4.4.2 Origin of Time
If we can’t speak about the origin of the world in time, we can still ask about the origin of time in the world. As Ibn al-Arabi pointed out, we can’t ask when time began, because the word ‘when’ requires time to be defined beforehand, but we can ask how time began?
In response to this cosmological question, Ibn al-Arabi argues that both the natural and para-natural types of time have originated in the Universal Soul, which has two forces: active and intellective. The active force is responsible of physical motion, while the intellective force enables perception, or updating the soul’s spiritual state. So physical time is that in which bodies keep moving to preserve their existence, and spiritual time is that in which the heart perceives knowledge. Physical time, therefore, is originated from the active force of the Universal Soul, while spiritual time originates from its intellective force.
On the other hand, since the natural, or physical, time is a consequence of material motion in Nature, it is originated with the isotropic orb which is the first orb in Nature in which the first body was created, as we described in sections 3.1 and 3.3. When this isotropic orb was created and started to move; its motion defined the natural time. But because this orb is isotropic; the same in all directions, it is not possible to measure time in this orb alone, because there was nothing to compare its motion to it. So when Allah created the second orb that includes the farthest stars, or actually galaxies, that are appropriately called fixed stars, the apparent motion of those stars in this orb defined the day as the complete revolution of this orb, as we will discuss in section 4.4.
Ibn al-Arabi affirms that the motion of the isotropic orb was actually determined from above; it started when the first degree of Gemini was matching the divine “Foot” on the “Pedestal” above the isotropic orb, as depicted in Figure 4.6, and after one complete revolution, the first cosmic Day of creation was completed, and that was Sunday. Then the process of divine creation continued through the other Days of the cosmic Week, until its initial completion on Saturday, just to start over again [II.437.34]. Because this creative Day was determined from above, it was not possible to know its duration [II.437.27]. It is true that we divide this day into 24 hours, but this is a convention or relative division. It is actually not possible to determine the length of this day, because there is nothing more fundamental in Nature to compare its motion to, but we use this Day to measure other relative days of other orbs that are below the orb of fixed stars, and also the days of the spiritual and divine orbs that are above this physical isotropic orb too, as we shall see further in the various sections below.