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Is Imam Al-Shafi'i's saying: "I was not content with my time with what you see, but I am content with what fate has decreed" considered an objection to Allah's judgment, and does "time" here refer to Allah? And what does he mean by his saying: "We blame our time, though the fault is in us; and our time has no fault but us"?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Time (زمان) and epoch (دهر) are not Allah the Almighty. They are simply time and a period. The root of the word 'dahr' (epoch) signifies dominance and subjugation. The Arabs used to curse the 'dahr' when afflicted by a calamity. Thus, the prohibition against cursing it came, because Allah is the doer of what happens within it. As for the poet's saying: "We blame our time (نعيب زماننا)," what is meant is the specific time and period we live in. And being content with Allah's decree does not contradict feeling pain from it.

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

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