07/10/2025
Do You Know the Story of “We Don’t Have Time”?
So, let’s begin, for “I Don’t Have Time!!”
One sister narrates:
I remember days long gone that I spent in Damascus, and I remember a neighbor I had there.
Every morning when I knocked on her door to say, “Come, have a cup of coffee,” she would immediately grab her scarf and her key, come in and say, “Where’s the coffee? I don’t have time!”
I would quickly boil the coffee, and we’d drink it.
Then she’d get up and say again, “I don’t have time!”
Every day I was amazed at her. I invited her often, since I had grown older and was living alone.
And the amazing thing was that she was older than me, and had no one but an old husband like herself.
She would always slip in for a quick visit and then return, apologizing: “I don’t have time!”
Sometimes I’d invite myself over to her place. She’d smile and say, “Come in! I’ll boil the coffee; I don’t have time!”
And my amazement would grow, for I couldn’t see what could possibly keep her so busy.
I would drink the coffee quickly and leave, afraid to disturb her.
One day I jokingly said to her:
“I wish you’d let me join you in whatever keeps you so busy and makes you say you don’t have time!!!”
Her face lit up with joy, and she was delighted. She said:
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that for a long time.
Tomorrow we’ll start our work together, God willing.”
The next morning, I went over. We had our coffee, and then she said:
“We don’t have time!”
She brought out two Qur’āns and said:
“Come on, let’s read a verse, reflect on it, and hold ourselves accountable: where are we from this verse?”
I held my breath…
A Qur’ān? A verse? Reflection?
Is this what’s been keeping my dear neighbor busy?
Is this the mystery of “You don’t have time”?
She smiled and said:
“Yes! Because we no longer have time — you and I!
We are racing against the time of our lives, its minutes and seconds, before it outruns us and we find ourselves in a dark grave, lit only by the light of the Qur’ān.
