then the fasting person has broken his fast.

Time, in its true and tangible sense, is divided only into night and day; there is nothing in between. Hence the Exalted One says: “He merges the night into the day and He merges the day into the night, and He has subjected the sun and the moon, each running for a term appointed” (Luqmān 31:29). In other words, He causes each to enter into the other—He takes from the length of the one and adds it to the shortness of the other until they come into balance. At the beginning of spring, for example, the night had previously been long and the day short; thereafter the night keeps decreasing and the day keeps increasing until they are equal, and that is the start of spring. Then the day begins to grow longer while the night diminishes [up to the end of spring; after that the process reverses and the day starts to shorten while the night grows longer] until they are equal again at the beginning of autumn. Next the night lengthens and the day shortens until the end of autumn. After that the day little by little gains the upper hand and the night diminishes bit by bit until they are equal at the beginning of spring—as we have already described—and so it is every year.

For this reason the Most High says: “To Him belongs the alternation of night and day” (al-Muʾminūn 23:80), meaning that He alone disposes of all of it—He is the sovereign Ruler whose decree none can oppose or resist. Accordingly, in three verses that mention the heavens, the stars, the night, and the day, He says: “That is the ordaining of the All-Mighty” (al-Anʿām 6:96)—that is, the All-Mighty who has subdued everything, before whom all things submit, whom none can oppose or overcome. He is All-Knowing of everything and has measured all things according to a perfectly ordered plan that never varies or falters.

It is authentically reported in both Ṣaḥīḥs, in the ḥadīth narrated by Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah from al-Zuhri, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “Allah—glorified and exalted be He—said: ‘The son of Adam offends Me: he reviles Time, yet I am Time; in My hand is the command—I turn the night and the day.’” In another wording: “I am Time; I alternate its night and its day.”

The scholars—such as al-Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām, and others—have explained that reviling Time means saying things like, “Time has done this to us,” or, “Woe to Time—it has orphaned children and widowed women.” Allah, exalted is He, says: “I am Time,” meaning: I am the “Time” they refer to, for I am the One who actually does what they attribute to Time. Time itself is a created entity; the One who truly brings these events about is Allah, so He is