If the Notion of “Past Time” Has Vanished, Can the “Present Time” Be Real?

                                If the Notion of “Past Time” Has Vanished, 

                                    Can the “Present Time” Be Real?

Friends, perhaps some of you have pondered this: “If the time being lived right now is real, why should the relative states of the notions of past and future time be unreal compared to the present? Is there a physical explanation for this? That is, how is it that the past, which was called ‘Real’ while we were living it, suddenly ceases to exist while we are living in the present, and the notion called ‘Real’ suddenly becomes the ‘Present Time’?”

Doesn’t this actually show that Reality progresses step by step? In fact, Reality—progressing in step lengths divided into pixels of $5.39 \times 10^{-44}$ seconds, which we call Planck Time—is no different from a motion picture played frame by frame. In other words, Allah has designed this universe like a movie set, brought the cosmos into existence as an environmental variable, and created human beings as the actors on this stage. By bestowing a soul upon us humans, unlike other living beings, He enabled us to possess the ability to “Desire” and granted us the freedom to use the blessings given to us however we wish. Furthermore, whenever necessary, He appointed prophets from among us to remind us of His commands at the Assembly of Alast (the Primordial Covenant), entrusting them with the mission of messengership to remind us of these commands in order to measure to what extent we would uphold them and to what extent we would turn away from them.

Moreover, the first verse of the Qur’an, “Read!” (Iqra), should be understood not merely as reading the Holy Qur’an, but as reading, understanding, and analyzing all of Allah’s creations holistically. For if we consider that the Qur’an was revealed for every human being living from the time of its revelation until today, not everyone throughout history had access to paper or similar materials. Considering also that Allah does not burden any soul beyond its capacity, we can deduce that He would not command the final prophet, Prophet Muhammad Mustafa (peace be upon him)—who did not know how to read script—to read the Holy Qur’an from cover to cover over and over again. With this command to “Read!”, Allah commanded our Prophet (peace be upon him) to “Find meaning in what Allah has created and remember (dhikr) Allah.” Thus, we can conclude that this is why Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was created as an unlettered prophet. In other words, we can say that he set an example for his ummah (community) as someone who investigates and learns about Allah’s creations and remembers Allah abundantly.

We can return to our main topic now, if you wish. In short, since the notion of past time does not exist right now, we can say that the notion of present time essentially does not exist either. Everything happened and was completed in a singular initial moment, and we can say that Allah created this universe to test how much change we would make through our partial free will (juz’i iradah).

Pardon me if I have made any mistakes. With my respects.

Written by: Emre Pelit