Home / 2024 Collective Articles / Time and the human condition – By Hossam Badrawi

Time and the human condition – By Hossam Badrawi

I receive, as I receive many, messages on WhatsApp every Friday, sometimes congratulating and sometimes praying…and when you have a large number of acquaintances, friends, and those registered on your phone list, these messages become dozens, and sometimes hundreds… These are messages that were not written by their sender, but rather are transmitted. They are sent as they came to him from someone else, that is, they are impersonal messages, and do not require a response, but they require one to stop at the idea of sending a message that you did not write, to someone who will not read it, every Friday, as if his circumstances were being repeated, so what is the significance and benefit of that!! ‏
In my dialogue with young people, I discussed this issue with them, and we touched on a more important topic, which is the repetition of “shared posts” without verifying their authority and truthfulness. We participate in spreading false news sometimes, and we may be unintentionally supporting a large network of misinformation created by those who want to spread negative energy in society. .
All I ask is to verify before publishing any post for every list on your phone without knowing its origin and origin.. Science, intelligence, and awareness say so..
We must ensure the authority of posts that sometimes not only publish false news, but also intentionally distort statements, and add false pictures, to create complete stories far from the truth with the aim of…
A young dreamer woman said: I think that Friday “posts” that are sent without thinking have become part of society’s behavior and evidence of its condemnation. Is there a spiritual value for Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews, and Sunday for Christians? What is the origin of the story? What is the relationship between religion and days?
I said: I think it is a circumstantial, organizational relationship, not a divine one. She added: I have finished reading the book “My Own Universe” by James Bailey, followed by the book “Physics of the Future” by Mikio Kaku, and the book “The Elegant Universe.” By Brian Greene, and a summary of Stephen Hawkins’ book “Brief Answers to the Big Questions.” I became confused about time and what we take for granted on Earth, which is relative to the universe, so I began researching the expansion and contraction of time and its relationship. The speed of light and gravity, all of which began as scientific theories proven by astronomical discoveries and mathematical equations.. ‏
And when I looked at the dozens of messages from friends and those I did not know, with “posts” that they often did not read, but rather forwarded to everyone on their phone, as I explained, about sanctifying supplication at a specific hour or day because God responds to the supplicant more than at other times, I asked myself. About the importance of today, any day, and why people think that a day is very relative to the inhabitants of planet Earth from its north to the south pole, and the most relative between a day on Earth in the first place and a day on Mars or Saturn, let alone a day on a planet in another galaxy, and I wanted to share with you in thinking outside of what it is. Local (in this case the local is the Earth) to what is global
Another young woman said: Explain to us more…
I said: I invite you to think, to arrive at explanations worth considering.. If Einstein’s theory of relativity has proven the possibility of changing time and its relationship to space and speed, and that by increasing the speed to near the speed of light, time shrinks and mass diminishes, and upon reaching the speed of light, matter ceases and time stops, then I I can understand things that were said and I am required to believe them out of faith and not out of using the mind..
Another young man said: What’s the matter, doctor? What does this have to do with hundreds of Friday congratulations on social media?! ‏
I said: I see the relativity of time and I think about some verses of the Qur’an, and the following verses stopped me:
(And indeed, one day with your Lord is like a thousand years of what you count.)
(He directs the matter from the heaven to the earth, then it ascends to Him in a day whose equivalent is a thousand years of what you can count.)
(The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him on a day whose duration is fifty thousand years)
(So God caused him to die for a hundred years, then resurrected him. He said, “How long did you stay?” He said, “You stayed for a day or part of a day.” He said, “Rather, you stayed for a hundred years.”) ).
I added: My new book, “Dare to Think,” which was published a few days ago by Dar Al Maaref, discusses many similar topics, to increase knowledge and differentiate between what is human and what is divine..
Science is beautiful, and questioning is the origin of knowledge. ‏
As for those who wanted to consider that the mind took a leave of absence after the first two interpretations of what I am reading now after more than a thousand years, and that faith in believing what has no proof is the path to God, I say to them that God gave us the mind to contemplate, think, and strive with the knowledge with which He began His book. What distinguishes us from the rest of creation is this awareness of God’s blessing upon us
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The first young man said: We return to the days of the week. What is their source?
I said: In many cultures, the names given to the days of the week were derived from the names of the classical planets in Hellenistic astronomy, which in turn were named after the contemporary gods of that time in the minds of humans, a system introduced by the Sumerians and later adopted by the Babylonians. The Roman Empire adopted it during ancient times, and the seven-day week was adopted in early Christianity based on the Hebrew calendar, and Saturday remained the seventh day, which is sacred to the Jews, and Sunday to the Christians. The Babylonians had named these days by the names of the planets known to them, and their number was five, and they designated the sixth day to the moon and the seventh day to the sun.
Diana as the moon for Monday, Mars for Tuesday, Mercury for Wednesday, Jupiter for Thursday, Venus for Friday, Saturn for Saturday, and Apollo as the sun for Sunday. ‏
After that, a second stage came among the Arabs, in which they followed the rest of the peoples and adopted the use of the seven-day week, and they did not count the weeks before that.
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In the third stage, the days of the week were named by their known names today, which are (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday). The names from Sunday to Thursday are divided from the same number, the first, the second to the fifth, and Sunday was the first of them. As for the origin of the name Friday, it goes back to gathering and gathering for the purpose of prayer or something else. Then the Qur’an came to establish a day for the group to meet and pray together..
So, in Latin and English, the days of the week are named after celestial bodies, and at other times after some legendary figures in ancient history.
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Because the English language depends on the ancient Greek, Latin, and Germanic languages, these influences can be seen in their naming of the days of the week.
Then I said: They are all just names that reflect the cultures of different times. The week did not exist and then it existed. It was five days and became seven. The days were given different names related to the culture of their time, but in the end they are human creativity that has its own history and respect.
Some people think, and sometimes believe, that repeating the names of days or their dates in weeks and months has a religious significance, as if time is repeating, as if the events and the location of the day and month return as they were at a previous moment, which is not the case, considering the movement of the Earth around the sun and the group of solar planets, and the rotation of the entire solar system. Around something else, and everyone moves and travels through the universe, returning to the same cosmic situation on the same day, month, or earthly year is impossible.
By the same logic, the Creator who is close to us, near our jugular vein, has no timetable for listening to our prayers, and all the weekly and daily divisions are regulatory for human lives and not for God, because God Almighty exists at all times, in every place, and at every time. ‏
But from another rational logic as well, supplication is the release of positive energy towards something good towards those we love, and if we set a time in which supplication is made collectively for a group of people, the effect of this energy will increase.
The cheering of the fans on a football field for a team creates a collective energy that changes the chemistry of the players and makes them more capable. This is the secret of the famous saying that the earth plays with its owners, and perhaps the unification of supplication at one time from some people or at the time of group prayer for Muslims on Friday, for Jews on Saturday, and for Christians. On Sunday, the goal is to create collective energy towards goodness from a group of people, and God knows best. ‏