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Will the Hour come suddenly upon all people or upon the worst of creation? Can it be said that it will not occur tomorrow due to the incompleteness of its major signs? And how can this be reconciled with the verses that indicate its sudden arrival?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, emphasized that everything he foretold would come to pass, and that the Hour would come suddenly after its signs had appeared, while people are preoccupied with their worldly affairs. This is evident in the hadith that describes the state of people when the Hour comes, such as the one who has spread out his garment and he and his companion are unable to complete their transaction. The apparent contradiction between the Hour coming suddenly and the appearance of its signs is resolved by stating that its suddenness means people's unawareness of it at the time of its occurrence, or that the intended Hour is the hour of each person's death, for with their death their individual resurrection begins, and the reality of their situation is unveiled to them, or it refers to the destruction of a generation or a state.

As for the statement "Indeed, Allah has no present or future," it has no comprehensible meaning, unless it is intended to mean that everything is equal in Allah's knowledge. The discrepancy in the estimation of a day with Allah as a thousand or fifty thousand years can be reconciled by understanding that a thousand years refers to the days of the creation of the heavens and the earth, and fifty thousand refers to the Day of Judgment, or that the variation in the duration of a day depends on the state of the believer and the disbeliever, so the day is lighter for the believer and harder for the disbeliever. It is advised not to delve into matters of the unseen except with knowledge.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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