Saturday, May 01, 2010

Time travel and the Prophets

The purpose of this piece is to tickle the curiosity of people in the modern times regarding the relationship between science and religion. In particular, those who believe that religion and science are antithesis to one another. Religions essentially came from Prophets as the mouthpiece of God's revelation. Prophets were recorded to have performed feats that are deemed contrary to the laws of science. In the time of the Prophet Muhammad, he spoke of many events in the past and future that the people of his time could only believe in.

Prophet Muhammad were shown the denizens of hellfire. When he was taken up to heaven, on each level he saw the prophets. In other occasions he was shown the people being punished in the hellfire. It is established that the punishment in hell does not yet occur, because this will happen after the day of judgment. This is also true with regards to entering heaven. Eternal dwelling in Heaven and punishment in hell do not happen except after the day of Judgment.

In modern times, people are amazed about the idea of time travel. But this idea is old and ancient. thousands of years before H.G. Wells wrote his famous novel "the Time Machine", Muslims already believe that the Prophet Muhammad were shown the future, traveled faster than the speed of light and ascended to the heavens, shown the fruits in paradise ( essentially to another dimension).

The Qur'an contains stories that points to the relativity of time. The people of the cave woke up after three hundred years or so. The Prophet Uzair (Ezra) died a hundred years and came back to life while his food are still left unspoiled.

More on these later insha Allah