exalted is He. Because of this shared expression, reviling duration is forbidden, and he says, “God is Duration.” No entity is reviled for its entity, but for what issues from it; no created occurrence issues except from God. Temporal duration is a relation.
“He was not a thing mentioned” means the human being during that span: existent in his entity, alongside the existence of the entities, but they do not know him so as to mention him. They possess no thought through which to assemble him in their minds by determination and mention him, for thought is among the faculties particular to the human being, found in no other.
(The Lateness of the Human Constitution and the Rank of Vicegerency)
This verse is among the hardest Qurʾanic revelations concerning the human being's deficiency and what appears to be an absence of divine solicitude for him.
For us, God delayed his constitution and the existence of his entity only out of solicitude for him. Had God brought him into existence first of all things, a time would have passed over him when he was no vicegerent, for there would have been no one over whom to be vicegerent. God prepared him for the rank of vicegerency and deputizing for Him. His entity's existence must therefore follow that of the entities, so that the name of vicegerency never departs from him, in this world or the Hereafter. He came into existence only as a sovereign and master, just as he and others are God's owned servants. He surpasses the whole world through vicegerency, which belongs to none but the human being. This rank requires his being created upon the Form.
Whoever says that this verse indicates an absence of divine solicitude for the human being, because God
Notes
Translator’s note TN4117-1: Al-Dahr is treated as a divine name while temporal duration is called a relation. The discussion also distinguishes being known and mentioned to God from being mentioned to the other entities.
