By Time

There’s a verse of the Quran or a chapter I should say which is called The Time. Some translate it as the declining day, but it’s essentially sort of the midpoint of the day in the afternoon where the sun has passed its highest point and we are now passing through time. So I think the most appropriate way to word it is by time or the time. And what are the contents of that chapter?

Well it says, by time, as in God swears an oath by time. Mankind is in a great loss. Except those who believe and do righteous deeds and encourage each other to the truth and encourage each other to patience.

What does that all mean? Well it’s really a description of our time on this earth. Many more well-versed more educated people will give you a more advanced view of this and I’m just using my experience and some of what I’ve listened to or heard from them. But essentially the way I interpret it is that it’s effectively encapsulating everything about life itself because all we have is time. Everything is governed by time. Everything that we do is covered by time and we constantly talk about having no time I talk about having no time yet. Time is all we have and so when God says buy time. Indeed, mankind is at a great loss immediately. You find that you’re already in a state of loss because you think you have no time, but you have all of the time in the world and you don’t use it effectively and so God it goes on to say except those who believe in him, except those who understand that there is a creator. Someone made this world with a purpose and that he then goes on to say those who are not in a great loss are the ones who perform righteous deeds who do good deeds who do good in this world and it’s so open-ended because that could be anything that could be so many good deeds. It could be anything you could you know. Just spend your day looking for things to do that help people benefit people or being in service of people even smiling at someone. Maybe that would be enough but then he goes on to say and encourages each other to the truth. So what he’s saying is that it’s not even enough that you do the good deeds. But it’s that you remind people about why we are here. Because what is the truth? The truth is effectively that this world was created for a purpose and that most people have forgotten that and then he says and encourage each other to patience and the word is sabr in Arabic Which translates to more than just patience is effectively struggle or striving. Not to be confused with jihad which is another form of struggle. But it’s essentially described in the way of God.

And what is the way of God? That’s the way of life. You know you have to think about it from the standpoint of what is life. It’s not all the materialistic things that we created for ourselves when you strip it all back. What is it? You know it’s the cycle in rhythm of who you are, what you are, what you need, what the environment around you needs what you have to do as a human being. But we’ve lost sense of that. We don’t understand that anymore.