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Chapter 103

Timeal-ʿAṣr ( العصر )

3 verses • revealed at Meccan

»The surah that opens with the oath of the Divine One swearing by the decline of Time and humankind’s absolute loss of every single thing but righteousness, truth, patience, and faith. It takes its name from the phrase “by time” (wal- ʿāṣr) as mentioned in verse 1. The surah shows the way to salvation. The image of a declining day suggests the stage in the day, or in life, when only a short while is left for those wishing to make up for lost time.«

The surah is also known as Afternoon, The Decline of Time, The Declining Day, The Epoch, The Late Afternoon, Time and Age, Time through the Ages

بِسمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحيمِ

Yusuf Ali: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

1
وَالعَصرِ

Yusuf Ali

This early Meccan Sūra refers to the testimony of Time though the Ages. All history shows that Evil came to an evil end. But Time is always in favour of those who have Faith, live clean and pure lives, and know how to wait, in patience and constancy. f. the theme of S. 95.
C. 283 | [103:1-3] Waste not, nor misuse, your life. Time through the Ages bears witness that nothing remains but Faith and Good Deeds, and the teaching of Truth and the teaching of Patience and Constancy. But for these, Man against Time is in loss!
By (the Token of) Time (through the Ages),1
  • ‘Aṣr may mean: (1) Time through the Ages, or long periods, in which case it comes near to the abstract idea of Time, Dahr, which was sometimes deified by the Pagan Arabs (see Introduction to S. 76.); (2) or the late afternoon, from which the ‘Aṣr canonical prayer takes its name (see n. to 2:238). A mystic use of both these ideas is understood here. An appeal is made to Time as one of the creations of God, of which everyone knows something but of which no one can fully explain the exact significance. Time searches out and destroys everything material. No one in secular literature has expressed the tyranny of “never-resting Time” better than Shakespeare in his Sonnets. For example, see Sonnets 5 (“never-resting Time”), 12 (“Nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense”), and 64 (“When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced, the rich proud cost of outworn buried age”). If we merely run a race against Time, we shall lose. It is the spiritual part of us that conquers Time. See verse 3 below. For the “afternoon” idea see next note.