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1852510/02/2013

The deeds and attitude of the angels cannot be compared to the deeds and attitudes of humans

Question: 179186

First of all I would like to say that my Allah reward you and those brothers that are involved in providing this website and teaching Muslim the religion of Islam according to the Quran and Sunnah.

My question is regarding fatwah 2272 which speaks about 1 day equal to 1000 years. Can you give some clarification if the 1000 years mentioned in surah as sajda is also refering to the thickness of the heavens which is equal to 500 years travelling and the distance between the earth and the heaven is 500 years travelling as mentioned in tafsir ibn katheer, but the angels carrying the cammands and deeds travels in the blink of an eye. also I heard from zakir naik that the word used for day in arabic also means a period which is the correct translation. Please clarify according to the quran and sunnah. My second question is that i read in one of the books that one of the ways of getting provisions from Allah is to get married. Is there an authenthic hadith regarding this matter.

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

Firstly: 

Allah, may He be glorified and
exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning):

“He arranges (every) affair
from the heavens to the earth, then it (affair) will go up to Him, in one
Day, the space whereof is a thousand years of your reckoning (i.e. reckoning
of our present worlds time)”

[as-Sajdah 32:5]. 

Ibn Katheer (may Allah have
mercy on him) said: 

Deeds are taken up to the place
where they are recorded above the lowest heaven, and the distance between it
and the earth is the distance of five hundred years travelling, and the
thickness of the heaven is five hundred years. 

Mujaahid, Qataadah and ad-Dahhaak
said: The angel descends the distance of five hundred years’ travelling and
he ascends the distance of five hundred years’ travelling, but he covers
that distance in the blink of an eye. Hence Allah, may He be exalted, says
(interpretation of the meaning): “in one Day, the space whereof is a
thousand years of your reckoning (i.e. reckoning of our present worlds
time)” [as-Sajdah 32:5]. 

End quote from Tafseer Ibn
Katheer (6/359). See also Tafseer al-Baghawi (6/300) 

With regard to such matters of
the unseen, we must accept what is said about it in the shar‘i text, if it
is proven, and we should not ask why or how, because Allah, may He be
exalted, is able to do all things; He has encompassed all things in His
knowledge and nothing is beyond Him in the heavens or on Earth, and He is
not to be questioned about what he does. 

If one of us is able nowadays to
contact someone who is at the other side of the world, and can see him and
hear his voice at the same time, and if we can see things on our television
screens when they are happening, even though there are thousands of miles
between us and those events, then how can we wonder or find it strange that
the angels descend from heaven then ascend again in one day? For that only
happens by the will and decree of Allah, may He be exalted. 

Furthermore, look at what Allah
has enabled people to do now of travelling in airplanes of different kinds,
and in spaceships. Could the people of old have imagined that humans would
travel in such a manner and would cover huge distances so quickly? 

But what is the power of
humanity in comparison to the power of Allah, the Most High, the Omnipotent,
may He be glorified? He is the Almighty and nothing is beyond Him in the
heavens or on earth. He says (interpretation of the meaning):

“The Originator of the
heavens and the earth. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it: ‘Be!’ –
and it is”

[al-Baqarah 2:117]

“Verily! Our Word unto a
thing when We intend it, is only that We say unto it: ‘Be!’ and it is”

[an-Nahl 16:40].

Nothing is impossible for Him
and nothing is beyond His power. 

The angels only descend and
ascend at Allah’s command. He, may He be glorified, is the One Who enables
them to do what they do. 

The angels are a mighty
creation, the extent of whose might only Allah knows, and they have powers
and abilities which no human can comprehend. 

The Angel of death (peace be
upon him) takes the souls of people in a single moment, when some of them
are in the furthest west and others are in the furthest east. 

When you understand that it is
only Allah Who has bestowed this power on them,

and were it not for Allah, they
would not be able to do anything, so in fact their power is to be attributed
to Allah, may He be glorified, then you will no longer wonder. 

See also the answer to question
no. 843

Secondly: 

In Arabic, the word yawm (day)
refers to the period from sunrise to sunset. 

But yawm in Arabic may also
refer to time in general, no matter how long it is. For example, in the
hadeeth it says: “Before the Hour comes there will be days of harj
(killing).” Narrated by al-Bukhaari (7067) and Muslim (2672), i.e., a time
of killing.. That does not mean day in exclusion of night.

See: Lisaan al-‘Arab
(12/649) 

In al-Misbaah al-Muneer
(2/683) it says: The Arabs may say yawm (day) referring to a given
moment, whether by night or day. They say “I saved you for this day”, i.e.,
for this time when I will need you, and they would not see any difference in
meaning between that day and that time. End quote. 

Thus Arabic usage indicates that
the word yawm (day) may refer to time in general, and that usage is
also mentioned in shar‘i texts. Therefore there is no contradiction between
linguistic usage and what the text says. 

How beautiful is the report
narrated by at-Tabari (may Allah have mercy on him) in his Tafseer
(13/602) with a saheeh isnaad from Ibn Abi Maleekah, that a man asked Ibn
‘Abbaas about the Day the length of which is one thousand years. He said:
What is the Day the length of which is fifty thousand years? He said: I only
asked you so that you would tell me. He said: Allah mentions both of them in
the Qur’an, and Allah knows best about them. He did not want to speak about
the Book of Allah without knowledge. 

See also the answer to question
no. 146979 

Thirdly: 

Getting married in pursuit of
chastity is one of the means of getting provision, by the will and decree of
Allah. Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning):

“And marry those among you
who are single (i.e. a man who has no wife and the woman who has no husband)
and (also marry) the Salihoon (pious, fit and capable ones) of your (male)
slaves and maid-servants (female slaves). If they be poor, Allah will enrich
them out of His Bounty. And Allah is All-Sufficient for His creatures needs,
All-Knowing (about the state of the people)”

[an-Noor 24:32]. 

The Messenger of Allah
(blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “There are three whom Allah
is bound to help: the mujaahid who strives (in jihad) for the sake of Allah,
the mukaatib (a slave who has made a contract of manumission with his
master) who wants to pay off his manumission, and a man who gets married,
seeking to remain chaste.” Narrated by al-Tirmidhi (1655), classed as hasan
by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Tirmidhi.

For more information on this
issue, please see the answers to questions no. 136076
and 136885 

And Allah knows best.

Source

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