When is the Hour?
Dear brothers, we are living in a time where the challenges have been something we have not seen before. Never before has a calamity affected the globe and at the speed that the current pandemic has affected us all. Whether that is physically or mentally, nobody is spared in the impact that this event has had.
Alongside this there is continuing discussion that this is the end of times and that this test is a signal that we are ever close to the time when life as we know it will end and the day of judgment will begin.
The imam mentioned a few ayats in todays reminder in reference to this. Firstly, Sura Al-Araf, ayat 187 is translated to say:
They ask you ˹O Prophet˺ regarding the Hour, “When will it be?” Say, “That knowledge is only with my Lord. He alone will reveal it when the time comes. It is too tremendous for the heavens and the earth and will only take you by surprise.” They ask you as if you had full knowledge of it. Say, “That knowledge is only with Allah, but most people do not know.”
And also ayat 63 from Sura Al-Ahzab which says:
People ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about the Hour. Say, “That knowledge is only with Allah. You never know, perhaps the Hour is near.”
Dear brothers, if we spend a moment to ponder over these ayats, there are a number of lessons to learn. First of all, the knowledge of the end is only with Allah SWT. It makes no sense to guess when this is as it only serves to sensationalise or scare some people. We are instructed that the knowledge lies with Allah SWT alone and that is where we should leave it.
Secondly, our role is not to guess it’s precise time but actually to warn of its inevitable arrival. As the imam mentioned, in ayat 45 of Sura An-naziat, the duty that lies with us is to warn whoever is in awe of the hour. And so from this we can learn that there is an instruction for us all.
Dear brothers, whether it is the final hour or not, our final hour is when we depart this earth. For us, that is the end as our account is closed and we will lie in our graves waiting for the final hour. We need to be mindful that the focus should be on our own personal final hour and to focus our attention on doing all that we can before death approaches us.
In regards to warning others, we don’t need to go as far as predicting the final hour, we should remind one another that our individual final hour could come at any time, i.e. death, and so we should conduct our affairs in this life accordingly.
Nobody knows when either our own final hour, or the final hour of todays reminder will come, except for Allah SWT. However, we don’t need to know it, we should instead be mindful of it so that it can mould our behaviour and our actions in this life, however much we have left of it.
