Fath al-Rabbani

Benefits: … It was the custom of the Arabs that they would criticize time (al-zaman), and in times of calamities and misfortunes, they would blame it and speak ill of it, and they would mention this frequently in their poetry as well, because their belief was that all of this is the fluctuation of time, and it is time that afflicts with calamities. But in reality, this was to speak ill of the Doer (al-Fa‘il), and the Doer of everything is Allah, the Exalted. Allah, the Exalted, has said: {وَقَالُوْا مَا ہِیَ اِلَّا حَیَاتُنَا الدُّنْیَا نَمُوْتُ وَنَحْیَا وَمَا یُہْلِکُنَآ اِلَّا الدَّہْرُ وَمَا لَہُمْ بِذٰلِکَ مِنْ عِلْمٍ اِنْ ہُمْ اِلَّا یَظُنُّوْنَ۔} … And they said, “There is nothing but our worldly life; we die and we live, and nothing destroys us except time.” But they have no knowledge of that; they are only assuming. (Surah al-Jathiyah: 24)

Hafiz Ibn Kathir rahimahullah has said in his Tafsir: The statement here is about the materialist disbelievers (dahriyyah kuffar) and the polytheists who shared their beliefs, that they are deniers of the Resurrection (Qiyamah) and say that the world is the beginning and the end; some live, some die, and there is nothing called Resurrection. The philosophers and those who affirmed ‘ilm al-kalam used to say the same. These people did not believe in a beginning or an end, and among the philosophers, those who were dahriyyah (materialists) and dawriyyah (cyclical theorists) were also deniers of the Creator. Their belief was that after every thirty-six thousand years, a cycle of time comes to an end and everything returns to its original state, and they believed in the existence of many such cycles. In reality, they would argue uselessly from reason and turn away from transmitted knowledge (naql), and they would say that the rotation of time is what destroys, not Allah. Allah, the Exalted, has said that they have no evidence for this belief, and they cannot present any proof except mere conjecture and assumption.