I want to show you the other place in the Quran where ‏دهر is used and this is really important.
Who was the Meccan Quran talking to? ‏مشركين. People who worship many idols.
But there was a small minority of atheists in Mecca too. They were not large number. They were small minority
but they were there. And actually some level of atheists or materialists have always been there in every society
even though majority of human cultures and civilizations have had some kind of religion.
But there's always been a small group that are just materialists "This world is all there is. This life is all there is.
There is no afterlife there is no god ...etc." So there were people like that also in Mecca.
And even though there are very small minority and they don't represent any authority they are loud enough
and they are important enough that the Quran sometimes even records their arguments and this is perhaps a wisdom
in the Quran that through time as Islam goes all over the world there will be people that will subscribe to that religion also
atheism and so maybe their world view from back then from 1400 years ago maybe that's old atheists and maybe new atheists
have some really epic new ideas that are like so much more advanced and sophisticated that their ‏عقيدة
has much stronger foundations now. Maybe that's the case but Allah decided to record these old Arab desert atheists
that were hurting sheep. But were atheists they weren't PhDs in a university and recorded their atheists worldview
and let's see if it's still relevant {وَقَالُوا مَا هِيَ إِلَّا حَيَاتُنَا الدُّنْيَا} [45:24] They said "It's nothing but our worldly life.
That's all there is. This world's life and it's ours." Ours is important here because they are saying "Who's in charge of my life?
I am. Just do as you want man. You're just going to be here and yourselves are going to disintegrate then a goat's going to eat it.
If you're going to go into the dirt and you're going to come out like a plant and a goat's going to come bite what used to be yourselves.
So just enjoy yourselves while they are together. And live your life. This is just all we have."
And then they say {نَمُوتُ وَنَحْيَا} "We're going to die. But for now we are alive. We live. We die. We live.
So basically death is the end yolo this is the Quran yolo {نَمُوتُ وَنَحْيَا}. This is what it is."
But the problem with this the problem with this is really interesting. The problem is if an atheists says
"There is no God, there is no afterlife." Fine. The authority on my life is who? Me, so I'm going to live as I please.
Well, if you're going to live and exist as you please, then you shouldn't die. Because then why do you want to die?
If it's up to you. Because if I say I eat, means I choose to eat. I sleep means I choose to sleep.
I live, I choose to live. If you say I die, you choose to die? Why do you want to die? You should just keep living.
So they are like "Wait we gotta answer that question." because life is up to me. Who's death up to? Cause they can take credit for life
if they want. That's what they want to do. But they took credit for death too. So they added {وَمَا يُهْلِكُنَا إِلَّا الدَّهْرُ}
"It's nothing but this all swallowing time. That's the one that kills us. Time kills us. Okay we die. Okay no. I meant I didn't mean we die.
I mean that time kills us. This all encompassing thing. If it wasn't for time then we wouldn't die."
{وَمَا لَهُمْ بِذَٰلِكَ مِنْ عِلْمٍ} And they have no knowledge of how time works. Allah says they have no knowledge of it.
Like they are talking about time as if they know what time is. They don't know what it is. And we're only beginning to grasp
just at the straws of what this thing is this time is. In a famous ‏حديث Allah attributes time to himself "‏لا تسب الدهر فإن الله هو الدهر"
don't curse time. Allah himself is time. Meaning Allah himself is the owner of time. Like Allah calls himself ‏نور
Allah also calls himself ‏الدهر. And so {إِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ} they do nothing but make assumptions. Now what I want you to understand
about this based on the atheists view of time and all of it. The universe is so big we're nothing. We agree.
Muslims and atheists agree on this one. The universe is so vast and we are an accidental little planet.
Where just these few cells came together after billions of permutations and bajillions of permutations so we're here.
just by this happy accident so just live it up. That's their view. You know what they use this as? They use this as an argument
that we are so insignificant that if there is a god he's probably busy running other galaxies and other nebulas and other dimensions
and worried about black holes he doesn't have time to deal with my insignificant little Few organic matter that came together.
So they used the insignificance of the human being physically to basically argue that we are too insignificant
and we're basically an accident and therefore there's no need to be concerned with the God.
Even if there was one hypothetically in this fourth dimension.