Discussions on TIME-4 (Response)

Assalamu alaikum, Dear Julie,

Thank you very much for your painstaking affords to read the article and write your reflections on it. I am very pleased that you took it very seriously. When i wrote it i was very serious too. I have been thinking about this matter, with no exaggeration, for decades. That does not mean that what i said was right; i needed to concentrate on topic, reflect on it over and over again. It is a life time process to know who our Lord is.

After i finished going over your reflections i felt the need to state the following paragraph.

InshaAllah, this long email does not tire you. You can read it whenever you are free and comfortable. Do not hurry to reply, read it, take your time, and think about it. And then if you like to write down something write it. It will be my pleasure to read it.

I will go over what you have written and write my reflections on your reflections. This seems going to be only a methodological discussion.

we all know that space is curved

Neither am i a scientist. I just took it for granted that it must be so, not because i read it from a “scientific” perspective. Logically and also supported by the Qur’an, if there was a limit to the edge of the universe, after the limit “we will fall into a cliff of nonexistence!”, which is impossible. But, at the same time, as you also say, this universe is limited in its existence. For us, there is only one option: To imagine the universe as “curved”, it is limited but we cannot get to the end! What does it mean? Too huge? I do not think it means that, for human imagination, however it may be huge, we still can imagine the end of something existent. But the Qur’an says, neither human beings nor the Jinns can go out of the regions of the heavens and the earth. Even Jinns! But with the permission or authority of the Lord. That means, to my understanding, there is an end to the regions of the creation but God does not let us go beyond. It is created in a way that no one can go beyond it. The only logical conclusion of it by using the analogy of the world we are experiencing would be that the earth is created in a way that you go straight but you cannot go out of it if you travel continuously on the surface of the earth. (We can travel upwards on the earth but we cannot travel upwards in the universe, because it is going to be always as if we are traveling on the surface of the universe). Than, the moon is the same, the solar system is the same, then, the universe must be the same. In the creation we see harmony, and consistency, and God, the Creator promises in His act of creating and in His Speech as well that He will not change the way He creates. We know that as long as He wills to create He does so following His own way of creating. That is what we experience. He also says in His message, “You will never find any change in God’s way!” (35: 43; 33: 62; 48: 23).

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Not: Miracles shown at the hand of the Messengers are not exemptions to this rule. It is the “way of God” to demonstrate miracles to show that the Messengers of God are appointed by Him, who puts the rules of creation as He wills, He controls them, He administers them etc. It is His decision to create this universe in a way that we can know how we pray, by using our free will, to God to create something for us. That is why the prayers must be made within the way God creates and teaches us what to ask Him to create for us. E.g. we cannot pray to God to change the way He creates the Sun. This prayer is not “prayer”, it is imposing our wish on God; it is never be accepted any way. If i ask God to give me healing without taking a medicine created by God (if it is within the way God creates), it would be not prayer but “examining God.” Practically, those people by not taking medicine if needed (because we learn from our previous experience,) then this person is praying to God not to give her/him healing. ( I will explain why i call this action as prayer, below.)

We have to be very careful not to expect from God to show us “miracles” in this world, as long as we are NOT Messengers of God. Miracles are created not for the Messengers but for the poor people, like us, that they cannot be sure if this person is saying the truth or cheating them. We need to see the miracles in the hands of the Messengers in order to be sure that they are employed by the One Who is the Owner of this universe and is the One Who employed the person as His Messenger.

Again, we cannot expect God to give us “karama” (the minor miracles shown at the hand of the “wali”, the friend of God.) God may create one for somebody who needs it, but we cannot be in expectation of being that person. It is totally up to God to create a “karama”. That is why the companions of the Messenger of God, Muhammad (bpbuh) were not given any “karama’, because they were so sure with the teachings of the Qur’an and the Messenger that they did not need one. Karama may be given at the discretion of God, not at our expectations, because it is given not for the “wali’ but for the people who need to see it to make sure that God is always with them. Again, if we wait for it, it will be a “bargaining with God” as though, if God gives me “karama” i will be sure of His being God. If some one is not really sure of His being s/he is not a “wali” yet. So, s/he should not see her/himself as deserving that. I mean, it will be a contradiction to be in expectation of “karama”.
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That is how we conclude about something which we cannot experience by just using the things we experience and then make an analogy. The universe is created in a way that we can make an analogy. That is another subject.

How did the Muslim scientists conclude that the earth is round, not flat even without making any journey over the surface of the earth? The answer to this question is simple for me: Observing the creation and reading the Qur’an.

Not because i read it from a scientist but it was my conclusion from the verse 33 of the Chapter, Rahman (55).

While our body remains where it is now...

Of course, as you say, our body is subject to continuous change, that is the whole argument of the paper. I mean here, relatively, as compared to the past and the future.

It can only be in one location at a time, not in two locations at once.

The discussion is the relation of our existence in the context of the past and the future and the present. The miracles are not the topic we are discussing here. Please refer to the previous email. There we will see that we cannot talk about anything from God’s perspective, if we are reasoning about the existence and the Giver of the existence. What we see here is that one thing is created in one space and time. The topic is to make it clear that we cannot carry our existence into the future. Can we? Please take notice of this point which is extremely important. Who is carrying my existence into the future? Can I? This matter makes me feel confident that i am ALWAYS in the HANDS OF GOD. When He decides to give me any kind of creation, even at the moment of death, i am still in the HANDS OF GOD. How great a feeling it is! MashaAllah! Thank God that He made it clear for us.

Can we simply conclude that in terms of space, we, like everything else, exist only in one location at a time?

While we are dreaming, our body exists in one place; our spirit may exist in another place. Our imagination may include something from the past experience, for instance. That does not mean that a thing exists in two places; still it exists in one place, as our eyes see something over there, our ears hear some voice coming from somewhere else… but with all these elements in our existence we exist at a place at a time and this time is transient we cannot stop it, we cannot change it, we cannot get hold of it. We are created as we are. However the situation we are in, still the point is to notice that we are created at that moment as we are. It is not us who controls our existence. This is the point to be aware of. Again, we are not discussion here how we are created while we are dreaming. Dreaming person is one person created with the ability to dream, with the ability to see, to imagine etc.

Allah knows what we do not know! so if there are things we do not know,

Please refer to the previous email. We are reasoning whether this statement is true or not. So that we will confirm it! We have to use the things we know and then conclude that the Creator of these things has an infinite knowledge. That is our conclusion. We cannot use our conclusion while we are reasoning to reach that conclusion. It would be circular.

we are so limited by our human condition, there is no way to comprehend that which we cannot comprehend. can we ever be objective enough to speculate..are we not inherently bound to our own subjective minds?

We are created as we are and we are given the opportunity as we are and given the ability to investigate as much as our given abilities allow us to do so. Again, refer to the previous email. I cannot imagine what is not created. That is my reality (i.e. created, relative reality) and i have to use my abilities to understand who i am. What is going on in this world so that i will make sense of my existence. At the end of reasoning, if i come up with a conclusion that i am a created being and i have a Creator Who is Absolute, only then, i would say i should not rely on my limited subjective mind. I cannot say this while i am reasoning about my own existence. It must be my conclusion. That is called “iman-i tahkiki” (belief with research – by using our human qualities coming to a conclusion) as apposed to “iman-i taklidi” (imitative belief – taken for granted belief. Let’s say, somebody believes in God, for instance. If you ask her/him why, s/he must have an answer which makes sense. It must be her/his conclusion by making a research about her/his existence. That is how we are created. The companions of the Messenger of God have never taken for granted that they believed in something because they were born into it, something like that. They questioned the Messenger and read the Qur’an, which is full of evidences. 95% of the Qur’an provides evidences to human beings to think about.

the word "nothing" can't be used. why? because Allah has always existed

How do we know that God has always existed? That must be our conclusion. Please, refer to the previous email. I think it will go on this way. Methodology is extremely important. It may be that we are used to speaking with this language among the believers. But here we are talking about why we should be one of the believers? Is it really correct? That is the way to reach “yaqin” (certainty in the belief in Ghayb, (that which beyond the human perception.)) Belief is our conclusion about the “ghayb”. If we want to be sure about our conclusion we have to use the tools given to us: Human capacity. That is why the Qur’an is replete of evidences from the heavens and the earth and the things in between. There are more that thousands of verses about this. Only the earth is mentioned in the Qur’an 481 times, the heavens 310 times and also the things in between mentioned alongside with them. Why do you think God keeps mentioning the heavens and the earth? The Qur’an presents them as “ayaat” (the signs, the evidences)? Signs, evidences to what?

To me and especially to Nursi, who is one of the best commentators of the Qur’an from belief perspective, this aspect of the Qur’an is neglected throughout the history of the followers of the Qur’an for a thousand years. We have to revive the missing aspect of the Qur’an, especially in this age when people are lost in their cultural claim to be Muslims or in their traditional, ethnic identities, without questioning why they follow Muslim culture or Christian culture or Hindu or Buddhist culture.
No way to speak with a claim while learning “why to believe”. As the Qur’an says, - by the way, this expression is so beautiful, i really love it - ”Hatu burhanakum” (bring your evidences) (21: 24; 27: 64; 28: 75) Look at this beautiful argument that the Qur’an teaches us how to use our reasoning, why should not we follow it?

“Could there be any divine power besides God? Say: ‘produce your evidences – if you truly believe in your claim!’” (27: 64).

in the time before the existence of the universe which our human capacity allows us to comprehend

“The time before the existence of the universe” will not be imagined, it would be our SPECULATION. Speculation is not really imagination. Imagination is something we experience and then think about it and bring it into our imagination in the form of imagination, otherwise it will be just a speculation. Speculation is not based on anything which existed before or is existing now.

Artist’s imagination is the usage of her or his previous experiences or mixing up the previous experiences. We acquire this quality through experiences, by repetition.

By the way, there is a dimension of this matter related to “inspiration”. But we can talk about the “inspiration” only after establishing that the things are created by someone Who answers the prayers. This inspiration is a response of the Creator to the person’s constant prayer to Him by practicing her/his abilities. That is called “praying by action”, the person may not mean to pray to God, but this is the way how things are coming into existence. That means how things are created. The more we use our abilities the better they are developed. It is not us who are developing them but we are just asking the Creator to develop them for us. That is how the creation takes place. We ask the One Who gives existence to create these abilities in a more developed way. We cannot develop them. We ask to something else to develop them for us. This “something” is the One Who give existence to the things, and we call that One, God, the Absolute, and Necessary Being.

we also know the future exists because we know Allah knows what the future will be. but Allah is the only one who knows the future.


Do you notice you are giving the answer to your own question: but Allah is the only one who knows the future.

Yes, if we conclude that there is God Who is omniscient, then, this conclusion is correct. Not while we are trying to see if an Omniscient One exists. While reasoning we should not use our previous conclusion in order to prove that this conclusion is true. It will be circular, “tautology”, or more correctly, “begging the question” as it is called.

depend on each other

This is a good suggestion. I took it. Thanks.

how many aspects of Existence are there?

Yes, you are right. There is nothing more than existence. We observe it as if it has two aspects: Time and space. The article is to say this: There is only existence.

"How can that which does not exist give existence to the present..or..anything in the present" ?

I made the necessary correction, thank you.

without the prior moment, the present moment could not be, could not "exist". this means the present moment ISN'T independent of the previous one(s) existence. the definition of present is dependent upon that which it is not, it is not past and not future.

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that the prior moment (past) cannot be the Creator of the present. The present moment IS independent of the previous one’s existence. This is the whole point. Is the past the creator of the present? Itself does not exist in the present moment. It is continuously in need of being given existence. The way the things are given existence SEEMS TO BE that they are the continuation of the past. That is what the philosophers wanted to tell people. But when we think about the quality of the beings we understand that the past cannot make a new present, which is similar yet different. Later on, philosophers realized this contradiction, and gave up the idea of finding the “Ultimate Truth”, they said there is no Truth, philosophy is to ask questions not to come with a certain answer, instead of admitting, “the Ultimate Truth” is the One Who Gives existence to the things and He is Absolute, not of the same kind of this universe.

Similarity cannot necessitate the creatorship; similar things cannot be the creator of each other. You said at the end of the paragraph: the definition of present is dependent upon that which it is not, it is not past and not future.

Yes, the past and the future cannot be the Creator. The reason asks, “Who is, then, the Creator?” Since they exist, we need a source of this existence.


The present is NOT dependent on the past. That is why you said: this is seemingly ever convoluted...

It is not convoluted, the base of our conceptualization was wrong from the beginning, to me.

something that fleets

No, time does not fleet. That is our perception of it. There is no independent existence as we call “time”. Time is our concept to express our perception of creation. There is nothing but CONTINUOUS ACT OF CREATING. That is what we observe. Then you can solve your question. Just do not give an independent existence to time. That is why the article concludes that “every moment is a new act of creation” and what the related verse (55: 29) says is correct, what the philosophers claimed that things (atoms) exist eternally is wrong, illogical!

if the existence of a moment depends on it's previous moment, that does not minimize in any way the miraculousness of things being brought into existence out of the mystery of future.

If we could say that “the existence of a moment depends on its previous moment”, how then we would be able to talk about miraculousness of things? The existence of a moment depends on its Absolute Creator because it is a new existence and it needs a creator; nothing can depend on its previous existence; because the previous existence itself does not exist in the present moment.
aging itself is a process implicitly connected to time.

But i explained above the Creator is creating the things in a way to teach us how we should pray Him to create something for us if there was no “order” in the creation.

Aging is the order, creation is a new act of creation. The article is talking about the creation. Similarity between the previous act of creation and the present creation does not necessarily make the present dependent on the past. This is how the things are given existence and shows that the Creator is ever changing the act of creation but in order. We seem to be aging. We are not aging, we are given a new existence slightly different from the previous one. That is it. As far as our creation is concerned we are newly being created. Change rests on the Choice of the Creator.

He will may tell you when you look at your own present existence;

When we look at our present existence He WILL tell us why He is giving death. The creation is to reveal the Creator’s purpose in creating this world. But we MAY understand it or not, depends on our usage of our free will. That is something else; we are talking about creation in this article, not human free will.

do you mean our actions based on choice?

No, no, there is a confusion here, we chose, we cannot act; we chose, the Creator Acts, creates. There is no human action; there is only human choice that is human free will. We are responsible because we chose, i.e. we ask, pray to the Creator to create whatever we have chosen. This is extremely important. One of the main aims of this article is to establish that human beings do nothing but, whether they are aware or not, they pray to the Creator to create for them whatever they desire. The following matter arises from this misunderstanding of “prayer”.

atheists and agnostics are two types of unbelievers who also practice or utilize free will, but they are not conscious of a Creator and so they do not pray.

Every body prays to God only. All of us are, in fact, ibadullah (God’s worshippers). Our consciousness, recognition of, and/or submission to this reality makes us either believers or nonbelievers. Prayer is not used here to meaning “verbal supplication.” That is something after we establish that we are doing nothing but praying God, then this realization comes into our free will and then we start supplicating, beseeching God by using our tongues and hearts. In the Risale-i Nur this explained as “fitri du’a”. Every creature is praying by their “tongue of disposition”.

what do you mean actions as answers? and to what prayers? can you give me a clear example of what you're saying?

The sentence says, "actions we claim to perform" I think now it may be clear to you: There is no action, “actions we CLAIM TO PERFORM.” But only we claim, i.e. we think we are doing something. We are just asking the Create what we want, nothing more than praying to God. But, we may not be aware of this. That is a completely different matter. Whether we accept or not, does not change the reality that “we cannot create anything.”

For your conclusions:

1. time/space are mysteries, and additionally they are aspects of a greater mystery called existence.

If time and space and even existence as greater mystery, then, how can we talk about God? Where did we get this idea of God, then? Not knowing the reality of a thing, is different from knowing the existence of a thing. We do not know the reality of anything in this world, but we do know that existence exists. And it needs a Creator because it is given continuous existence anew; it is given existence consciously, orderly, wisely, mercily etc. The Creator must have these qualities eternally, because these qualities demonstrate that their source must be eternal. That is how we can talk about God. Otherwise, how?

we cannot say or know if time/space exists in the hereafter

From the first place where did we get this idea of hereafter? How do we know the hereafter, if we did not use this creation as an evidence for my belief in God as the Eternal Being?

If you we say we got this idea from the Qur’an, or scripture, this is the problem, how do we know that the scripture is true if we did not use the creation as signs of the “ghayb” (all the articles of belief) for us.

As the Qur’an says in the Chapter, Al-I Imran (3), verses, 190-191: “Verily, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and (in) the difference of night and day are tokens (signs, messages) for men of understanding, (190) Such as remember God, standing, sitting, and reclining, and consider (reflect on) the creation of the heavens and the earth, (and say): Our Lord! You have not created this in vain (without meaning and purpose.) Glory be to You! Keep us safe from suffering through fire!”

past and future originate only from our imagination.

This point also needs to be careful. They do not originate from our imagination at all, these are our conceptualization of the existence. We can only speak with our concepts and God also teaches us in the Qur’an by using our concepts, but God teaches us the real meaning of these concepts. So, we can use our concepts and reflect on the created things. Without using our concepts how can we think? That is how we are created.

but this "definition" is not Absolute truth...only the Creator is Absolute truth.

Again the same problem: Methodology. We are talking about “our” definition. This is not expected to be Absolute Truth. If we had the Absolute Truth there would be no need of all these talks. We are looking for the Absolute. How can we talk about the Creator is Absolute Truth? That must be our conclusion. Since in this universe there is no Absolute = “La ilahe”, but the universe exists as we experience it. We do experience it and then conclude that it must come from an Absolute Source. Our conclusion will be about the existence of Absolute Who is not of the nature of this created universe. But this universe is the source of my conclusion. Without using the universe as “ayaat”, where did we get this notion of Creator?

Of course, the importance of understanding TIME lies right here. If act of creating is taking place continuously, then we need to be aware that we are always at the presence of the Creator. He is not away from us. He is always with us. Is not that wonderful for us? Do not we need a conception of the Creator Who takes care of us continuously right this moment? Does not our spirits look for an Owner Who is ever present in our lives. That is the core of belief, i think. By the way, this is not my personal idea, i have not invented it. First, this is what the Qur’an expresses. Second, this idea was put forward in a formulated way by Imam Hasan al-Ash’ari, in 9th century. And then followed by Al-Ghazali etc. now by Said Nursi.

Can you imagine without loving the beautiful act of creation of animals, plants, clouds, stars etc. we would love the Creator? I do not think it is possible. It needs continuous attention to and reflection on the creation. I believe the hadith which says, “Renew your belief with “la ilahe illallah” means this. You can read the piece in The Letters of Said Nursi on this topic. It is beautiful. If you like you can read it with Osman and his wife if you visit them. If you like we can study it in one of our Sunday online discussions, even may be this Sunday. If you say yes, we need to let Andria know this so that she will announce it accordingly.

I think we take our belief for granted that we believe in God and then talk about it. This is only repeating ourselves. “Illallah” must be our conclusion in every moment. We cannot say “illallah”, therefore, “Lailahe”. That is logically impossible. That is why most of the time some Muslims get together in the mosques and keep repeating themselves. They need to follow the way the Qur’an shows us; the Qur’an is a guide to us in our search of its own truthfulness as well. That is why i really appreciate Nursi’s approach. Following the method of the Qur’an he helps us confirm our beliefs in the truthfulness of the Qur’an and the Messenger. That is the thing we need to learn and then we confirm our belief on every occasion. We can have confidence in the belief we claim to have, and can also spread the truthfulness of this belief to those who are searching for it. This is the way the Messengers followed. It needs a serious study.

3. NOTHING which exists is separate from its Creator it...it isn't possible. any separation is a self induced illusion, and only that, nothing else

I think it was a good start. You have lost the trace. Any way, but it is very nice. How can we confirm that we cannot separate the things from their Creator? That is what we are studying in this article. This is our conclusion which can be stated only after we study the creation, try to reflect on the things we interact, take them seriously as the base of our belief in their Creator and the attributes of this Creator.

how many dimensions to "reality" are there. what exactly is reality?

The reality for me, i love my life, the life of an animal, our existence and when i get hungry i love eating some food. My reason asks, “Where did they come from? Who is preparing these meaningful things? If we are to talk about reality in this sense it is “our reality” which means that is how we are (Not Absolute Reality, of course). Then continue, is it at all possible that my experience of this existence happens to be by itself etc.? Questions follow each other. Then, we need to look for the answer. If we follow this way, we can understand that we are created like this. If you do not believe this read the article on TIME :)  I am kidding! Read the universe first and we will understand that we cannot really know the purpose of existence, but what we can know is this: “There must be a purpose of this existence.” If we cannot get the answer to our inquiry, then the Maker of this universe must tell us, because He seems to be a Wise One, He created us with this inquiry and thus, He must Speak to us. How? Read the Messages of those who claim to be Messengers of God. See if they make sense to you or not. And then decide accordingly.

There are two ways of reading the messages: 1- Read them as a guide, 2- and then read them to confirm that they make sense to us as the Word of the Creator. They must go together; look for their inner consistency.

Do you remember receiving any email from me about “Guide to Reading the Scripture of the “Other”?” If not and if you like i can send it to you.

and thus the truth remains an elusive mystery.

We are not defining any thing; we are trying to understand what we are. We may come up with a conclusion that we are not enough to find the Ultimate Truth. This recognition of our impotence is not an elusion. To conclude that we are created beings is not an elusion. It is not a mystery, it is my own experience. Where we confuse that we think we ourselves are going to define the Truth. Let’s see, if we can. I do not think we can. So, that does not mean that we know nothing, or, we cannot be sure of any thing. We can be sure of our impotence, our created-ness, our neediness for every thing we feel the need of etc. That is to say, we are not the creators of ourselves. Do not you think when we say, “La ilahe” we mean this?

We can be sure of the truthfulness of “La ilahe”. How about “Illallah”?

Yes, it is also sure. If “La ilahe”, since existence is real, the Giver of Existence also logically must be real: “Illallah”. We are not claiming to know God, we are declaring that “I witness in this universe that there is nothing to be taken as the source of this existence. But since this existence exists as i experience it, then, i conclude that definitely there must be a Giver of Existence. Since this existence declares that every thing is continuously coming into existence with perfect harmony, order, wisdom, knowledge, purpose, mercy, meaningfully, choice etc., under the witnessing of these qualities of the things, i witness that this Creator must be Absolute. I DO NOT CLAIM TO KNOW THE ABSOLUTE BUT I CONFIRM THAT THE ABSOLUTE EXISTS. THAT IS WHAT I CALL GOD, THE CREATOR, THE TRANSENDENTAL BEING, EVER PRESENT WITH HIS ACT OF CREATION IN THIS UNIVERSE. EVERY THING MUST BE CREATED BY HIM ALONE.

That is “La ilaha illallah” We are sure of the truthfulness of this statement. That is why we call ourselves “believers in God and submitters to this truth: muslims”.

I really enjoyed going through your “Reflections on Time.” I did the corrections you offered, thank you very much again. Your criticisms were extremely useful and mind opening for me. May Allah reward you with whatever you are HOPING  from HIM.

May God’s peace and blessings be with you forever.

Your br. ali