4. The 'Intertwined' Days:
As we have mentioned before (section II.15), Allah said in the Holy Qur an: each Day He is upon some (one) task (55:29). Since Allah did not say 'tasks' but rather a single task or event, Ibn Arabi argues that the whole Day should be under the effect of one single divine task. This, however, is not the case for our normal, 'circulated' days and is clearly not the case for the 'taken-out' days we've just described above, because we know that many different events are happening in each observable 'circulated' day.
Ibn Arabi argues that the original Days of events in which Allah described Himself as being 'each Day upon some task' are
intertwined (or 'entered into each other':
mutawalija, from the verb yuliju: 'to enter into') with the circulated days in a specific manner, which he explains by dividing the day into 24 hours. However, Ibn Arabi emphasizes that this example is only for approximation, since one could also explain this 'intertwining' on a smaller scale than hours (e.g., minutes and seconds, or even smaller). The matter as he describes it is already very complicated for 24 hours, although this may be possible to calculate now using sophisticated computer programs.
Starting with the night of Sunday because its name al-ahad ('the First', 'the Unique') is a Name of Allah, it is the first day, and also it is the day of the sun that is the heart or centre of the manifest world [Ayyam Al-Sha n: 11] Ibn Arabi reconstructs the Days of events from the hours of the circulated days, starting with the first hour of the night of Thursday, then the eighth hour, and so on with seven-hour intervals until the full twelve hours of the night of Sunday are completed. Then he moves on to 'deconstruct' the daytime of Sunday in the same way, as illustrated in the Table IV.2 and Figure IV.2.
The science of Time is a noble science, that reveals the secret of Eternity. Only the Elites of Sages may ever come to know this secret. It is called the First Age, or the Age of ages, from which time is emerging.
