Its that old age question.

I experienced a severe headache today. Biological, it wasn't. In fact, it was an intellectual headache as a result of thinking 'too much'. All that statement will shed light on is the state of my mental faculties lately - void. I haven't thought deeply on anything (bar one thing) for a long time. So when I sat at my lecture about time and space, I was forced to think.

My thoughts ran with me at a rate completely unknown to me. It was from one thread of thought to another. From one subject to another. However, I finally found my focus and asked myself about time. Immediately, my brain flooded with past memories, physical equations and the most prominent memory, the surah on time in the blessed Quran.

Time is a measurable entity. I don't even know if that is scientifically viable. Actually ,it is thinking about it. Now, can you see why I got a headache. Its a complex canvas time is, its flexible and convuluted and allows the timekeeper to manipulate it however it wants to do so. Timekeeper A measures time in a way different to Timekeeper B. Thats the beauty of time, I guess.

Love is meant to make the world go round but why have we missed out time. Its the sole 'entity' (or the measuring of it) that allows us to make sense of what is around us. Its invisible yet evident. Its silent yet speaks volumes of history. It exists but at times, I feel it cannot exist. Is time there or is it a way for man to make sense of the world around him?

"Times have changed", my mum usually says. We speak of good times, like good memories. Time is the greatest of healers and that is sure true. But all the while , I still haven't figured out how time can be touched, is it really here. Its a gift from Allah, an untouchable one and at times, unfathomable. Its the fourth dimension , too, I think. Time is inseperable from space, if one wants to observe this question from a physical perspective.

And it went on and on. And my mind couldn't handle it anymore. Then I smiled and I think my lecturer caught on. He probably wondered what was the matter with me as most of the other students were probably fast asleep. But the inward smile still lingered in till way after the lecture. Why? Its because these sorts of question serve to let people like me undergo mental exercise. Imagine if these big questions didn't exist. Where would we be? Its just another addition to this endless web of knowledge and understanding that allows us human beings ( the creature with intellect is what we are after all) to ponder and reflect.

Yes. Reflection. Thats why these questions exist. So that simple people like me can take the time out to ponder on life.

Finally, a last thing about time, use it well. As I mentioned earlier, the surah that discusses time, revealed to us in the blessed book of Allah, Al-Quran, Surah 103.

By (the Token of) Time (through the ages),

Verily Man is in loss,

Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy.

-translation by Yusuf Ali.