Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | Jul 14, 2019

If only this had not happened at this particular time," All such statements betoken a feeling of unease or distress in the mind of a person. Certain sets of circumstances come into being at the exact points in time allotted to them by God.

How often have we heard people say things like, "If only we had thought of this before," or "If only we had postponed our journey" or" if only this had not happened at this particular time," or even, "If only we could have lived in a different century!"

All of these statements betoken a feeling of unease or distress at a sequence of events which we feel might have been different. This is often a pointless exercise and should not be a cause for worry.

We think things such as, "If we had postponed our journey, we wouldn't have had an accident. If we lived in the next century, life might be more comfortable than it is now", and so on.

Things, we feel, could have been better ordered in terms of our own personal destinies. But, recorded in the sayings of the Prophet, we find these portentous words of God: "Do not speak ill of Time, for I am Time, all is in My Hand; I make the night and the day succeed one another."

This profound and awesome statement leaves us in no doubt that everything which takes place in the world does so according to the law laid down by God.

Just as the passage of time, and events in nature, conform to this law, so do certain sets of circumstances come into being at the exact points in time allotted to them by God.

To rail against this system and to wish that the order of events could be other than it is nothing short of speaking ill of God's law and amounts to an act of being disobedient to God. Why then must one indulge in such a pointless exercise?