Iblis and the metaphysics of free will and soteriology

Paper_rain

I hope this topic isn't overdone, but I'm curious about this.

This is my basic understanding (please tell me if I am mistaken)

Iblis is Jinn
Jinn have free will
Therefore, Iblis has free will.
Without free will, a person would not be responsible for his or her actions
This would mean Allah would be responsible for the actions (as the creator of a being without free will)
Therefore, Angels' (or any other beings without free will, as such) actions are not their own responsibility, but the will and responsibility of Allah alone
Iblis does evil.
Allah is pure good, and thus can not be responsible for evil.
Following from 5 7 and 8, Allah can not be responsible for the actions of Iblis.
Therefore (confirming) Iblis must have free will (the curse Allah placed upon him could not remove his free will, as a special class of Jinn)
Allah has promised that all may be forgiven if true repentence is sought before death (that is, except dying in a state of disbelief).
Following from this promise, Iblis could be forgiven if he truly repented and turned back to Allah and away from his evil ways, returning to true belief.
Iblis is not dead, but was granted respite from judgement by Allah until the end times.
Following from Iblis' free will, and the above, Iblis is able to and could make the choice to repent to Allah, and be forgiven.

All of this seems fine until we arrive at the counter-point

Allah has decreed that Iblis will go to hell.

There are many potential contradictions and paradoxes created by this simple point.

Iblis must have free will, which means the possibility for him to repent must remain open (at least from his perspective). Telling him that he will not repent from a position of absolute knoweldge (knowing his own future), can do one of two things

A. It could destroy Iblis' free will (foreknowledge of his own future, committing him to it without choice). This, as per point #10 above, must be impossible.

B. Create a logical contradiction/paradoxical situation. Like traveling back in time and killing yourself. This is also impossible.

There is no other solution I can find to this.

IMPORTANT Keep in mind that it may be fine for Allah to know what somebody's future is, as long as he doesn't tell them their own future. If you understand something about quantum physics, you can view free will like a probability wave function.

The particle doesn't have an exact position and velocity until you measure it (which can be compared to free will). At the point of measuring it, the wave is collapsed (determined).

As long as Allah keeps his foreknowledge seperate from the universe, the free will does not have to collapse. But by telling somebody in certain terms what choice they will make, it must collapse the free will, or create an impossible paradox.

SO, here I come to some new points

In order to retain free will, Iblis can not be told what choices he will make in the future.
Iblis has access to the Quran.
Therefore, the part where Allah says that Iblis will go to hell must in some way have another interpretation, and not reveal Iblis' ultimate choice.
Following from points 14 and 15, if Iblis repents (as he must be permitted to do), he will be forgiven- but he will still go to hell even if he is forgiven.
The Quran provides some suggestion that (for believers) sometimes hell can be temporary.
Therefore, the only apparent conclusion is if Iblis repents, he may go to hell temporarily, thus satisfying Allah's proclamation that he will go to hell, as well as avoiding contradiction with Iblis' free will and Allah's promise of forgiveness.

Is there any support for this possibility in the Qur'an?

That is to say, Iblis has two options

A. Continue to do evil, and go to hell for eternity when he dies in disbelief.
B. Repent, and go to hell for a shorter time to pay for his sins, until Allah intercedes to save him.

But both options must remain open, and though Allah may know which Iblis will choose, he can not reveal that to Iblis (which means the Qur'an must not clearly reveal which will come to pass until it has already happened).

Sorry that was a lot of text. Please tell me if you think any of these points are mistaken.

supportpeacenotwar

Peace Paper Rain,

Really interesting, I have some general ideas that may not be appropriate to put here because they aren't fully formulated and the way debate and discussion can go it seems like it would be more appropriate in a PM. So I've PMed you if that's ok. I just don't want to get picked up on all the points I make - that are more like a sketch and outline - and end up in an argument that could be avoided - it's happened before! Sorry if this causes any inconvenience.

Paper_rain

I just don't want to get picked up on all the points I make - that are more like a sketch and outline - and end up in an argument that could be avoided - it's happened before! Sorry if this causes any inconvenience.

Thanks, but would you mind if I posted that for you here?

I would like it if everybody could see your ideas, that way it can contribute to discussion, and the same thing doesn't need to be said two or three times )

Or maybe you could take a little more time later, to formulate it a little more and post it?

I think it's OK to just leave some ideas, and decide not to debate after if somebody responds to those.

The most important point is dicsussion, I think.

Thanks again!

supportpeacenotwar

Peace Paper Rain,

Fair enough, put it here if you wish. Just keep all the parts in the post about it being general ideas and pointers. If I think of anything else, I'll add it later. It's only because of the way it goes sometimes... this idea that if I don't have the same answer as someone else, or its not articulated in the exact way it could be, that maybe I am deeply misguided and not following my Lord. It happens sometimes, not just here but everywhere.

Man_of_Faith

Peace,

Hell is eternal according to Quran, Paper rain.

God bless you

drfazl

Peace,

Will Commanding Authority of God
Free Will You can Free yourself from the Authority of God

Will Abide by the Will to be slave of God
Free Will Free from the Will, and become Aggressor against God.

This would mean Allah would be responsible for the actions (as the creator of a being without free will) This statement has come out man's Free Will that does not fit the mention referring to God. God is Well-Aware, Knower.

Shaitan showed his true arrogance and threw open challenge against Allah, after his pleading with Allah he may be given life till the end of the world and the same is given by Allah. Unlike the other jinn and men who would die and then brought up alive again on the Last Day, shaitan was given life till the death of the worlds to lead a well-chosen life from his free-will, with only one Wilful Wish to go to Hell, taking along with him, all those who would worship only him as the God. Shaitan is dead already his free will is void; he is on an extended life span doomed till eternity.

drfazl

supportpeacenotwar

I'll just put the PM here then. I'm leaving it as it is because I'm not sure what I would add or take away.

These are just some considerations. If you disagree with anything, you are free to and God swt is the best Judge.

I've only skim read so please forgive me if I've overlooked something

In terms of Iblis - it may be that in his mind, it is made up. He knows he will never wish to redeem himself because he knows the gravity of what he has done. He's in Heaven/Paradise, in the presence of God swt, he chooses to ignore a command from Allah swt directly... that's very different from us as humans here on planet earth. So this context is important. When we consider it, we may be able to understand that Iblis had his heart and mind set. It's done and final.

A bit like when it says that there are some (we don't know howm any, it could be few) that have their hearts sealed. They must have reached a certain point, a point in which they would not open up they would not even attempt to get close to any aspect of understanding their Creator, or they did a terrible evil and are proud of it and enjoyed it or something terrible. So, in that scenario, we could look at it in a similar way? If you get understand what I mean there? The context and the situation really matter - and Allah swt and the individual know and appreciate the factors that were involved.

Man_of_Faith

Peace dear brother Fazl,

You have different ways of seeing things, but in the end the result is the same. Being a slave is perhaps a bit harsh to call us, is it not? How about servant?

You have a different view on what is free will. In my opinion it is the option to choose yourself which side you are on, God's side or the "rebels". Using your free will does not mean you disobey God if you choose to be His servant. Of course, getting deeper into the system, we become sort of semi-automatic and God will help us on our Path. But at any time we have the free will to break loose from God's covenant and follow our own vain desires. This is my view of what free will is.

However, we cannot control events should God have a different plan than ours, God is in exclusive control over what utterly happens in our lives. So it means that our destiny lies in His hands. I suppose this is why He says that our lives are already prerecorded as He will lead us according to what He wills in terms of events and so on. But free will is always there and God can choose to let us go on with corruption of his creation as we can see in the world. This world is like a game world which keeps running on God's servers for a finite period, if we choose to speak allegorically. God can use His ultimate command prompt to manipulate it any time he wants, if we continue the allegory.

Just like a game with a console, He can type "die" while highlighting our avatars and we will simply die. Of course God in Truth, without using any allegory, can just "think" our death in his ultimate consciousness and we will drop dead.

For most part however, God will just let His "simulation" run. He intervenes only for those He chooses and even then so subtly His test is not spoiled. Yes, if we saw God it would no longer be a test. God could type in His console "say all 'Greetings human souls, I am your Lord.'" And it would echo in our minds all out of a sudden, and (most) would immediately believe, but then His test would be redundant, lack meaning.

The way it is prerecorded is that God has "programmed" a certain series of events and nothing can stop the execution of that "script". No matter how smart we think we are we cannot change God's plans. But we can make decisions which affect our record for the Judgment Day when it is presented, either in our right hand or in the left hand. Those who are burdened by many evil deeds and few righteous ones will receive it in the left hand and the ones with righteous deeds and few evil deeds will have it handed in their right hand. Those with the record in their right hand goes to Lower Heaven while the left ones will go to Hell.

Lastly, there is a third category consisting of very righteous and blessed souls who will be placed in a special part of Heaven and will reside near God. Those who were a friend of God and were really close to Him during their Earthly lives will end up here. They might have committed sins in their lives, but they reformed and turned into very obedient servants and died in a state of righteousness. Remember God can forgive most sins and blot them out completely as if they never happened and if we then change our ways God will still let us enter near Him.

But if we go the way many people propagate, that the destiny is already written, then the Quran would have redundant words. Because this is not the case as I have explained above, the ultimate destiny is not yet determined. This is the whole point with this "simulation" God is running.

God bless you

Man_of_Faith

Peace drfazl,

Shaytaan is granted respite until the Judgment Day, for an unknown reason in my opinion, God could have removed him immediately when he trespassed his authority, but God consciously made the decision to keep him alive and let him carry out his desire to mislead those who he is able to mislead.

It is obvious Shaytaan is part of God's plan, as the ultimate enemy of the human soul. And the Truth is as he promises in the Quranic verses, he misleads the majority of humans and only those who choose to follow God decisively and devotedly are shielded against Shaytaan.

I suppose Eblees was of high rank in God's dominion and those who manages to pass this trial make take his place. Maybe even Eblees was a faction in His Kingdom and the humans will take its place and Shaytaan is furious about that and therefore he wants to claim as many vicitims as possible. Well, Shaytaan obviously thought he was powerful and he did not lose all his powers during his respite. He is a powerful opponent we should be very aware of. He is like aliens in sci-fi who have mind control and can even possess humans.

It is possible that when our test is over we get to replace Eblees' place in God's Kingdom and we are no longer as weak as we are now limited to our mortal bodies. This is probably why God put us on this trial to see which souls are fit for this seat. The ones who enter High Heaven (the elite) will most likely be highest in rank while those in Lower Heaven will be, although still powerful, lower in rank than the elites.

The ones who did not fulfill God's standards are confined to some nightmarish place referred to as Hell or Gehenna. They will live in some place with very poor living conditions and like prisoners. I think Hell is allegorical and now exactly as portrayed in Quran, but the feelings for its inhabitants will be like explained in it.

The exact result of God's ultimate trial we will soon be aware of. The test is short and then we will know if this I spoke of is just loose conjecture or if I was right. I based my logic and ideas and bit of philosophy on the Quranic narration and I did not intend to use my own imagination particularly much. That Shaytaan was thrown out from his place near God is certain, and we can infer through logic that God may replace him by something else. Since Shaytaan was doomed there may be a place open for someone else near the throne. I draw the conclusion that those who will be close to God per Quranic definition will have a substituted place instead of Shaytaan/Iblees near the throne. This annoys Shaytaan enormously and that is why he does his utmost to sabotage everything. Logic tells no one would be that full of revenge if not because something so humiliating as his place and authority was going to be replaced by by humans he despise so much. Possibly God had already thought about replacing Eblees when he told the angels to pay homage to Adam.

God was merciful to give the human race a second chance after the disobedience incident in the Garden when Shaytaan claimed his first victim after his pledge to claim as many human victims as possible.

But I am sure God already knew all which happened before it happened and it is all part of His plan.

We are on trial, like a video game with very dire consequences and Shaytaan is the main adversary in its plot. His soul is still active, but possibly he lacks a body. But since his consciousness is present in the trial he has power to pervert the game story. And he is not limited by a mortal body since he is, as drfazl said, already dead. He is like an added spirit living just because God wanted him to. If God's spirit is called the Holy Spirit Shaytaan works through a sort of devilish energy, perhaps part of our conscious mind.

God bless you

Paper_rain

Peace,

Hell is eternal according to Quran, Paper rain.

God bless you

I have read both that it is eternal (for non believers), and that it can be temporary for believers.

Can you provide proof from the Qur'an that it is always eternal for both believers and non-believers?

I saw this

http//islamqa.info/en/ref/22467

But that may be heresay, and perhaps it is not supported by the Qur'an. However, is it directly contradicted by the Qur'an in clear terms?

Thanks!

Man_of_Faith

Peace,

That Hell is not eternal is based on hearsay. I cannot link from Quran at the moment, but maybe another brother or sister can.

If you get your record in your left hand on the Judgment Day you will abide in Hell forever. There is no escape God says in the Quran.

God bless you

Paper_rain

Thanks,

Peace,

Will Commanding Authority of God
Free Will You can Free yourself from the Authority of God

Will Abide by the Will to be slave of God
Free Will Free from the Will, and become Aggressor against God.

As Man of Faith mentioned, that's not what "free will" means in metaphysical usage. I have not seen it used in this way.

Can you please provide evidence from the Qur'an for this interpretation? If this is true, I'm very interested in reading about that.

This would mean Allah would be responsible for the actions (as the creator of a being without free will) This statement has come out man's Free Will that does not fit the mention referring to God. God is Well-Aware, Knower.

This statement is logical deduction, from the former points, the concept of free will, and the nature of moral responsibility.

When one deliberately causes something, one is morally responsible for the results.
Allah deliberately causes all things that are not the result of free will (the only principle that gives others responsibility for their actions, and without which judgment would be meaningless)
If Iblis lacks free will, then Allah is responsible for Iblis' actions.
Iblis does evil.
Allah is incapable of evil.
Therefore, Allah can not be responsible for Iblis' actions.
Therefore (following from 3 and 7) Iblis must have free will.

Which part of this do you disagree with, and why? And can you provide sources from the Qur'an to back up that disagreement?

Thanks!

Unlike the other jinn and men who would die and then brought up alive again on the Last Day, shaitan was given life till the death of the worlds to lead a well-chosen life from his free-will, with only one Wilful Wish to go to Hell, taking along with him, all those who would worship only him as the God. Shaitan is dead already his free will is void; he is on an extended life span doomed till eternity.

You seem to contradict yourself. It can't be both ways.

Is Iblis dead or not dead? Does Iblis have free will, or not have free will?

These are quite important questions; I think they shouldn't be left unclear.
If you would, please see above where I outlined the logical process by which it should be determined with certainty that Iblis must have free will. Please let me know where you believe the problem in this argument to be.

Thank you!

Paper_rain

I'll just put the PM here then. I'm leaving it as it is because I'm not sure what I would add or take away.

These are just some considerations. If you disagree with anything, you are free to and God swt is the best Judge.

Thanks!

In terms of Iblis - it may be that in his mind, it is made up. He knows he will never wish to redeem himself because he knows the gravity of what he has done. He's in Heaven/Paradise, in the presence of God swt, he chooses to ignore a command from Allah swt directly... that's very different from us as humans here on planet earth. So this context is important. When we consider it, we may be able to understand that Iblis had his heart and mind set. It's done and final.

We may have our minds set on something, but we can always hear something new, or have an experience that touches our hearts- and even the darkest hearts and most stubborn minds can be touched- which changes how we see the world, and changes our minds. Isn't that what free will is all about? The ability to change your mind up until the time of finality.

Maybe it would seem unlikely that Iblis would change his mind and repent, because of the extreme situation, but because he has free will, it must still be possible for him to do it, right?

A bit like when it says that there are some (we don't know howm any, it could be few) that have their hearts sealed.

If they literally can not make a choice to redeem themselves, and are trapped, then that seems to be a problem in contrast to the mercy of Allah. How could they be punished if they can not choose?

I found three places which might suggest this.

26-7

210

217-18

541

625

1088

1797-98

1857

How are these to be translated correctly and interpreted?

Are there any others, as you mentioned?

Thanks so much!

supportpeacenotwar

No, I don't think it is possible to say that if someone has their heart sealed that this creates a problem with the issue of free will. I think you need to understand the concept of free will as contained in the Quran. There are always going to be parameters to what we can or can't do - free will doesn't mean we can do absolutely anything or everything.

For example, when Allah swt bestows the Quran upon Muhammad, He knows Muhammad will do the right thing because of Muhammad's character. Allah swt decrees that some hearts can be sealed, because they have utilised their free will in such a way - a way that we do not understand or know about.

It's actually very straightforward in my view. They aren't trapped, for example Pharoah's heart was not sealed - so to have your heart sealed it must be a specific scenario that only Allah swt truly knows. All you have to do is at least a little bit open to Allah/truth or the actual concept of our Creator in general. If Allah knows all things, then He knows whether with someone's free will, they will do good or evil or change their mind up to the point of finality. It's not hard to understand that. There could be certain scenarios - such as being in Paradise and being in the presence of God. There is a "balance" of sorts that has been totally tipped.

It actually seems like that was a situation like no other. You have to really go through each step of what happened to appreciate the end result. That's what I said in the first place and you haven't really addressed that in my opinion. I don't see why you want to discuss with me when THAT is what I want to discuss. So, there we have it - feels very unnecessary. Clearly my original input - I've had to reiterate it all over again so it didn't help. I feel the more we wind down this discussion the further will we move away from discussing the most central thing here what Iblis actually did, in that EXTREMELY PARTICULAR situation and the way we can never appreciate what Iblis had become - who would want to - and the extreme situations in which hearts are sealed.

This topic isn't actually as interesting as I thought, because to discuss it we have to be more open minded about the terminology and concepts in the Quran and how they fit together.

And I told you these were some ideas that need to be understood on their own grounds - in fact this is one the reasons I thought I'd just leave it in a PM because these things can get so lost and tangled in discussions like this, the points get missed a lot, I've found this on other threads. I feel like you want to put outside and normative ideas of free will onto the Quran. You can't do that. No-one really knows how 'free' free will actually is and I don't believe it means you can do anything and everything as much as you like. Clearly Allah swt decreed parameters, especially in relation to hearts being sealed - again as I already said - that are in His knowledge for only He can make that judgement and fathom that. A believer would trust in that and look at the WHOLE story to understand what they can of the situation. In fact, all Iblis needed to do was say leave my path open toward repentance. If you say he didn't do that because he's just evil at that time but will redeem himself later - thats the original point, Allah swt knows what Iblis wants to do with this will, what he has become, his entirety. Iblis actually asks Allah for respite until the last day, not sure of the verse numbers right now, so he can divert mankind and do real evil. This is actually very important, because Iblis actually knows his true dependency and relationship with his Lord and that he even needs his Lord's permissions but he has become a creature of complete arrogance, hate and evil. Iblis actually wants to go against everything Allah swt has stated even though he knows his every clear fact about Allah swt - if that is not an incredilbly unqiue situation, what is?

Allah swt grants Iblis repsite saying those who trust Allah swt will be protected, and that he has no power over those who wish to seek their Lord.

Again, from that we can see the WHOLE story needs to be taken into account.

unknownuser

Peace all.

Paper Rain, thanks for this thread, now I will suggest you some point before you further.

As Muslim, we know something about gaib or supernatural things is only based on Quran literal teks from Allah.
Supernatural things is beyond our limit

Some points you made especially 16-20 you made is only based on assumption and reasoning and it's no have Quranic evidences.

Human live in the different world from anykind of supernatural, gaib or metaphysic, because only Allah who know something like that and human have no knowledge about it beside only guessing.

5109 "..... ?We have no knowledge, you are the Knower of all the unseen (gaib).?

9105 ".....And you will be sent back to Knower of the unseen (gaib) and the seen,..."

2765 Say ?None in the heavens or the earth know the unseen (gaib) except God. And they do not perceive when they will be resurrected.?

And Prophet Muhammad himself has no knowledge about gaib or metaphysics things

650 Say, , "I do not tell you that I have the depositories of Allah or that I know the unseen (gaib),......"

7188 Say, "I hold not for myself benefit or harm, except what Allah has willed. And if I knew the unseen (gaib),...."

See Paper Rain.It's very clear if as Muslim we have no autharity to speak about gaib, and we only ordered by Allah to believe on it (see 23).So there is no point if we discussed about this again, because we only play guessing.

"While atheist confused and busy about their ghost research, we simply just worship Allah only"

Salam/Peace

Man_of_Faith

Peace,

While what Earthdom said is partially true, God reveals pretty much Knowledge in His Quran about things. Quite generously in fact.

God's ulterior motives we know nothing about, but I do not fall on blind Faith. I have what I needed to know now though and I have (according to myself) strong Faith.

Quran tells us to put our Faith in the unseen, and it means why we need to believe in God despite not being able to see Him. God intentionally hides from being seen as it is meant as a test and if they knew about God then it would be cheating.

By logical deduction you can infer lots of information quite accurately despite not literally written out in Quran. And it is not conjecture since it is filling in the parts which are not word by word added to Quran and were not truly important for God to exist in Quran. It does not mean Quran lack details. Consider it paraphrasing and intelligent logical deduction from a source of information.

The Quran is perfectly detailed and lacks nothing we need to know. The aim here was to show that there is no end to the use of the words in Quran to extract information.

Yet I love this phrase many times spoken by blessed men in the past "I know from God something you do not know".

Unfortunately, Paper rain, it seems you have mixed hadith conjecture with the Truth. Hell is eternal, no one is going to save you from it if that is where your destiny lies. Being a believer does not make any difference if you are doomed to Hell. Quran even tells a story about people who brag that the Hell will not touch us for more than a few days.

God bless you

hawk99

Peace Family,

Hell appears to be eternal.

As for those who earned sins, their requital is equivalent to their sin. Humiliation
is their lot, and no one beside GOD can protect them. Their faces will seem overwhelmed
by masses of dark night. They will be the dwellers of Hell; they abide therein forever.

72/23 Sahih International But only notification from Allah ,
and His messages." And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger -
then indeed, for him is the fire of Hell; they will abide therein forever.

Verse (493)
The analysis above refers to the 93rd verse of chapter 4 (srat l-nisa)

Sahih International But whoever kills a believer intentionally - his recompense
is Hell, wherein he will abide eternally, and Allah has become angry with him and
has cursed him and has prepared for him a great punishment.

O0

Man_of_Faith

Peace brother hawk99,

Thank you for those verses. I think our new friend wanted some additional proof where mere words were not enough.

God bless you

Paper_rain

It's very clear if as Muslim we have no autharity to speak about gaib, and we only ordered by Allah to believe on it (see 23).So there is no point if we discussed about this again, because we only play guessing.

I don't agree.

Everybody has authority to use reason- that belongs to all, and it's why we have brains.

Deduction is the opposite of guessing- it is taking something we assume to know (premise) like "the Qur'an is true" (this is like a 'guess&#039, but then following from that assumption we can use reason to deduce conclusions that must also be true (if the premise is true).

for example

Premise The Qur'an is true (this is a guess, because it's an assumption based on faith- you can't use reason to prove the)
Premise The Qur'an says Allah is merciful (this is an empirical claim, and we can provide evidence for this by opening the Qur'an and reading it, and quoting it, etc. We can't prove it 100%, but we can be 99.999% sure it says this)

Conclusion If those premises are true, then Allah is merciful.
This is not a guess- it is a deduction, which is conditional on the two premises (one is a 'guess' , the other can be evidenced empirically and is a matter of evidence)

I hope that helps to explain it.

You can see, all of my steps are listed out clearly. IF one of the premises I used is incorrect, then the conclusion may be incorrect. If there is a mistake (like I left out a possibility), then the conclusion might be incorrect.

If there premises are true and there is no mistake in the reasoning, then the conclusions must be true, and that's not a guess.

But, of course, I could have many mistakes, particularly in the premises, due to incomplete knowledge of Islam.

That's why I ask you to help show me which points are incorrect, why they are incorrect, and if you can, provide evidence from the Qur'an that they are incorrect.

"While atheist confused and busy about their ghost research, we simply just worship Allah only"

I don't know what you're talking about... sorry.

Paper_rain

Peace Family,

Hell appears to be eternal.

As for those who earned sins, their requital is equivalent to their sin. Humiliation
is their lot, and no one beside GOD can protect them. Their faces will seem overwhelmed
by masses of dark night. They will be the dwellers of Hell; they abide therein forever.

72/23 Sahih International But only notification from Allah ,
and His messages." And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger -
then indeed, for him is the fire of Hell; they will abide therein forever.

Verse (493)
The analysis above refers to the 93rd verse of chapter 4 (srat l-nisa)

Sahih International But whoever kills a believer intentionally - his recompense
is Hell, wherein he will abide eternally, and Allah has become angry with him and
has cursed him and has prepared for him a great punishment.

O0

Thank you Hawk99, I will read those verses carefully.

I have had a look.

What do you make of these

6128

11107

I have also read that many scholars believe that the word for 'eternity' just means a long time. Can you comment on the usage of the original Arabic?