Exploring the significance of time in shaping human destiny, from its divine essence to its role in individual lives and societal progress

Time is a strangely beautiful yet amazingly powerful creation of Allah. It is so beautiful that it reveals the colourful hiddennesses of even the darkest secrets of the world and provides answers to all the questions and uncertainties. But amazingly, it is so strong and powerful that anyone who dares to waste time ends up wasting himself. It can reduce the beauties of today into the shambles of tomorrow. It is intimidating to those who are in the bad business of time. It is terrifying to those who try to abuse it and scary to those who try to misuse it.
Time is the most important entity in the world. It is the dimension of the higher order in which we all live. It affects everything and everyone, and nothing is independent of time. Time flies, seasons change, and life progresses. Time flies, and flowers bloom and wither away. Time flies, and we are born, grow, get old, and die. Now, imagine if time is removed or somehow erased from the stage of the world. Will any change occur? Will we grow old? Will the flowers bloom, seasons change, or years pass? Of course not! There will be a state of timelessness. This state of timelessness, in common parlance, is known as Eternity. But the fact of the matter is that nothing is eternal in this mortal world. Everything here is subjected to the effect of time. Time plays its tune on everything.
Giving importance to time is inherent in nature itself. Look at our mother earth, how it braces itself for the changes that come its way with the passing of time. Look at the crops, how disciplined they are. A rabbi seed will not germinate in the kharif season, and neither will a kharif seed germinate in the rabbi season. Honouring time is to honour nature.
Nobody has ever become great without giving due importance to time. Hakeem e Millat, Dr Sir Sheikh Mohammad Iqbal, attaches greater importance to time in his own philosophy. According to him, time and space are real, and they are brought into existence by the very act of creation. He looks upon time as the creator of new things in the future. After the culmination of the third Round Table Conference in 1932, Allama went to meet the world-renowned and well-known philosopher Mr. Bergeson. Various issues pertaining to world affairs came under discussion, but the maximum part of their conversation was occupied by the concept of time. Dr. Iqbal later said that Mr. Bergeson’s thoughts on time were very much in line with the Islamic concept of time. During the conversation with Bergeson, when Iqbal narrated to him the hadith of the Holy Prophet regarding the Islamic concept of time, “Don’t speak ill of time, for time itself is God,” Bergeson rose from his chair in sheer astonishment and askedIqbal if this was really a Hadith. Time is precious, so precious that it has no alternative but time.
Time is important. Even God recognized its importance in His Holy Scheme. God is omnipotent. He says, “Be (KUN) and It Is (FAYA KUN).” He is omniscient, knowing everything. He is the supreme authority aware of all our deeds, and nothing is hidden before Him, yet He appointed Kiraman Katibin, honourable scribes, to record our deeds. Similarly, God is All-Knowing (al-Aleem) and All-Aware (al-Khabeer). Yet He appointed time as a witness to events in His Ibn Adam’s world. Time stands witness to the arrival of the first man in the world and will behold the departure of the last man. It stands watcher to all the thick and thin of the world. It has seen the rise of great civilizations and the ebb of their doom. It has seen the Greats like Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Ibrahim (AS), Mosa (AS), and Isa (AS). But it has also seen the cursed Firoun, Shadad, and Namrood. While it has seen the powerful kingdoms of Alexander the Great, Darius the Great, and Akbar the Great, it has also seen the weak kingdom of Khazars. While time witnessed the formation of the largest empires of the British and Ottoman Turks, it has also witnessed the smallest empire of the Principality of Sealand. While time has seen the Nizam e Adel, the justice system, of Umer e Farooq and Umar e Sani, it has also seen the tyranny of Mongolian Changez and German Hitler. Time is a silent seer of events.
Time is indeed a divine Aayah, an evident sign of Divine Unity that deserves an oath to be taken. Since Allah takes an oath of this strong entity and says in the Quran (in chapter 103), “By Time, Man is in a state of loss.”
Man, in his earthly life, is given only a fixed time period from birth to death and is given the free choice to use this time in whatever way he pleases. He can use it in sync or anti-sync with Allah’s commandments and accordingly gain His pleasure or wrath. Further, the little calculated time period which man is allotted in his worldly life is made his possession or capital, and as he spends his life here, with every passing second, minute, hour, or day, he is losing a part of his capital. So his time can be called a declining capital or a melting capital. Also, with the passing of time, a man’s spiritual and material potentialities decline, and his abilities turn blunt. So, despite having great capital at his disposal, a man, willy-nilly, loses a part of his capital, justifying the fact that man is in a state of continuous loss in this world.
What about the eternal loss? Again, time is man’s one of the most precious resources. Once lost, it cannot be replaced or renewed. A minute lost is lost forever. Just like we can’t touch the same water of a river twice, we can’t live the same minute twice. When we waste our time, it is much like we invest our time capital impulsively and not using it to generate profit. Those who don’t use time wisely are indeed in bad business. The question arises: how to invest our time wisely, or in other words, how to be immune to KHUSR? Allah, the Exalted, guides us in the same chapter in verse 3 where Allah says, “Except those who believe, and do that which is right, and who mutually recommend the truth, and mutually recommend perseverance unto each other.”
The writer is a teacher and can be reached at [email protected]

Bashir Ahmad Dar