34وَلِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلٌ ۖ فَإِذا جاءَ أَجَلُهُم لا يَستَأخِرونَ ساعَةً ۖ وَلا يَستَقدِمونَMuhammad AsadAnd for all people a term has been set:1 and when [the end of] their term approaches, they can neither delay it by a single moment,2 nor can they hasten it.Lit., "for every community (ummah) there is a term": i.e., all people have a life-term decreed by God, during which they are at liberty to accept or to reject the guidance offered them through revelation. The word ummah often denotes "living beings" - in this context, "people".In Arabic usage, the term sa'ah (lit., "hour") signifies not merely the astronomical hour - i.e., the twenty-fourth part of a mean solar day - but also "time" in an absolute sense, or any fraction of it, whether large or small. In the above context, it has obviously been used in the sense of "a least fraction of time" or "a single moment".