Most of the people raise question that before Allah decided to make Humans, the universe and the hell and heavens, what was He doing? Not only non-Muslims but also Muslims have such questions.

As Muslims we shall understand that raising questions is not bad, what is bad is having doubts in our hearts and weakening our Iman.

Allah, the Almighty is not bounded by time

First of all, we need to keenly observe the Quran. In the Quran, Allah says that Allah is swiftest of all accounts (6:62).  This ensures that Allah, the Almighty is not bounded by time. He is the one Who created time and thereby did not make Himself a slave of time.

It is merely common sense that a creator won’t make himself a slave of his creation. A creator shall manage and order its creation not become the slave of it! He made us all bounded to time: our clocks are ticking and every moment of ours make us closer to our death.

There is no time, no limits and no present, past and future for Allah

Yet He is not bounded by any clocks or time. His time is infinite and what is infinite shall not be counted. So, when there is no time, no limits and no present, past and future, how can we say associate words like before and after with Allah?

This is not something difficult to understand. This is the era of technology and we have been able to capture memories. If we just imagine that we capture every moment of our life and then arrange it in a row. We would get a clear picture of whole life, won’t we?

Everyone is sent for a trial and the trial is time bound

There would be nothing like present or past, everything would be in front of us. The time is a river that flows. It is something that has been created by Allah for his creation as we have been sent down for a trial.

A trial has to end so time was required. Every creation is created with a time bomb which shall explode on its time! But Allah has no trial and He is independent of time.

The Universe is about 14 billion years old, we had dinosaurs residing here and then the advent of Prophets and now the technological era. Indeed time has lapsed yet for us. For the creator, there is no present, past or future.

Like I explained about pictures, just think that all the time has been possessed by Allah. Our lives are similar to a book whose pages are being unfolded. This is why Allah knows our future and past: everything is just in front of Him!

If Allah is not time-bound, how did he create the universe in 6 days

When this point is cleared out. We shall now head towards the other question that is linked with this. Some people now raise the question that if Allah is not bounded by time then why He said that He created the earth in 2 days. Allah Himself states in the Quran (Surah al Aaraf) that earth was created in 2 days while the universe in 6 days. Was there a time measure for Allah as well?

Certainly not, this has been said to let us know that the creation of the universe was a processed task. Also, it reveals what science has revealed now that earth is 3 times younger than the universe (6/2=3).