we see from the account of the relativity of time and the verses
that refer to it, time is not a concrete concept, but one that varies
depending on perceptions. For example, a space of time conceived by us
as millions of years long is one moment in Allah's sight. A period of
50 thousand years for us is only a day for Gabriel and the angels.
This reality is very important for an understanding of the idea of
fate. Fate is the idea that Allah created every single event, past,
present, and future in "a single moment." This means that every event,
from the creation of the universe until doomsday, has already occurred
and ended in Allah's sight. A significant number of people cannot
grasp the reality of fate. They cannot understand how Allah can know
events that have not yet happened, or how past and future events have
already happened in Allah's sight. From our point of view, things that
have not happened are events which have not occurred. This is because
we live our lives in relation to the time that Allah has created, and
we could not know anything without the information in our memories.
Because we dwell in the testing place of this world, Allah has not
given us memories of the things we call "future" events. Consequently,
we cannot know what the future holds.
But Allah is not bound to time or space; it is He who has already
created all these things from nothing. For this reason, past, present
and future are all the same to Allah. From His point of view,
everything has already occurred; He does not need to wait to see the
result of an action. The beginning and the end of an event are both
experienced in His sight in a single moment. For example, Allah
already knew what kind of end awaited Pharaoh even before sending
Moses to him, even before Moses was born and even before Egypt became
a kingdom; and all these events including the end of Pharaoh were
experienced in a single moment in the sight of Allah. Besides, for
Allah there is no such thing as remembering the past; past and future
are always present to Allah; everything exists in the same moment.
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