20. The Shrinking of Time

In a hadith by Bukhari, Abu Hurayrah said that RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “Approaching the day of judgement, time will shrink.”

RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “The Day of the judgement will not occur until time shrinks. The year will be like a month, and a month will be like a week, and a week will be like a day, and a day will be like an hour and an hour would be like burning a leaf.”

What does it mean for time to shrink? There are a few interpretations:

1.  A lack of Baraka in time. Time will be missing blessing. We can see that now: years and days will pass by, but we don’t accomplish anything. Our days are 24 hours – like Abu Bakr’s, ‘Umar’s and the scholars’, but we don’t accomplish as much as they do. For example, Ibn AlJowzee (a great scholar of Islam) had blessing in his time. When he died, they counted all of the books he wrote and said he must have written 11 pages a day, on average. [Transcribers note: Remember that in those days writing was much harder and they did not have the luxury of computers or even a type writer!] Ibn Taymiyyah wrote a book one time – A Treatise in Aqueedah (AlAqueedah waasitiyya) – between dhuhr and ‘Asr. This book is now studied in universities over a semester or even a year, and still the students complain that it is too much! Our lifestyle also makes time feel as if time is too short. In the Dhaka city, there is too much free time. Everything is rushed. In rural areas, life is at a much slower pace. SubhanAllah, time is an amazing thing. One hour is the same amount of time, but in two different areas there is a difference of how much can be done in that time and how long it feels.
2. Some scholars say that this will be during the time of Mahdi. The luxurious lifestyle will make it seem like time is passing by very fast.
3. The shrinking of time due to new forms of communication and transportation. In terms of transportation, it is so easy to go from one side of the globe to the other. Now, all you have to do is spend a few hours in a plane and you’re there. In the olden days, it would take years to make such a trip. In terms of communication – we have such fast communications today, such as the telephone and email. So these new forms of transportation and communication have “shrunk time.”
4. The literal shrinking of time. The earth will start to rotate faster, etc. There is a strong theory amongst scientists of the big bang. Some say that the universe started as a big bang and will end as a big crunch. Allah says in the Qur’aan that the moon and the earth will come together. We cannot use this as proof, but these are the ayaat of Allah talking about the Day of Judgment.