A reflection on Surah Al-Asr 103:1 - why Allah (SWT) opens this short surah with an oath by time itself, and what it asks every believer to notice.
Time moves the same for every student at Darus Saulieghien Quraan Academy, yet what each of them does with it varies enormously. Surah Al-Asr, one of the shortest surahs in the Qur'an, opens with an oath that makes this exact point unavoidable.
An Oath Worth Pausing On
Allah (SWT) says:
وَالْعَصْرِ ١
"By time." (Surah Al-Asr 103:1)
When Allah (SWT) swears by something in the Qur'an, it is to draw attention to its significance. Time is one of the few things every human being shares equally, rich or poor, young or old, everyone is given the same twenty-four hours in a day. What differs entirely is how it is spent.
A Resource That Cannot Be Recovered
The Prophet (SAW) said: "Take advantage of five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness, your wealth before your poverty, your free time before your preoccupation, and your life before your death." (Shu'ab al-Iman 10250) Unlike wealth, time spent cannot be earned back. A missed hour of revision, a wasted evening, is gone in a way that a missed opportunity elsewhere is not.
We try to instil this awareness gently in our students, not as pressure, but as perspective: the discipline of a consistent daily portion of Qur'an is really a discipline of guarding time itself, the very thing Allah (SWT) opens this surah by swearing upon.
May Allah (SWT) bless the time He has given our students, and help them use it in ways that please Him. Ameen.