The Ruling on Cursing Time and Blaming Fate (Qadr)

This kind of speech contradicts the perfection of tawḥīd and the perfection of belief in the divine decree (qadar). The decree does not play, and time does not act aimlessly. Everything that occurs in this life is by the decree of Allah and His knowledge. Allah is the One who turns the night and the day, and He is the One who decrees happiness and wretchedness according to what His wisdom requires. That wisdom may be hidden from people, because their knowledge is limited and their intellects fall short of grasping the divine wisdom. Everything in existence is created by Allah, brought about by His will and power. What He wills is, and what He does not will is not. He is the One who gives and withholds, who lowers and raises, who honours and humbles, who enriches and impoverishes, who misguides and guides, who grants happiness and wretchedness, who gives kingship to whom He wills and strips it from whom He wills. He has made everything He created excellent, and all the actions of the Creator, His commands and His prohibitions, carry a far-reaching wisdom and praiseworthy ends for which He is to be thanked, even if human beings do not perceive them.

It is reported in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere that the Prophet ﷺ said, relating from his Lord:

يُؤْذِينِي ابْنُ آدَمَ يَسُبُّ الدَّهْرَ، وَأَنَا الدَّهْرُ بِيَدِيَ الْأَمْرُ أُقَلِّبُ اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ “The son of Adam offends Me by cursing time, for I am [the One in charge] of time; in My hand is the affair, and I turn the night and the day.”

And in another narration, “Do not curse time, for I am time.” And in another, “Let not the son of Adam say, ‘O the ruin brought by time!’ for I am time; I send the night and the day, and when I will, I seize them both.”

In the days of ignorance, the Arabs used to attribute to time (al-dahr) the calamities and misfortunes that struck them, saying, “The blows of time struck them,” and “Time destroyed them.” When they attributed the hardships that reached them to time, they cursed the one who brought them, so the return of their cursing fell upon Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, since He in reality is the Doer of the very things they were describing. That is why they were forbidden from cursing time. This explanation of the hadith has been transmitted from al-Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿUbayd, Ibn Jarīr, al-Baghawī, and others.

As for the meaning of His words “I turn the night and the day,” it is that whatever occurs in them of good and evil happens by Allah’s will, His management, His knowledge, and His wisdom, with no one sharing that with Him. What He wills is, and what He does not will is not. So what is obligatory in this is to praise Him in both states, to think well of Him, and to return to Him in repentance. Allah said:

وَنَبْلُوكُمْ بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ “And We shall make a trial of you with evil and with good. And to Us you will be returned.” — Sūrah al-Anbiyāʾ (21:35)

The reviving Imām Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (may Allah have mercy on him) placed in his Kitāb al-Tawḥīd a chapter he named “Whoever curses time has offended Allah,” in which he cited this hadith and showed that it contains several points:

1. The prohibition of cursing time.
2. That it is called an offense to Allah.
3. Reflection on His words “for indeed, Allah is time.”
4. And that a person may fall into cursing even if he did not intend it in his heart.

On this basis, the writer, may Allah pardon her, erred when she attributed cruelty to time in the title of her story, because the decree, as has passed, does not act. It is Allah who decrees things by a far-reaching wisdom. Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, is not described with cruelty. He is Merciful to His servants, more merciful to them than a mother to her child, as is reported in the authentic hadith,

ٱللَّهُ أَرْحَمُ بِعِبَادِهِ مِنَ ٱلْوَالِدَةِ بِوَلَدِهَا “Allah is more merciful to His servants than a mother to her child.”

It is obligatory that we must keep our pens far above falling into such slips, in obedience to the command of Allah and of His Messenger, in completion of tawḥīd, and in avoidance of whatever contradicts it or its perfection. The media, as is known, is widespread and has a great effect on people, and its frequent repetition of such words spreads them among people and makes them careless in using them, especially the young, along with the harm those words carry.

We ask Allah to guide us to the straight path and to keep us from the slips of the pen and the tongue. He is Hearing, Responsive. And may Allah send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muḥammad and upon his family and companions.

Source: Majmūʿ Fatāwā wa Maqālāt of Shaykh Ibn Bāz (1/146).