The Paradox of Time — Quantum, Consciousness, and the Eternal Command

(Part IV of the Reflections Series)

Introduction — The Measure of Change and the Illusion of Flow

Human beings live by clocks, yet every clock measures only change. From the spin of electrons to the pulse of the heart, we sense motion and infer time. But modern physics has begun to ask whether time exists at all — or whether it is an emergent illusion produced by relationships among things.

The Qur’an describes creation not as a sequence of mechanical events, but as an instantaneous command continually renewed:

In this command lies both timeless origin and temporal unfolding. Sufi metaphysicians such as Ibn ʿArabī taught that creation is “re-created at every breath” (tajdīd al-khalq fī kulli ān). Modern cosmology, through quantum fluctuation, now describes a similar idea: the universe emerging again and again from vacuum energy fields, every instant a renewal of existence.

This essay continues the trilogy that began with From Entropy to Eternity, Between Neurons and the Soul, and The Command, the Cosmos, and the Quantum Soul. Here, attention turns to the enigma of time — its physical, neurological, and spiritual dimensions — drawing on quantum theory and the insights of Tasawwuf.

The Photon’s View — No Time at Light-Speed

To understand the illusion of time, begin with the photon. A photon travels at light-speed — c — the maximum velocity allowed by relativity. From its own frame of reference, the distance between emission and absorption collapses to zero, and so does duration. For the photon, the journey from the first dawn of creation to your retina is instantaneous.

Physics therefore implies that at light-speed, time ceases. Every photon that left a distant galaxy billions of years ago arrives “now,” without ever having experienced the wait. The Qur’an alludes to this paradox of Divine simultaneity:

To the Creator, all events are present. To the observer, they appear stretched into sequence. The Sufis expressed the same reality in experiential terms. Bayazīd al-Bistāmī said: “When I vanished from myself, I saw the whole cosmos revolving in one point.” What relativity calls the null interval of light, Tasawwuf calls the unveiling of the ān lā yaqbal al-tafrīq — “the indivisible instant.”

Quantum Timelessness — The Universe Before the Clock

Quantum gravity suggests that time may emerge from entanglement itself. When systems become correlated, a direction of change appears; when correlation is perfect, time disappears. Thus, before the universe expanded, there was no before. In the quantum domain, cause and effect blur; particles can influence each other without any temporal gap — an echo of Kun fayakūn.

Ibn ʿArabī described creation as a “Breath of the All-Merciful” (Nafas al-Raḥmān): a single exhalation in which forms appear and vanish, while the Source remains unchanged. In modern language, this breath resembles a cosmic wavefunction — encompassing all possibilities until observation (Divine Will) selects one.

To perceive time, the human mind orders these flashes of creation into narrative. But at the fundamental level, reality is simultaneous — a continuum of states eternally present in Divine knowledge (ʿilm ilāhī).

Angels, Photons, and the Architecture of Light — A Metaphorical Parallel (Not Literal Identity)

The Qur’an describes angels as beings of nūr — a created, immaterial light. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim states:

In modern physics, “light” usually means photons: massless quanta of the electromagnetic field. But nūr is not electromagnetic light, and angels are not photons. Photons are physical entities; angels are conscious, commanded beings of a higher order.

Yet the behavior of photons provides an unexpectedly rich analogy to understand how revelation describes non-material existence. This analogy is conceptual — never literal — and serves to help modern readers visualize realities the Qur’an expresses through spiritual language.

1. Timelessness

A photon experiences zero time while traveling at light-speed. In its own reference frame, the entire journey is a single instant.

Angels are described as beings who:

• traverse cosmic distances instantly

• are not bound by aging or decay

• act without delay when commanded

This does not mean “angels are photons,” but that photons give us a physical shadow of what timeless existence might look like.

2. Nonlocal Motion and Obedience

Entangled photons behave as one system even when separated by vast distance. Their response is instantaneous — distance does not limit correlation.

Angels are described as beings who:

• act across realms

• travel “between heaven and earth” without crossing intermediate space

• respond directly to Divine command

Again, not identity — but a parallel pattern: nonlocal correlation in physics hints at nonlocal obedience in metaphysics.

3. Tunneling and Passing Through Realms

Photons can tunnel through barriers without traveling through them in the classical sense. This is one of the strangest behaviors in quantum physics.

Revelation describes angels:

• passing through heavens

• descending and ascending

• entering and exiting states inaccessible to ordinary matter

Here too, the analogy illuminates the concept: quantum tunneling gives a physical metaphor for metaphysical passage.

4. Light as Command, Not Substance

The Qur’an defines nūr not as a material substance but as a mode of Divine communication:

Classical tafsīr explains this “light” as:

• guidance

• order

• intelligibility

• unfolding of existence

Thus:

• Nūr = command (amr), information, intelligibility

• Photons = physical carriers of energy and information

The parallel is conceptual: both convey order, but at different levels of reality.

5. The Soul and Higher Light

The rūḥ (soul) is explicitly placed outside the category of physical creation:

Thus the soul is not:

• matter

• energy

• a photon

• or any known physical particle

But the behavior of photons—timelessness, nonlocality, coherence—provides the closest scientific analogy we have to imagine a state beyond spacetime.

Sufis describe the soul as:

• luminous (nūrānī)

• subtle (laṭīf)

• nonlocal (bālā-makān)

• timeless (dahrī)

These qualities resemble the mathematical behavior of light, not because they are the same, but because they share a pattern of existence beyond classical matter.

Angels and the soul are not electromagnetic light and certainly not photons. Physical light only provides a metaphorical mirror — a scientific image that helps the modern mind visualize timeless, non-material being.

Entropy and the Arrow of Time

In thermodynamics, the arrow of time arises from entropy — the tendency of ordered systems toward disorder. Entropy provides direction: past → future. Yet the quantum equations themselves are time-symmetric; they work equally well forward or backward. Time’s arrow therefore emerges only when observation restricts possibilities.

This resonates with the Qur’anic reminder:

Each moment’s apparent decay is actually renewal. Entropy, seen through revelation, is not decline but divine re-composition. The physicist sees randomness; the Sufi sees unfolding mercy (raḥmah).

Rūmī captured it in verse:

Neuroscience — The Brain as Temporal Interpreter

If physics reveals time’s fluidity, neuroscience shows how the brain manufactures its solidity. Neural circuits integrate sensory change over milliseconds, constructing continuity — a cognitive illusion of flow. The mind “chunks” discrete frames of perception into what we call the present.

Thus, time may be the brain’s translation of entropy into experience. When sensory input ceases — during deep sleep, anesthesia, or meditation — the internal clock falters, and subjective time vanishes. This suspension parallels the nafs withdrawing from the external world, touching the timeless domain of rūḥ.

What feels like hours in a dream may occur in seconds; what seems a night’s rest may pass outside awareness altogether. Such phenomena hint that consciousness is not bound to chronological sequence but moves between layers of temporal density.

Revelation and the Relativity of Time

The Qur’an consistently distinguishes Divine from human temporality:

This is not metaphor but metaphysics. The Divine act is timeless; only its manifestation appears sequential. In relativity, time dilates with gravity and speed; in metaphysics, perception dilates with attachment and heedlessness. To transcend time is therefore to lighten the self of its gravitational desires.

Sufi masters described the state of fanā’ fī Allāh — annihilation in the Divine — as entering the dahr, eternal now. Dahr is not endless time; it is timeless presence.“Do not curse Time (al-Dahr), for I am Time,” says a ḥadīth qudsī. In quantum terms, the Absolute is the field; moments are its excitations.

The Six Days and Divine Sequencing — Temporal Perception vs. Eternal Act

Revelation tells that Allah created the heavens and the earth “in six days” (Q 7:54). Classical scholars noted that these “days” (ayyām) are not solar rotations but measures of divine stages — phases of differentiation within a single act. Modern cosmology’s billions of years may be one projection of those metaphysical intervals.

For Allah ﷻ, the act of creation is instantaneous; for creation, it unfolds as time. This is analogous to quantum collapse: the command occurs beyond time, yet its echo cascades through spacetime as evolving structure. Thus, the “six days” are the translation of an eternal decree into temporal order — divine sequencing, not divine delay.

Sleep and the Soul’s Pause — Experiencing Timelessness Daily

Every night, the human being rehearses death. Neuroscience records the alternation of REM and non-REM cycles; spirituality interprets them as veiling and unveiling. During deep sleep, metabolic entropy decreases, neural activity synchronizes, and subjective time disappears.

Sufis view this as a natural window into the unseen (ghayb). Through dhikr and muraqabah, they learn to enter that state consciously — awake within timelessness. Dhikr rhythmically aligns heart and breath; EEG studies show such practice induces coherent brain-wave patterns, reducing internal noise — a measurable form of quantum-like coherence in neural ensembles.

When the Prophet ﷺ prayed in the last third of the night, he inhabited the stillest hours of both nature and consciousness. Physics, physiology, and Tasawwuf converge here: minimal environmental interference, maximal coherence of mind. In that silent alignment, time folds inward, and awareness touches what physics calls the “ground state” — what revelation calls sakīnah (tranquil presence).

Everywhere and Nowhere — Non-Local Being

At the subatomic level, the concept of “place” dissolves. An electron is not a dot but a probability field; its position is a range of potentialities. In quantum mechanics, locality—the idea that things exist at definite coordinates—is an approximation. Entanglement shows that two particles, once correlated, share information instantly, regardless of distance.

The Sufis spoke of this centuries ago in another language.“Wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah.” (Q 2:115) The verse negates spatial confinement of the Divine and hints at a non-local presence permeating all coordinates of existence.

When saints of Tasawwuf describe ḥuḍūr (presence) with disciples across continents, it is not physical travel but participation in a single field of awareness. Modern physics uses the term quantum field; Sufis call it wujūd — Being itself. Just as each photon is an excitation of the electromagnetic field, every soul is an excitation of Being under Divine command.

Thus “everywhere and nowhere” is not paradox but geometry of the Real: everything manifests within the same field, yet no single point contains the Source.

Love Beyond Contact — Entanglement of Souls

In quantum theory, correlation without contact defines entanglement. Measure one particle’s spin, and its partner’s state is fixed instantly. Space and time cannot explain the connection; it lies outside the metric.

Human love and empathy mirror this pattern on a higher scale. A mother senses her child’s distress continents away; two friends think of each other simultaneously. Such experiences may arise from shared informational resonance—conscious systems remaining coherent across separation.

Sufi masters treat maḥabbah (love) as the subtlest form of tawḥīd — the recognition of unity through affection. When Rūmī writes, “Love is the bridge between you and everything,” he describes what physics calls a non-local correlation of states. Love is not a sentiment layered on reality; it is the intrinsic connectivity of reality itself.

Just as photons remain entangled after diverging from a common source, human hearts remain bound by their shared origin in the One Breath of Creation (Nafas al-Raḥmān). Hence, love is real—not a biochemical trick but an ontological fact of the universe’s coherence.

The Mirror of Life — Chirality and the Unity of Recognition

Life itself seems to have chosen a single reflection of reality. In every living cell, the molecules that build and sustain existence—amino acids, sugars, nucleotides—display a curious bias: they all turn in one direction. This universal handedness, called chirality, is among the deepest enigmas of biology. Physics would allow matter to form with equal ease in both orientations, left and right, yet life recognizes only one side of the mirror. It is as if, at the moment of creation, one reflection of possibility was chosen and made real—a biological echo of kun fayakūn.

Scientists can describe this asymmetry, but not explain its origin. Why should life universally reject one form and embrace another? The answer may lie not only in chemistry but in a deeper law of recognition, one that unites physics, biology, and consciousness under the same principle: that all order begins when one face of the mirror is acknowledged and the other withdrawn.

1. The Scientific Foundation — Chirality and Biological Asymmetry

In chemistry and biology, chirality refers to mirror-image forms of molecules that are not superimposable—like the left and right hands. These two forms are called enantiomers. Chemically, they share the same composition—the same atoms, the same bonds—yet biologically, life recognizes and uses only one handedness.

The mystery:

• Amino acids in living systems are left-handed (L-form).

• Sugars in DNA and RNA are right-handed (D-form).

  
  

If we artificially synthesize the opposite mirror versions, life cannot process them: enzymes fail to bind, metabolism halts. This homochirality—life’s one-sidedness—is one of the deepest puzzles in biology. The laws of physics do not demand it, yet all life on Earth obeys it.

So a question arises: Why does life recognize only one mirror form in a universe where both should be equally possible?

2. The Quantum Analogy — Collapse of Dual Possibility

At the molecular level, the two mirror forms (L and D) are energetically almost identical—much like two quantum possibilities in superposition. But once life emerged, it selected one—a collapse of biological superposition into a single realized “reality.”

This is directly analogous to:

• a quantum wavefunction collapsing into one outcome when observed, or

• in Qur’ānic language:

  “When He wills a thing, He says to it, Be (kun), and it is (fayakūn).” (Q 2:117)

  
  

The act of recognition—whether enzymatic or divine—defines which side of the mirror becomes real. In that sense, life’s exclusive chirality might represent the moment of command in biogenesis—a physical reflection of selection by will. In physics, this is known as symmetry breaking—the universe choosing one orientation to make order possible.

3. Symbolic Meaning — Recognition of Unity

This biological exclusivity carries a profound symbolic meaning. It mirrors the doctrine of tawḥīd—unity behind multiplicity.

In quantum mechanics, superposition means all possibilities coexist. But reality, as experienced, is one realized form: coherence collapses into a single expression. Similarly, in biology, both mirror forms “exist,” yet life coheres around only one—living systems cannot serve two orientations.

This selective recognition of one mirror over another mirrors the principle that truth manifests through unity, not duality.

So:

• In quantum physics, the observer selects one outcome.

• In biology, life selects one chirality.

• In spiritual reality, consciousness must select one ultimate direction—toward or away from Divine order.

  
  

4. Philosophical Extension — Chirality as Biological Tawḥīd

Chirality may thus symbolize a biological tawḥīd—the alignment of all organic order toward a single orientation of recognition. It represents a biochemical coherence: every living cell “remembers” which side of the mirror reflects its true form. That memory cannot be reversed; if one amino acid flips chirality, the system fails.

This absolute preference parallels the statement of faith:

Just as an enzyme cannot recognize both mirror forms, a coherent soul cannot sustain two opposing orientations of devotion.

5. Quantum–Biological Speculation — Entanglement of Chirality

Some theoretical biophysicists suggest that life’s initial symmetry breaking arose from weak nuclear forces (which slightly violate mirror symmetry) or from circularly polarized light—photons that carry angular momentum.

That returns us to the photon: Photons behave as waves and can exist on both sides of a barrier—quantum tunneling.

If light was the first created energy—

and if photons possess handedness (spin polarization), then light itself may have imprinted chirality on matter during creation. In that sense, the command of light fixed the mirror that life would later recognize—another layer of Be, and it is manifested in molecular geometry.

6. Summary of Analogy

The Soul as the Hidden Mirror of the Body

Just as molecules come in mirrored pairs, so too may the human being exist as two interlocked realities: one visible, one unseen. The body and the rūḥ—the physical and the spiritual—are not enemies but reflections, entangled expressions of a single command. Each completes the other, as image and reflection complete a mirror. When the Qur’an says, “He created you from a single soul, then made from it its mate” (Q 39:6), it may describe not only male and female, but the deeper polarity of body and soul, matter and meaning.

Tasawwuf teaches that man is a microcosm of creation, containing both dust and light. If the body is composed of chiral molecules—left-handed matter bound by entropy—then the soul may be its right-handed reflection, composed of light and command, existing beyond decay. Together, they form a perfect symmetry of being: temporal and timeless, physical and metaphysical.

1. The Body–Soul Pair as Mirror Forms

In quantum chemistry, mirror molecules (enantiomers) are identical in energy and structure, yet cannot be superimposed—one is the reverse reflection of the other.

Similarly, the human being may be seen as a dual composite:

The two halves coexist but never merge: the body hosts the soul, while the soul mirrors the body from a higher dimension—entangled but non-superimposable. Just as enantiomers are defined by reflection, the soul might be the immaterial reflection of the organism, resonant through Divine command but free from physical limitation.

2. Entanglement of Body and Soul

In quantum terms, entanglement is the inseparable correlation between systems, even across vast distance. Body and soul are entangled in life—every emotional or moral state affects both. At death, the entanglement collapses: the wave of unity decoheres, and the soul continues as a freed reflection.

In sleep, the link weakens but returns; in death, it is permanently severed. Death is thus the collapse of body–soul entanglement, releasing the non-physical partner from material constraint.

3. Biological Chirality as Physical Symbol of Entanglement

At the molecular level, life already manifests selective mirror recognition—matter and life depend on one orientation while ignoring its twin. If extended metaphorically, the unrecognized mirror is not lost but exists as the immaterial counterpart—the soul’s geometry.

Just as the L-amino acid implies its D-form twin, unseen but conceptually necessary, the physical being implies its non-material twin—the rūḥ. They are mirrored realities of one command, kun fayakūn—one entering time (body), one remaining timeless (soul).

Here, mate can be read not only as male and female but as body and soul—the pairing of seen and unseen.

4. Integration with Quantum Ideas

At the quantum level, wave–particle duality means an entity exists both as a spread-out field (wave) and as a localized event (particle). Likewise, the human being exists both as:

• a localized entity in the world (body), and

• a nonlocal field of awareness (soul).

This dual manifestation may explain intuition, empathy, and dreams—glimpses of the “other half” communicating through the entangled field. When life ends, it is not destruction but decoherence—the collapse of this dual existence into the domain where only one reflection remains.

5. Theological Harmony

Tasawwuf and Qur’ānic cosmology align perfectly here. In Mishkāt al-Anwār, Imām al-Ghazālī described the material body as the shadow of the unseen form, and the soul as the luminous reality that casts that shadow.

That breath may be seen as the non-material enantiomer of the physical form—Divine order infused into biological structure. Thus, life is the interference pattern of these two realities; death is their decoupling, when the reflected light returns to its source.

Twins Through the Lens of the Rūḥ — Two Souls, One Origin

From the spiritual perspective, identical twins are not a division of one soul but two distinct rūḥāni creations assigned to two bodies that once shared a single biological beginning.

The soul does not split or replicate, and each human being receives an entirely unique soul at the appointed moment. The embryo may branch, like a biological “superposition” unfolding into multiple outcomes, but the rūḥ is created independently for each form.

Thus, twins illustrate the Qur’anic principle that multiplicity arises from unity: one physical origin, two spiritual identities, two destinies, two moral journeys. Their bodies share an entropy-trajectory, yet their souls remain timeless, non-material, and unbound by decay or division. If they seem deeply connected, it is resonance of heart and psychology, not entanglement of souls. In this sense, twins do not reflect the superposition of physics but the generosity of creation — one origin manifesting as two original souls.

Return to the Source — The Eternal ‘Now’ of Kun Fayakūn

If time emerges from the sequence of change, then the cessation of change returns to timelessness. At death, biological entropy peaks and the soul detaches from temporal coordinates. Physics describes energy transforming; revelation describes return:

From the quantum vacuum, particles appear and vanish; from Divine command, forms emerge and subside. Both processes reveal reversibility beneath apparent loss. For the believer, resurrection is not re-creation ex nihilo but re-coherence—information restored by command.

In Tasawwuf, this return is experienced spiritually as fanāʾ fī Allāh (annihilation in God) followed by baqāʾ bi-Allāh (subsistence through God). The wave disappears into the ocean, yet the ocean remains; identity dissolves, yet consciousness endures as pure awareness of the Source.

Quantum theory notes that information cannot be destroyed—only transformed. Revelation states likewise: “Not a leaf falls but that He knows it.” (Q 6:59) The record (kitāb mubīn) preserves all states; entropy cannot erase what is written in the command.

Sufi Sciences and Hidden Knowledge of Time

Early masters of Tasawwuf described three levels of knowing time:

According to Imām al-Ghazālī, the seeker progresses from observing events in zamān to perceiving their unity in dahr, until finally witnessing only sarmad—the command that sustains all moments simultaneously.

The Qur’an’s mention of creation “in six days” (Q 7:54) corresponds, in Sufi cosmology, to the unfolding of six stations of manifestation—the descent of light through degrees of density until form arises. Quantum cosmology’s six parameters of fundamental forces curiously mirror this numerology, suggesting that Divine sequence may express itself as physical constants.

Physics and Tasawwuf — Parallel Languages

Both disciplines converge upon one truth: existence is relational and responsive. Observation in physics parallels consciousness in spirituality; both are participatory acts within Divine law.

The Tasawwuf of Light — Knowledge as Illumination

In Mishkāt al-Anwār, Imām al-Ghazālī describes knowledge as light descending through veils. Each veil refracts the Reality until it becomes visible as phenomena. Quantum physics similarly treats matter as condensed light—photons bound by energy fields.

Thus, “Let there be light” is not poetry; it is physics. When Allah says Kun fayakūn, the universe blazes into coherent order. Every photon carries the trace of that primal command, traveling timelessly until absorbed in perception.

Tasawwuf teaches fanāʾ al-ḥiss—the annihilation of sensory dominance—so that the seeker perceives inner luminosity. Science measures wave-particle duality; Sufism experiences light as being itself. Both study illumination: one by experiment, the other by purification.

Synthesis — Timeless Command, Temporal Perception

Across physics, biology, and spirituality, a pattern repeats:

1. At the quantum level: no time, only relationships.

2. At the biological level: entropy introduces sequence.

3. At the psychological level: the brain narrates change as time.

4. At the spiritual level: consciousness can transcend that narration.

   
   

Time is the measure of change; change is the unfolding of command. To experience eternity is to witness without attachment to succession. Tasawwuf calls this ḥuḍūr al-qalb—presence of the heart. Quantum theory calls it coherence. Both describe stability within flux.

Summary

• Photon and timelessness: At light-speed, duration collapses; Divine knowledge perceives all “now.”

• Quantum origin: Time emerges from entanglement; before correlation, there is no sequence.

• Entropy: Direction of decay, yet spiritually the rhythm of renewal.

• Neuroscience: The brain constructs continuity; consciousness occasionally detaches and enters timeless states.

• Revelation: “A day with your Lord is as a thousand years” (Q 22:47) — Divine act is eternal.

• Tasawwuf levels: Zamān → Dahr → Sarmad describe ascent from clock-time to timeless presence.

• Love and entanglement: Connection beyond distance mirrors the unity of creation.

• Sleep and death: Daily rehearsals of returning to the Source.

• Biological chirality mirrors the unity of recognition—life’s one-handedness reflects coherence under Divine order.

• Body and soul function as mirrored realities—entangled partners of one command, one temporal, one timeless.

• Death marks the collapse of this entanglement: matter returns to entropy, and the soul continues as its pure reflection.

• Every molecule of life, like every act of consciousness, chooses an orientation—coherence over chaos, unity over division.

• Observation and command: Participation of awareness in the unfolding universe.

• Return: Entropy ends in re-coherence; resurrection is the restoration of perfect order.

• Twins and the soul: One biological origin does not imply one spiritual identity — two distinct souls emerge from one physical beginning, illustrating multiplicity from unity.

• Photon-like behavior as metaphor: The timelessness, nonlocality, and tunneling of photons offer a scientific analogy—not a literal identity—for understanding how revelation describes angels as beings created from nūr and the rūḥ as originating from the Divine command (Q 17:85).

• Non-material intelligibility: Just as photons convey information without mass, spiritual realities convey guidance without material form; this parallel helps readers visualize metaphysical truths through physical patterns.

• Light as pattern, not substance: Qur’anic nūr and quantum “light” differ in essence, yet the patterned behavior of photons—timeless propagation, coherence, entanglement—provides a conceptual mirror for contemplating non-material realms described by revelation and Tasawwuf.

Epilogue — The Quantum Path and the Sufi Horizon

At the deepest edge of inquiry, science and Tasawwuf seem to meet — not in opposition, but in completion. When the physicist observes the subatomic realm, he finds that matter dissolves into relationships: particles that exist only through interaction, realities that depend on perception, coherence that collapses into form by the act of awareness. When the Sufi contemplates creation, he too finds that all forms dissolve into Tawḥīd — the unity of being sustained only by the Divine command.

In both, the observer and the observed are never truly separate. Quantum theory calls it nonlocality; the Sufi calls it waḥdat al-wujūd — the Oneness of Existence. The field equations and the verses of the Qur’an describe the same pattern in different languages:

Physics sees this as a continuum of energy; Tasawwuf experiences it as the continuous presence (ḥuḍūr) of the Real (al-Ḥaqq).

The seeker who studies quantum mechanics with humility finds that its logic quietly opens into metaphysics. The universe becomes less like a machine and more like a conversation — a dialogue of command and response. The laws of probability turn into signs (āyāt), coherence becomes dhikr, and uncertainty becomes reliance (tawakkul). Each measurement, each conscious act, mirrors the primordial word: Kun fayakūn — “Be, and it is” (Q 2:117).

As the tradition of Tasawwuf teaches, knowledge without remembrance remains partial; remembrance without knowledge risks error. The harmony lies in ʿilm al-yaqīn (knowledge of certainty) transforming into ʿayn al-yaqīn (vision of certainty), and ultimately ḥaqq al-yaqīn (truth of certainty) — where intellect and heart converge. At that horizon, the quantum physicist and the Sufi both stand in awe before the same mystery: that all multiplicity is sustained by One continuous act of Being.

Perhaps this is why the deeper one studies the quantum world, the more the path begins to feel like sulūk — a journey through veils of perception toward coherence with the Real. It is not that science turns mystical, but that reality itself resists fragmentation. What the physicist calls “the unified field,” the Sufi calls “the breath of the Merciful” (nafas al-raḥmān), in which every particle and every soul vibrates as a syllable of the same eternal command.

To understand the quantum, then, is not to escape the spiritual — it is to rediscover it in precision. And to walk the Sufi path is not to abandon the scientific — it is to live it at the scale of the soul.

The Presence Beyond Time — The Mystery of Khidr (ʿAlayhi al-Salām)

Among the most enigmatic figures mentioned in the Qur’an is the servant of Allah who met Prophet Mūsā (ʿalayhi al-salām) — the one to whom Allah said:

Known as Khidr, The Green One, he embodies life beyond decay, perception beyond sequence. His actions, inexplicable to Mūsā’s temporal logic, were later revealed as coherent acts of mercy — events aligned not with linear causality but with divine simultaneity.

In Khidr’s story lies the Qur’anic articulation of nonlocal causality — outcomes determined not in chronological order but within the total field of divine command. He operates, as it were, at the “quantum” layer of destiny, where past, present, and future interpenetrate without contradiction. Where human reasoning sees paradox, Khidr acts from the level of ʿilm ladunnī — the knowledge directly illuminated by the Source.

In the language of Tasawwuf, Khidr represents the ever-living principle of guidance (al-ḥaḍrah al-khiḍriyyah) — the unseen presence that sustains the seeker on the path. To the physicist, he might symbolize the observer who stands outside time yet shapes outcomes within it; to the Sufi, he is the heart’s access to divine coherence amid the entropy of existence. Both views converge on one truth: that reality’s deepest order belongs to a realm beyond measurement — to amr Allāh, the domain of command.

As such, the Qur’anic Khidr may be seen as the living metaphor of the quantum soul — neither confined to past nor future, but present wherever the command “Be” unfolds.

The Boundary and the Balance — Dhul-Qarnayn and the Containment of Chaos

In the same surah that tells of Khidr’s hidden wisdom, the Qur’an recounts the journey of Dhul-Qarnayn (Q 18:83–98) — the ruler granted power and means “in all things.” His construction of the barrier against Gog and Magog stands as a symbol of divine containment: entropy restrained by mercy. Where Khidr acts at the invisible quantum of events, Dhul-Qarnayn acts at the visible scale of civilization. One preserves inner coherence; the other preserves outer order. Both serve the same command.

The wall’s eventual collapse foretells the reappearance of unbounded chaos—perhaps, in cosmic language, the heat-death of the universe when all order decays. Thus, Dhul-Qarnayn’s act is not mere history; it is a parable of entropy and restraint. Divine mercy, not iron, is the true wall holding chaos at bay.

In the language of modern science, Dhul-Qarnayn’s wall is the universe’s fine-tuning — the precise balance that keeps matter, life, and consciousness coherent until the appointed Hour.

Final Reflection

From the symmetry of molecules to the symmetry of spirit, creation bears the mark of choice — one orientation drawn from infinite possibility. Life, consciousness, and order all arise from that primordial act of recognition:

In the body, matter remembers this command through chirality — every protein folding in one direction, never its mirror. In the soul, awareness reflects the same truth — coherence toward the One, never divided between reflections. The physical and the spiritual are enantiomers of the same decree: one formed of dust, one of light, both sharing the same geometry of order.

Even twins — born from one biological origin — receive distinct souls, each with its own moral horizon and its own journey back to the Source. Their shared beginning reveals a deeper mystery: unity births multiplicity, and multiplicity always returns to unity.

When life ends, this entanglement dissolves. The body, bound to entropy, returns to earth; the soul, bound to command, returns to its Source. Yet nothing is lost — every reflection reappears in its true domain. The unseen half that guided awareness in life now stands unveiled in the eternal light of the Real.

Physics measures decay; revelation unveils meaning. Between them stands the human witness — recognizing that both body and soul, like mirrored forms, arise from one light, one will, one Word.

In every chiral molecule and every act of consciousness, creation repeats its secret: only one orientation sustains life — the orientation toward the One.

Modern science and Tasawwuf meet at the horizon of humility. Physics quantifies transformation; spirituality contemplates its meaning. When their languages converge, they reveal that the universe is not a machine running in time but a symphony played in the eternal present.

Modern physics offers a delicate metaphor for these unseen realities. Photons, though fully physical, act in ways that exceed classical intuition—traveling without aging, correlating across distance, and passing through barriers without traversing them. Revelation describes angels and the soul with attributes that rhyme with these behaviors, not in substance but in pattern: beings of nūr, operating beyond time, space, and decay. To say they are photons would be a category mistake; yet to learn from the behavior of photons is to glimpse how the created world hints at deeper orders of existence. In this harmony of metaphor—not identity—the seeker finds a language where science refines awe and awe illuminates science.

Time, entropy, and causality are veils through which the Divine command becomes intelligible to limited minds. The seeker who transcends them perceives that all motion, all decay, all love, and all light are facets of one unbroken word:

From the photon’s ageless flight to the saint’s timeless heart, everything witnesses the same truth: There is no before and after in the sight of the Real — only Now.

Author: Nisar Khan, PhD (Immunology) Biomedical Scientist | Systems Biology Researcher | Drug Developer

These reflections express a synthesis of scientific observation and Qurʾānic contemplation. Ultimate knowledge belongs only to Allāh ﷻ, the First and the Last, beyond time and decay.