Two broods of periodical cicadas came out of the ground together in the American Midwest in 2024. It was the first time since 1803: one brood appears every 13 years, the other every 17. The next double emergence is due in 2245.
Billions of insects kept an appointment they did not set. Al-Muqaddim, the One who brings forward, names the One who sets every 'when'.
Start with what we know
Start with something we know. Then take away everything it needs. What is left is not a bigger version of us: it is the Name.
Episode 1
In us
We are always trying to hurry things along. In Yorkshire's 'Rhubarb Triangle', between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell, growers move rhubarb plants into dark, warm sheds in winter so that they shoot early. They harvest the pink stalks by candlelight, and the method won protected status in 2010. It is clever and very British. But forcing only works on plants that have spent two years in the fields storing energy, and it brings the crop forward by weeks, not years. We can schedule, prioritise and rush. We cannot make a seed flower before its time.
Episode 2
In nature
Periodical cicadas spend 13 or 17 years underground as nymphs, feeding on tree roots, and then emerge in their millions within a few days of each other. Scientists think the prime-number cycles help them avoid predators whose own cycles might line up. Smithsonian Magazine reported that Broods XIII and XIX came up together in 2024, an event last seen in 1803. Their timing is extraordinary. But they did not choose it. The cicada keeps its appointment; it cannot move it by a year.
Episode 3
At our best
NASA's Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses lists every solar eclipse from 2000 BCE to 3000 CE, with timings for some accurate to seconds. Astronomers can tell you the exact minute the Moon's shadow will cross Britain in 2090. It is a triumph of human understanding. But it is prediction, not control. We know when; we cannot bring an eclipse forward or put it off by a single second. Even sunlight reaches us about eight minutes after leaving the Sun, and not a moment sooner.
Episode 4
The Break
We time things with clocks, calendars, forcing sheds and a great deal of waiting. Every timetable we know was set by something else, or can only be forecast. Al-Muqaddim brings forward what He wills, in time and in rank, as al-Ghazālī explained. He puts nothing out of its place. It is a Name to say with its pair, al-Muʾakhkhir. The Qur'an says each people has its term: “And every nation hath its term, and when its term cometh, they cannot put it off an hour nor yet advance (it).” (Qur'an 7:34, Pickthall).
Read: No muqaddim in the Qur'an as a Name. Prophetic: 'You are al-Muqaddim and You are al-Muʾakhkhir; there is no god but You' (Bukhari 1120).
From the tradition: Ghazālī: brings near and puts far; precedence can be in place or in rank, and here he means rank.
On screen
Interstellar's crew lose 23 years in an hour because time bends around them. Al-Muqaddim and al-Muʾakhkhir are not inside time's bend.
Light delay: sunlight is about 8 minutes old on arrival.
In nature
Migration (BBC Earth compilation).
In people
Waiting for results, births, verdicts.
In science
Biology: biological clocks, circadian and circannual rhythms; prime-number life cycles.
Living it
Don't rush what is not yet due; don't delay what is due.
Its kind
Act: something done: mercy shown, provision given, a prayer answered.
In the Qur'an: none as a name; Prophetic supplication 'anta l-muqaddim wa anta l-muʾakhkhir' (Bukhari/Muslim)
A prayer in the night
ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbbās was the Prophet's young cousin. He loved to learn, and he remembered things. He reported how, when the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) rose in the night for the extra prayer called tahajjud, he would begin with a long praise of God.
O God, to You belongs praise: You are the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth and all in them. To You belongs praise: You are the Light of the heavens and the earth. You are the Truth, Your promise is true, meeting You is true. Paradise is true, the Fire is true, the prophets are true, the Hour is true.
O God, to You I have submitted, in You I believe, on You I rely, to You I turn. Forgive me what I have done before and what I will do after, what I have hidden and what I have shown.
And then: anta l-muqaddim wa anta l-muʾakhkhir, lā ilāha illā ant. “You are the One who brings forward, and You are the One who puts back. There is no god but You.” (Bukhari 1120)
In one breath the prayer names five of the 99: al-Qayyūm, an-Nūr, al-Ḥaqq, al-Muqaddim and al-Muʾakhkhir. It ends by handing over time itself, what came before and what comes after, to the One who sets it.
What each faith says
Read:
Judaism
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”
Ecclesiastes says it in one of the most quoted passages in literature. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” The Hebrew word for 'season', zeman, also means an appointed time.
Jewish life is shaped by appointed times, mo'adim: the weekly Sabbath and the festivals, each fixed by a calendar tied to the Moon and the seasons. Keeping them is a way of living inside God's timing.
On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, synagogues chant Unetaneh Tokef, a prayer that asks who will live and who will die in the year ahead. Its answer is not fatalism: repentance, prayer and charity soften the severity of the decree.
Christianity
“one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
The second letter of Peter reminds readers that God's time is not ours: “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”.
Christians often speak of kairos, a Greek word for the right or appointed moment, as distinct from chronos, clock time. They believe the coming of Jesus happened “when the fullness of the time came” (Galatians 4:4). For Christians, history turns on that moment.
The church year moves through Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Pentecost, so that Christians in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and many Free Churches live through the same story in the same order every year.
Islam
“And every nation hath its term, and when its term cometh, they cannot put it off an hour nor yet advance (it).”
Al-Muqaddim is not in the Qur'an as a Name; it comes from the Prophet's prayers, in Bukhari 1120 and Muslim 771, and from the traditional list. The Qur'an carries the meaning: every term is fixed and cannot be brought forward or delayed (7:34; 16:61).
Scholars note that 'bringing forward' also means honour: God brings forward whom He wills in rank, such as the prophets. The believer's share is to put first what God puts first.
Same and different
Ecclesiastes' seasons, Peter's thousand years and the Prophet's night prayer all place time in God's hands. All three faiths keep sacred times: Sabbath, Sunday, Friday prayer and festivals. Each faith also counts years from its own centre. Christians read history around the coming of Christ. The Islamic calendar counts from the Hijra, the Prophet's migration to Medina in 622, and the Jewish calendar from its traditional date for creation.
A moment to reflect
What are you impatient for right now?
What has come to you earlier than you expected, or later?
What would you put first if you really believed God sets the order of things?
Watch
How periodical cicadas evolved their 13- and 17-year prime-number cycles.
Oxford Sparks on circadian rhythms, the clocks inside every living thing.
Do it together
families / schoolsThe waiting jar
Plant bulbs (daffodils or tulips) in autumn and mark the date. Guess when they will flower. Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 together when they do.
faith groups / schoolsThree calendars
Put the Jewish, Christian and Islamic calendars side by side for the coming year. Mark each other's festivals and plan to send greetings at the right time.
Episode 1
