| Timelessness and the Reality of Fate Everything related so far demonstrates that "three-dimensional
space" does not exist in reality, that it is a prejudice completely founded on
perceptions and that one leads one's whole life in "spacelessness." For there
is no valid proof of the existence of a three-dimensional, material world. The
universe we inhabit is a sum of images made up of plays of light and shade. To
assert the contrary would be to hold a superstitious belief far removed from reason
and scientific truth. This refutes the primary assumption of the materialist
philosophy, the assumption that matter is absolute and eternal. The second assumption,
upon which materialistic philosophy rests, is the supposition that time is absolute
and eternal. This is as superstitious as the first.
The Perception of Time
What we perceive as time is, in fact, a method by which
one moment is compared to another. We can explain this with an example. For instance,
when a person taps an object, he hears a particular sound. When he taps the same
object five minutes later, he hears another sound. He perceives that there is
an interval between the first sound and the second, and he calls this interval
"time." Yet at the time he hears the second sound, the first sound he heard is
no more than a mental imagining. It is merely a bit of information in his memory.
The person formulates the concept of "time" by comparing the moment in which
he lives with what he has in his memory. If this comparison is not made, there
can be no concept of time. Similarly, the occupant of a room makes
a comparison when he sees someone enter through a door and sit in an armchair
in the middle of the room. By the time the newcomer sits in the armchair, the
images related to the moments he opens the door, walks into the room, and makes
his way to the armchair are compiled as bits of information in his brain. The
perception of time occurs when he compares the man sitting in the armchair with
those bits of information. In brief, time comes to exist as a result
of the comparison made between some illusions stored in the brain. If man
did not have memory, his brain would not make such interpretations and he would
never therefore have formed the concept of time. The only reason why someone determines
himself to be thirty years old is because he has accumulated information pertaining
to those thirty years in his mind. If his memory did not exist, then he would
not think of the existence of such a preceding period, and he would only experience
the single "moment" in which he lives-which is a very important point.
The Scientific Explanation of Timelessness
Let us try to clarify the subject
by quoting various scientists' and scholars' explanations of the subject. Regarding
the subject of time flowing backwards, the famous intellectual and Nobel laureate
professor of genetics, François Jacob, states the following in his book Le Jeu
des Possibles (The Possible and the Actual): 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.418 Since
our brain is accustomed to a certain sequence of events, the world does not operate
as is related above and we assume that time has always flowed forward. However,
this is a decision reached in the brain and is relative. Had the bits of information
in our memory been arranged as in films played backwards, for us, the flow of
time would be as in these films played backwards. In this situation, we would
start to perceive the past as the future, and the future as the past, and live
our lives in a totally opposite sequence. In reality, we can never know
how time flows or even whether it flows or not. This is an indication of the
fact that time is not an absolute fact, but just a sort of perception. The
relativity of time is a fact also verified by one of the most important physicists
of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein. Lincoln Barnett writes in his book
The Universe and Dr. Einstein: Along
with absolute space, Einstein discarded the concept of absolute time-of a steady,
unvarying inexorable universal time flow, streaming from the infinite past to
the infinite future. Much of the obscurity that has surrounded the Theory of Relativity
stems from man's reluctance to recognize that sense of time, like sense of colour,
is a form of perception. Just as space is simply a possible order of material
objects, so time is simply a possible order of events. 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."419 The words
of Einstein indicate that the idea of a forward-running time is nothing more than
conditioning. 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 Theory of General Relativity: "Time has no independent existence
apart from the order of events by which we measure it."420
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."421 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. Let us think about
an example to clarify the subject further. Let us assume that we were put in a
room with a single specially designed window and we were kept there for a certain
period. A clock in the room would allow us to see the amount of time that had
passed. At the same time, we are able to see from the window of the room the sun
rising and setting at certain intervals. A few days later, the answer we would
give to the question about the length of time we had spent in the room would be
based both on the information we had collected by looking at the clock from time
to time and on the computation we had made by referring to how many times the
sun had risen and set. Suppose, we estimate that we spent three days in the room.
However, if the person who put us in that room said that we spent only two days
there and that the sun we had seen from the window was produced artificially by
a simulation machine and that the clock in the room was regulated specially to
work faster, then the calculation we had done would have no meaning. This
example confirms that the information we have about the rate of the passage of
time is based on relative references. In the same manner, the fact that
everyone perceives the flowing speed of time differently under different situations
is evidence that time is but a psychological perception. For instance, when you
have to meet a friend, a 10-minute delay on his part would seem to you like an
interminable, or at least a very long time. Or for a sleepless person who has
to wake up to go to school or work, an extra ten-minute sleep may seem very long.
He may even think that he has had all his sleep in these ten minutes. In some
circumstances, just the opposite happens. As you would remember from your school
years, after a forty-minute lesson which seems to last for centuries, a ten minutes
break may seem to pass very quickly. The relativity of time is a scientific
fact also proven by scientific methodology. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity
maintains that the speed of time changes depending on the speed of the object
and its position in the gravitational field. As speed increases, time is shortened
and compressed: it slows down as if coming to the point of "stopping." Let
us explain this with an example given by Einstein. Imagine twins, one of whom
stays on earth while the other goes traveling in space at a speed close to that
of light. When he comes back, the traveler will see that his brother has grown
much older than he has. The reason is that time flows much more slowly for the
person who travels at speeds near the speed of light. The same applies to a father
traveling in space in a rocket, the speed of which is close to ninety-nine per
cent of the speed of light, and his earth-bound son. If the father were twenty-seven
years old when he set out and his son three; when the father came back to earth
thirty years later (earth time), the son would be thirty-three years old while
his father would be only thirty.422 This relativity
of time is not caused by the deceleration or acceleration of clocks, or the deceleration
of a mechanical spring. It is rather the result of the differentiated operation
periods of the entire system of material existence, which goes as deep as sub-atomic
particles. In other words, for the person experiencing it, the shortening of time
is not experienced as if acting in a slow-motion picture. In such a setting where
time shortens, one's heartbeats, cell replications, and brain functions, etc,
all operate more slowly. Nevertheless, the person goes on with his daily life
and does not notice the shortening of time at all. These
facts revealed by the Theory of Relativity have been verified quite a few times
by various scientists. In his book Frontiers, Isaac Asimov also states that it
is 84 years since the publication of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and each
time the theory has been tested, Einstein has been proved right once again.423
Relativity in the Qur'an
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 twentieth 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! (Qur'an, 17: 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. (Qur'an, 10: 45)
Some
verses indicate that people perceive time differently and that sometimes people
can perceive a very short period as a very lengthy one:
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!" (Qur'an, 23: 112-114)
In some
other verses God 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. (Qur'an, 22: 47)
The angels and the spirit ascend to Him in a day
the measure of which is like fifty thousand years. (Qur'an, 70: 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. (Qur'an, 32: 5)
These verses
are clear expressions of the relativity of time. That this finding, which was
only recently understood by scientists in the twentieth century, was communicated
to man 1,400 years ago in the Qur'an is an indication of the revelation of the
Qur'an by God, Who encompasses the whole of time and space. Many other verses
of the Qur'an reveal that time is a perception. The situation described in the
verse below is also evidence that time is in truth a psychological perception.
Or (take) the instance of one who passed by a hamlet,
all desolate and in ruins. He said, "How shall God ever bring it to life
now that is dead?" but God caused him to die for a hundred years, then
brought him back to life. He said: "How long did you tarry thus?" He said:
Perhaps a day or part of a day." He said: "No, you have tarried thus a
hundred years; but look at your food and your drink; they show no signs
of age; and look at your donkey. And so that We may make of you a sign
to the people, look further at the bones, how We bring them together and
clothe them with flesh." When this was shown clearly to him, he said:
"I know that God has power over all things." (Qur'an, 2: 259)
The above verse clearly
emphasizes that God, Who created time, is unbound by it. Man, on the other hand,
is bound by time, which is ordained by God. As in the verse, man is even incapable
of knowing how long he has slept. This being so, to assert that time is absolute
(just as materialists do in their distorted thinking) is very unreasonable.
Destiny
This
relativity of time clears up a very important matter. Relativity is so variable
that a period appearing to us to be billions of years' in duration may last only
a second in another perspective. Moreover, an enormous period of time, extending
from the world's beginning to its end, may not even last a second but just an
instant in another dimension. This is the very essence of the concept of
destiny-a concept that is not well understood by most people, especially materialists
who deny it completely. Destiny is God's perfect knowledge of all events past
or future. A majority of people question how God can already know events that
have not yet been experienced and this leads them to fail to understand the authenticity
of destiny. However, "events not yet experienced" are only so for us. God is not
bound by time or space, for He Himself has created them. For this reason, past,
future, and present are all the same to God; for Him everything has already taken
place and finished. In The Universe and Dr. Einstein,
Lincoln Barnett explains how the Theory of General Relativity leads to this conclusion.
According to Barnett, the universe can be "encompassed in its entire majesty only
by a cosmic intellect."424 The will that Barnett calls "the
cosmic intellect" is the wisdom and knowledge of God, Who prevails over the entire
universe. Just as we can easily see a ruler's beginning, middle, and end, and
all the units in between as a whole, God knows the time we are subject to as if
it were a single moment right from its beginning to its end. People, however,
experience incidents only when their time comes and they witness the destiny God
has created for them. It is also important to draw attention to the shallowness
of the distorted understanding of destiny prevalent in our society. This distorted
belief about fate is a superstition that God has determined a "destiny" for every
man, but that people can sometimes change these destinies. For instance, people
make superficial statements about a patient who returns from death's door, such
as "he defeated his destiny." No one is able to change his destiny. The person,
who returned from death's door, didn't die precisely because he was destined not
to die at that time. It is, ironically, the destiny of those people who deceive
themselves by saying "I defeated my destiny" that they should say so and maintain
such a mindset. In the verse, "…no living thing lives long or has its life cut
short without that being in a Book. That is easy for God" (Qur'an, 35: 11), it
is stated that all things happen as a matter of destiny. Destiny is the eternal
knowledge of God and for God, Who knows time like a single moment and Who prevails
over the whole of time and space; everything is determined and finished in destiny.
We also understand from what He relates in the Qur'an that time is one
for God: some incidents that appear to us to happen in the future are related
in the Qur'an as if they had already taken place long before. For instance, the
verses that describe the accounts that people must give to God in the hereafter
are related as events which occurred long ago:
And the trumpet is blown, and all who are in the
heavens and all who are on the earth swoon away, save him whom God wills.
Then it is blown a second time, and behold them standing waiting! And
the earth shone 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 disbelieve are driven
into hell in troops… And those who feared their Lord are driven into Paradise
in troops... (Qur'an, 39: 68-73)
As may be seen, occurrences that are going
to take place after our death (from our point of view) are related in the Qur'an
as past events already experienced. God is not bound by the relative time frame
in which we are confined. God has willed these things in timelessness: people
have already performed them and all these events have been lived through and are
ended. He states in the verse below that every event, big or small, is within
the knowledge of God and recorded in a book:
In whatever business you may be, and whatever portion
you may be reciting from the Qur'an, and whatever deed you (mankind) may
be doing, We are witnesses of these things when you are deeply engrossed
in them. Nor is there hidden from your Lord so much as the weight of an
atom on the earth or in heaven. And there is neither the least and nor
the greatest of these things but is recorded in a glorious book. (Qur'an,
10: 61)
With this secret out in the open, the world becomes like heaven
for a believer. All distressful material worries, anxieties, and fears vanish.
He grasps that the entire universe has a single sovereign, that He changes the
entire physical world as He pleases and that all one has to do is to turn to Him.
He then submits himself entirely to God "to be devoted to
His service." (Qur'an, 3: 35) To comprehend this secret is the greatest
gain in the world. Glory
be to You! We have no knowledge except what
You have taught us. You are the
All-Knowing, the All-Wise. (Qur'an, 2: 32)
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