night and day coming into being outside any night or day. Time may also mean simply measurement by events, as when one says, “This precedes that by such-and-such,” or “This follows that by such-and-such.” What is meant, then, is measuring the interval between events by other events.

This measurement is akin to numbering things: number reveals whether one counted quantity exceeds another, falls short of it, or equals it. Nevertheless, the number of things counted is not something existing in external reality as a self-subsisting substance or an accident inhering in them. Rather, it is a matter of distinguishing and separating them from one another. They are distinct and separate by virtue of their own individual realities, not through anything else. Number relates to them as their spatial location does, as we shall explain, Allah Most High willing. The same applies to their time.

For this reason, a distinction is made between time and number, as in the report from Ibn ‘Abbās—may Allah be pleased with them both—that remembering Allah is enjoined in every circumstance, with no time or number specified for it; that is, it has no particular time