Episode 1In us
A lifetime of decades; a felt “now” of a few seconds. Each of us was born on a date.
The 99 Names · Name 73 of 99 · Capacity
The First, before whom there was nothing
al-Awwal الْأَوَّلُ
Recited as it sounds in the Qur'an, 57:3.
Heard together with: al-Awwal / al-Ākhir / aẓ-Ẓāhir / al-Bāṭin
About sixteen hundred years ago, in North Africa, a bishop sat down to write about time and got stuck. “What then is time?” wrote Augustine of Hippo. “If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not.”
Physicists today would sympathise. We can measure time to within a billionth of a billionth of a second. Yet we still argue about whether it had a beginning, and what ‘before’ could even mean. Al-Awwal, the First, is a Name that sits right on that question. It does not mean first in a queue. It means there was no ‘before’ at all.
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
Episode 2In nature
Small animals see change faster than we do: for a fly, our world moves in slow motion (Healy and others, 2013). Time itself feels different to each creature.
Episode 3At our best
The oldest piece of the Earth is a 4.4-billion-year-old crystal from Jack Hills in Australia; the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. But every clock measures from inside time.
Episode 4The Break
Take away a beginning, duration, ageing, the calendar. The Time Stone lets a hero move inside time. Al-Awwal means there was no “before” to move into. “He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward; and He is Knower of all things.” (Qur'an 57:3 · Pickthall).
Read: 57:3.
From the tradition: Muslim 2713a: 'Thou art the First, there is naught before Thee'; Isaiah 44:6 'I am the first and I am the last'; Boethius on eternity.
Watch and listen
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
On screen
The Time Stone lets a hero move inside time. Al-Awwal means there was no 'before' to move into.
Where it shows up
- In scripture
- Q 57:3; Isaiah 44:6; Rev 22:13.
- The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture
- Isaiah 44:6; Rev 22:13 'the First and the Last'; Ps 90:2. Strong.
- In the universe
- Planck CMB; Webb earliest galaxy.
- In nature
- CMB clips.
- In people
- Bedtime prayer (Muslim 2713a).
- In science
- Cosmology: the age of the universe; the open question of 'before'.
Living it
Begin with Him (bismillāh); the bedtime prayer.
A prayer for the end of the day
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) taught his companions a prayer to say as they lay down to sleep. One report says his daughter Fāṭima came to him, tired out by heavy housework, to ask for a servant, and he taught her this prayer instead.
It begins with the whole of creation: “O God, Lord of the heavens and Lord of the earth, Lord of the mighty Throne, our Lord and Lord of everything, who splits the seed and the date-stone.”
Then come four lines that open up all of time and space: “You are the First, and there is nothing before You. You are the Last, and there is nothing after You. You are the Manifest, and there is nothing above You. You are the Hidden, and there is nothing beneath You. Settle our debts for us, and free us from poverty.”
It is a striking thing to say at bedtime, when the day is finished and the lights go off. Before the day began, and before every day, there was God. After the last day ends, there is God. And in the middle of all that, a tired person asks Him to help with the bills.
What each faith says
Read:
Judaism
“Thus saith the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer the LORD of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last, And beside Me there is no God.”
Isaiah 44:6 · JPS 1917
The prophet Isaiah gives God's own words: “I am the first, and I am the last.” Many synagogue services end with the hymn Adon Olam, which begins: Lord of the world, who reigned before any creature was formed. Its last lines are a bedtime prayer: into His hand I commit my spirit, when I sleep and when I wake.
Psalm 90, “a Prayer of Moses”, says that before the mountains were born, from everlasting to everlasting, God is.
Christianity
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Revelation 22:13 · WEB
The book of Revelation picks up Isaiah's words. ‘Alpha and Omega’, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, are carved on Easter candles and church walls. Christians believe these words are spoken both by God and by the risen Christ.
Augustine, who found time so hard to explain, gave Christians an answer that is still debated. God did not create the world in time, but with time (City of God 11.6). There was no moment ‘before’ creation, because time itself began with it.
Islam
“Everyone that is thereon will pass away; There remaineth but the Countenance of thy Lord of Might and Glory.”
Qur'an 55:26-27 · Pickthall (1930)
Al-Awwal is the first of four Names that come together in one verse: the First, the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden (57:3). The Qur'an sets it against a world where everything ends.
Muslim scholars have discussed carefully how God relates to time, and the schools explain it in different ways. They agree on the heart of it: God has no beginning, is not inside time as we are, and does not age or change as creatures do. The bedtime prayer puts this into words anyone can say.
Same and different
Isaiah, Revelation and the Qur'an all use almost the same words, ‘the First and the Last’. All three faiths say God has no beginning and stands outside the time He made. Jewish Adon Olam and the Muslim bedtime prayer even share the same setting, the moment before sleep. They differ in that Christians also hear these words on the lips of the risen Christ, as God the Son. Jews and Muslims speak them of the one God alone.
A moment to reflect
- Can you imagine ‘nothing before’? What happens in your mind when you try?
- What do you think about last thing at night, just before sleep?
- If God is outside time, does that make Him seem further away from you, or closer?
Watch
PBS Space Time asks whether time itself began at the Big Bang.
Kurzgesagt's short history of the first moments of the universe.
TED-Ed on whether time really exists, and what physicists mean by it.
Do it together
schools / familiesThe toilet-roll universe
Count out 138 sheets of toilet roll down a corridor and let each sheet stand for 100 million years since the Big Bang. Mark the Earth forming, the first life and the dinosaurs. All of human history fits in a sliver of the very last sheet. Then ask: what was before the first sheet?
families / faith groupsBedtime words
Share the bedtime prayers of different traditions: the last lines of Adon Olam, the Muslim prayer from Muslim 2713, a Christian evening prayer. Choose one and say it together for a week before sleep.
Go deeper
- Augustine, Confessions Book 11 (Pusey translation), Project Gutenberg · article
- Qur'an 57:1-6 with translations · scripture
- Isaiah 44 (JPS 1917) on Sefaria · scripture
- ESA Planck: the age of the universe · article
Others say it too
Beyond the Abrahamic family, other traditions reach for something like this. Each in its own words; we connect, never rank.
Hindu
Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
Rig Veda 10.129.1 · tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896)
Sikh
The True One was in the beginning; the True One was in the primal age.
Salok after the Mul Mantar · Guru Granth Sahib p. 1 · tr. M. A. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion (1909), vol. 1
Sources (5)
- 'What then is time? If no one asks me, I know': Augustine, Confessions 11.14, Pusey tr. (public domain)
- Bedtime prayer: 'You are the First, there is nothing before You': Sahih Muslim 2713
- Fāṭima asked for a servant and was taught the prayer: Sahih Muslim 2713c
- The world made 'with time, not in time': Augustine, City of God 11.6
- Adon Olam text: My Jewish Learning, Adon Olam
Up next · Name 74 of 99The Last, who remains after allal-Ākhir
Next →Watch more: The First, before whom there was nothing
6 films and talks, chosen for this page. They play here.
Where Did the Time Go? | Allah’s Names | Dr. Omar Suleiman | Ep. 29
Yaqeen Institute · 16 min
Yaqeen: Dr Omar Suleiman on al-Awwal, al-Akhir, az-Zahir and al-Batin, where did the time go? (episode 29).
11 - The Divine Names Al-Majid until Al-Akhir - Ninety-Nine Names of Allah for Youth - Imam Yama
SeekersGuidance · 41 min
SeekersGuidance: Imam Yama Niazi on the Names to al-Akhir, including al-Awwal.
How big is everything?
whoisallah.org.uk · 1 min
Cosmic Microwave Background Explained
PBS Space Time · 7 min
The Beginning of Everything -- The Big Bang
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell · 6 min
The Search for the Earliest Life
PBS Eons · 6 min
- More films and talks on F-ILMWatch free