What he has alleged about priority, precedence, or delay that takes place “outside” of time is something that has no existence, cannot be conceived, and is unknown in the real world. Whenever someone performs an act and is its efficient cause, he is necessarily earlier than the act and precedes it; he is never simultaneous with it in any respect—rather, he is temporally prior to it.

Every agent or efficient cause we know is therefore earlier than its effect and product, although it can be directly continuous with it so that no additional span of time separates the two.

Thus people may say, “This is not later than that,” meaning it is contiguous with it and there is no interval between them. Likewise they say, “That is not earlier than this,” meaning no time intervenes between the two but that they are attached to one another. This is one accepted use of the word “earlier,” as in the Prophet’s – may Allah bless him and grant him peace – saying:

“The funeral bier is to be followed; it does not follow. Anyone who goes on ahead of it is not considered part of it.”

That is, whoever moves so far ahead of the bier that he is no longer near it is not truly following it—

just as another hadith states:

“The rider stays behind the bier, while the one on foot may walk in front of it, behind it, to its right, or to its left, provided he stays close to it.”

This was reported by Abu Dawud and others, and it is the clearest narration on the matter.