Lawh-i Mahfuz And The Reality Of Timelessness

LAWH-I MAHFUZ AND THE REALITY OF TIMELESSNESS: Our Lives are Composed of a Single Moment

A day with your Lord is equivalent to a thousand years in the way you count. (Surat al-Hajj, 47)The Formation of the Concept of TimeThe General Theory of RelativityOn 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:



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)The Relativity of Time Explains the Reality of FateAnd the trumpet is blown, and all who are in the heavens and all who are in the Earth swoon away, save him whom Allah willeth. Then it is blown a second time, and behold them standing waiting! And the Earth shineth with the light of her Lord, and the Book is set up, and the prophets and the witnesses are brought, and it is judged between them with truth, and they are not wronged . . . And those who do not believe are driven unto Hell in troops . . . And those who keep their duty to their Lord are driven unto the Garden in troops . . . . (Surat az-Zumar, 68-73)

Some other verses on this subject are:

And every soul came, along with it a driver and a witness. (Surat al-Qaf, 21)

And the heaven is cloven asunder, so that on that day it is frail. (Surat al-Haqqa, 16)

And because they were patient and constant, He rewarded them with a Garden and [garments of] silk. Reclining in the [Garden] on raised thrones, they saw there neither the sun's [excessive heat] nor excessive cold. (Surat al-Insan, 12-13)

And Hell is placed in full view for [all] to see. (Surat an-Naziat, 36)

But on this Day the believers laugh at the unbelievers. (Surat al-Mutaffifin, 34)

And the Sinful saw the fire and apprehended that they have to fall therein: no means did they find to turn away therefrom. (Surat al-Kahf, 53)Nothing occurs, either in the Earth or in yourselves, without its being in a Book before We make it happen. That is something easy for Allah. That is so that you will not be grieved about the things that pass you by or exult about the things that come to you. Allah does not love any vain or boastful man. (Surat al-Hadid: 22-23)

The Important of Submitting to Fate

As we see from these verses, the time before the Companions of the Cave fell asleep and the moment when they woke up were vastly different.

Allah tells us of a similar situation. In verse 259 of Surat al-Baqara, we hear of a man visiting a deserted city. Allah left this man dead for a hundred years and later resurrected him. But the man thought he has been there for a day or less. And within the space of that century, the man's food did not spoil and his donkey still remained in the same place. There are the relevant verses:

Everything they did is in the Books. Everything is recorded, big or small. The heedful are amid Gardens and Rivers, on seats of honor in the presence of a Competent Sovereign. (Surat al-Qamar, 52-55)