THE LIMITED MEMORY OF MAN AND THE ENDLESS MEMORY OF GOD

In the section related to timelessness, we mentioned that all our
information is in the memory. All the details pertaining to one's
life, everything one sees, hears, knows or feels are bits of memorized
information. So are our sensations about time. Now,we will deal with
the concept of memory more fully.
As mentioned in the preceding pages, we rely on our five sensesto
live. We perceive only what our senses allow and we can never succeed
in stepping out ofthe boundaries of our senses. The time and space we
live in is similarly perceived.If our brain cannot detect a being
through our five senses, we simply say that that being has
"disappeared." Accordingly, for us, events, images or sensations,which
are stored in our memory,exist, i.e., they are alive, while those that
are forgotten no longer exist. To put it another way, beings and
events, which are not in our memory, become past events for us;they
are simply dead and non-existent.
Yet, this holds true only for human beings; that is because itis only
human beings who have a limited memory. The memory of God, on the
other hand, is superior to everything.It is boundless and eternal. Yet
one point deserves mention here: the concept "the memory of God" is
used only for clarificationpurposes. It is definitely unlikely that
any comparison or similarity could be drawn between the memory of God
and the memory of a man. God is surely the One Who creates everything
from nothingness and Who knows everything down to the last detail.
God introduces Himself in His book through His attributes.One of them
is al- Hafiz (The Preserver), "He Who preserves allthings in detail".
Behind this attribute, there are very important hidden mysteries.
PEOPLE IN ETERNITY
God, the al-Khalig (the Creator), is the One Who creates everything
from nothing and Who creates all things with the knowledge of what
will happen to them. As a manifestation of this attribute of God, by
the timeHe creates man in his mother's womb, eternity has begun for
him. Surely, man does not recall the stages of his own development in
the womb. However, every moment of this progress is present in the
sight of God and they quite definitely never disappear. Similarly, it
is unlikely that those initial phases and developmental stages of a
human being remain in his memory. Unless informed by God, man never
manages to see these moments. Some moments, however, remain onlyas
memories. The moments we experience are purely sensationspresented to
our soul. Yet, in theinfinite memory of God, everything remains as it
is. Everything people encounter in life, all details pertaining to
one's experiences, are all created by God and they never disappear. As
stated in the following verse, everything down to its last detail
remains in the sight of God.
".... This is so you will know thatGod knows what is in the heavens
and in the earth and God has knowledge of all things." (Surat
al-Ma'idah: 97)
Let's take the Prophet Adam as an example; all the details pertaining
to Adam's creation in paradise before he was sent to earth, and the
way he was tested in paradise are all presentin the Main Book. Adam's
initial creation from clay, the angels' prostration to him, as well as
the moment he was sent to earth and all the events he experienced are
all vivid and existing right now. None of them has disappeared, they
all exist right now in the sight of God, right down to their finest
details.
As another example, let's think of someone who is sorry for the death
of his cat. In fact, the moment the cat died and the period that that
same cat was still a kitten, in fact, its entire development from the
moment of its birth are kept vivid in the memory of God. Besides, the
moments the owner of this cat when he was at work or all the moments
he did not spend with the cat are vividly stored in the sight of God.
Consequently, death does not put an end to the existence of a being.
For all eternity, everything exists in the sight of God.
Likewise, the moment the Prophet Solomon (Sulayman) caressed the legs
of his horse remains forever. The disappearance of these horses behind
a curtain, the letter the Prophet Solomon sent to the Queen of Saba,
the moment this letter is read by the Queen and her soldiers, how the
Queen is welcomed to the palace of Solomon, the moment she thought the
ground of the palace to be a lake and the words of the Queen:"I do now
submit in Islam, with Solomon, to the Lord of the Worlds." (Surat
an-Naml: 44)currently exist and will continue to exist for all
eternity.
These examples deserve a deeper and more detailed reflection. Assume
that in the time of the Prophet Noah (Nuh), a man's shirt became
unravelled and that after sometime a tailor sewed it up. This shirt,
the loom on which it was initially woven, the state of the shirt
before it became unravelled and the statein which it was sewed, and
even every second the tailor spent on using the needle to sew this
shirt, the process by which this shirt became utterly unusable,
inbrief, every stage, every second, every moment the shirt went
through are retained in the sightof God. Right at this moment, this
shirt is being woven, it is still sewn and it is still worn by its
owner who lived in the time of the Prophet Noah.
For someone who crosses the street from one side to the other, there
is a certain distance to be crossed. A person, however, who looks at
this street from a bird's eye view, feels no difficulty in seeing
every point in this street from one endto another.Let's also think
about the antique clock in your home. All the stages of manufacturing
which took place 200 years ago along with the manufacturing stages of
a single wire in the clock, the moment its hour and minute hand were
placed in it, the time this clock was sold to a shop and a customer
purchased it, then the moment the clock went out of order and was
givento a rag-and-bone man, the moment your grand-grandfatherpurchased
it from him and the time this clock was inherited first by your grand
father and then your father, and then you, the way you placed the
clock in your living roomand watched it with admiration, briefly,
every second in the history of the clock still remain in the sight of
God. In absolute terms, this clock is working right at this moment, it
has stopped again right now, it is being placed by you in your living
room and it is purchased by your grandfather at this moment. All these
happenings are present in the memory of God. Furthermore, not only
what the clock went through in the past but also its every
future-related moment — surely this is the "future" for you— is known
by God and is preserved in His sight. The way this clock will be
placed in your son's home in forty years' time and the collapse of the
clock in three hundred years' time is alsoincluded in the Mother of
the Book.
The verse"He knows what is in front of them and what is behind them.
But their knowledge does not encompass Him." (Surah Ta ha: 110) refers
to this fact (Surely God knows best). That is because God knows every
being moment by moment. He knows their previous states as well as
their latter states, that is, in the words of the Qur'an, "what is in
front of them and what is behind them", at all stages. In another
verse, God once again reminds us of the fact that everything is within
His Knowledge;
God - Him from Whom nothing is hidden, either on earth or in heaven.
(Surat Al 'Imran: 5)

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