Adil studied Business Law all semester exceptionally hard. He topped both the mid terms, passed his quizzes and assignments with flying colours and was all set for an ‘A’. Today, the final exam day, he wakes up in his bed and his yawn turns into a piercing shriek. He finds out that he has overslept and missed his final exam! Imagine his state.
Hareem took her 4-year-old cousin to the shopping mall and left her with the salesman for a minute while she tried out a pair of drainpipe-jeans in the trial room. When she came back both the salesman and her cousin were nowhere to be found. She can now do nothing but sob.
Ali was crossing the road in a hurry to catch the IBA point. His cell phone rang, he lost his concentration for a split second and … *HIT*. His parents call that split second back everyday but in vain.
Time is time. Whether it is an hour, a minute or a split second, its value is immeasurable, unquantifiable, inexplicable and undeniable. They say time is money, I say it would be ridiculous to even attempt to compare something as infinitely valuable with something as limited as money. Can that split second Ali lost his life in be ever evaluated?
If time is not just money, what is it? Being humans and therefore bearing an erring nature we can not solve this mystery ourselves. Hence, we recall what our Creator has told us. He said,
“By the time, verily Man is in loss, except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and in the mutual enjoining of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy.”- Surah Al Asr
Hence, time for us is the only chance to save ourselves from being among the ‘men in loss’. Furthermore, we have to use it the right way. Surah Al Asr tells us that we should use our time to work upon our faith in the Creator who cares for every single cell that we are made up of instead of staying up all night long playing games, to apply Islam to our lives the Kaizen* way instead of wasting our precious hours sleeping till two in the afternoon, to spread the truth ( after having acquired it ourselves off course) instead of endlessly delving ourselves deep in frivolity that gives us neither worldly nor spiritual gain and along with these efforts to practice patience in the face of hardships instead of resorting to vailing, complaining and therefore ending up neutralising the thawaab earned earlier.
If a certain act does not fit in one of the four categories – faith, good deeds, truth and patience –then we are clearly killing time and therefore putting our whole eternity at stake. Remember, we are immortals!
