This relativity of time clears up a very important matter. The
relativity is so variable that a period of time appearing billions of years’ duration
to us, may last only a second in another dimension. 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 Allah’s perfect knowledge of all events past or future. A majority of
people question how Allah can already know events that have not yet been experienced and
this leads them to fail in understanding the authenticity of destiny. However,
"events not yet experienced" are not yet experienced only for us. Allah is not
bound by time or space for He Himself has created them. For this reason, the past, the
future, and the present are all the same to Allah; for Him, everything has already taken
place and finished.
Lincoln Barnett explains how the Theory of General
Relativity leads to this fact in The Universe and Dr. Einstein: According to Barnett, the
universe can be "encompassed in its entire majesty only by a cosmic intellect".
(158) The will that Barnett calls "the cosmic
intellect" is the wisdom and knowledge of Allah, Who prevails over the entire
universe. Just as we easily see a ruler’s beginning, middle,
and end, and all the units in between as a whole, Allah knows the time we are subjected to
like a single moment right from its beginning to the end. People experience incidents only
when their time comes and they witness the fate Allah has created for them.
It is also important to draw attention to the shallowness of the
distorted understanding of destiny prevalent in society. This distorted conviction of fate
holds a superstitious belief that Allah has determined a "destiny" for every man
but that these destinies can sometimes be changed by people. For instance, for a patient
who returns from death’s door people make superficial statements like "He
defeated his destiny". Yet, no one is able to change his destiny. The person who
turns from death’s door does not die because he is destined not to die then. It is
again the destiny of those people who deceive themselves by saying "I defeated my
destiny" to say so and maintain such a mindset.
Destiny is the eternal knowledge of Allah and for Allah, Who knows time
like a single moment and Who prevails over the whole time and space, everything is
determined and finished in a destiny. We also understand from what is related in the
Qur’an that time is one for Allah: some incidents that appear to happen to us in the
future are related in the Qur’an in such a way that they already took place long
before. For instance, the verses that describe the account that people are to give to
Allah in the hereafter are related as events which already occurred long ago:
And 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 disbelieve are driven
unto hell in troops... And those who disbelieve are driven unto hell in troops..."
(Surat az-Zumar, 68-74)
As may be seen, occurrences that are going to take place after our
death (from our point of view) are related as already experienced and past events in the
Qur’an. Allah is not bound by the relative time frame that we are confined in. Allah
has willed these things in timelessness: people have already performed them and all these
events have been lived through and ended. It is imparted in the verse below that every
event, be it big or small, is within the knowledge of Allah and recorded in a book:
In whatever business thou mayest be, and whatever portion thou mayest
be reciting from the Qur'an,- and whatever deed ye (mankind) may be doing,- We are
witnesses thereof when ye are deeply engrossed therein. Nor is hidden from thy Lord (so
much as) the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And not the least and not the
greatest of these things but are recorded in a clear record. (Surah Jonah, 61)
If one thinks deeper in light of all that is said here, he is sure to
realise in his own soul this astounding and extraordinary situation: that all events
transpiring on earth are merely an illusion.