Series Navigation
[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]
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Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?
Manipulation of Prophecy The Future and YOU
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]
Peace unto those who seek peace.
Having joined us, perhaps your curiosity is piqued, and perhaps you have a few questions. Please bear in mind that on a very real level this series is designed to be interactive, that is to say that we want you to get out of it what you are willing to put into it. If our conclusions are spoon-fed to you then this would actually rob you of something quite valuable; the ability to arrive at our conclusions by doing your own work. By the time you are finished you will have considered ideas that few others have considered.
From the outset we would like to firmly establish for your mind what this series is, and is not, about. What our aims are, and what questions we seek to answer.
All of the questions either directly addressed, or in some cases alluded to, concern knowledge of the future. From whether or not it is possible to arrive at certain knowledge of the future, and if so then by what means? Is there a divine schedule for humanity, and is it knowable? Firstly though, how is time past, and time future, measured out for humanity, in the divine schedule. By what units is human time divinely measured out, and why would Allah reveal knowledge of such units?
When we ask what is the divine measurement of human timescales, this question presupposes a more basic one, are there human timescales for human history and affairs?
Allah, supreme and exalted, does not need to measure in finite human units of time, rather, it is humanity that perceives the linear procession of time. Since Allah measures out all things in His qadar, His divine allotment, the terms of humanity are no exception and there are scales of human times and history. Is there however a divinely mandated scale ? A scale mandated by Allah for the procession of human history and time?
You are a discrete entity, and a living being, and you have a lifespan. Humans in general have average lifespans. By and large, we grow mature and die within time frames marked by an orderly procession of events, from birth to nursing, crawling, walking, talking and with speech the progressive refinement of our senses and intelligence, mastering the toilet functions, further growth, puberty and adolescence, and so on to the decline in years, dotage, and eventual death.
Realize that natural time lengths exist for all phenomena. All living beings have lifespans. Individual human lives are measured in years. Galaxies, on the other hand, experience lifespans of billions of years. On earth, geological time is in millions of years, while some tiny microbes have entire lifespans measured on the scale of hours.
The question we are asking can be summed up as this: what is the natural period for humanity? If you take human communities, assemblages of peoples and nations, what is the period by which their growth, maturation and passing should be measured?
Let us examine this for a moment, if the hands of a clock cycle around its face every 12 hours, then this is a period. If a calendar recycles every 12 months, passing on to a new year, then this too is a period. What we seek, and what we want you to ask yourself, is this; is there a period, an objectively established unit to measure the periodical progression of human communities and humanity itself? And if so what is it?
Now that you have thought to yourself about what this period may be, let’s look into it. Did you, perhaps, ask yourself: “is it a year?” If so then why? Why should it be a year? Perhaps you asked yourself: “is it a month?” – well again why, it is not enough to just guess, think over deeply why select that scale. Let us say, perhaps, that you considered: “is it a decade? a century?.” Perhaps you felt a general ‘feeling’ that you couldn’t articulate, causing you to consider a series of years, but when asked why, you could not explain.
Consider that the period we are looking for is actually a genealogical time period. Let us think this over for a moment; consider the progress of human history. What is history if not the procession of human lives and deeds, in sequence, one after another. Human lives have distinct periods that are, essentially, stages. We often know these stages as the ages of a one’s life, and they range from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence, prime adulthood, middle age, and old age.
From this genealogical perspective, we perceive the passing of one generation of humans to another, and from those others to yet others who would then carry on the torch of progress or degradation. Is not the history of many nations measured, in part, by dynastic reigns? This is an explicitly genealogical notion and sheds light on what we are looking at: generations.
This brings us to the important question: what is the length of a generation? And to complicate matters generations overlap. Young and old frequently live together, within the same chronological period. For example, you may have children, parents, grand-parents, and great grand-parents all alive at the same time and place.
Consider a hint; the periods we are considering can’t overlap, they have to represent some definite value. Give yourself some time to consider different scenarios. We will conclude this numerical topic in our next episode.
[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]