The week is known only by revelation
Selections from the Book The Story of The Beginning of Creation and The Creation of Adam, peace be upon him …
Written by Dr. Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi...
Episode (34)
As for the days of the week and their naming, this is something specific to the people of revelation and the divine laws. It is a fixed designation from Allah, not derived from calculation or reason, as nothing in nature indicates their determination or naming. Ibn Taymiyyah said that Allah sent messengers and revealed books to call creation to worship Him alone, and this includes knowing Him through the creation He brought into existence, the observable and existing creations like the heavens, the earth, and what is between them. He informed us in the book that is the most guided, that He created the foundations of these observable creations in six days and then established Himself upon the Throne. He also legislated for the believers to gather once a week to worship Allah and celebrate that day, as a sign of the first week in which Allah created the heavens and the earth.
Since the concept of the week is only known through the revelation given by the prophets, the names of the days of the week came in their language, as naming follows the revealed texts. A name represents the concept it describes. The concepts of a day, month, and year are understood by reason, so people naturally gave names to those periods. However, the concept of a week is not something that can be known through reason alone; it was known through divine revelation. Therefore, knowledge of the week was passed on to those who received it from the prophets, and it was not known to others. At that point, the prophets informed the people about the creation of this observable world and the beginning of its creation, stating that it was created in six days.
Pagan societies, disconnected from divine revelation, could not determine or differentiate between the days of the week. It has been mentioned that the communists in the Soviet Union, in their extreme atheism, initially changed the week to five days after the Bolshevik Revolution, then to six days, and eventually returned to the seven-day week. Due to their atheism and rejection of anything related to religion, they found that recognizing the seven-day week was a form of acknowledgment of the religious origins of the week and its connection to life. For them, this was a material proof of the naming of the days of the week and the determination of whether there should be seven, five, or six days.
- Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi, The Story of The Beginning of Creation and The Creation of Adam, peace be upon him, pp. 221-222.
- Collection of Fatwas, Ibn Taymiyyah, 18/230-236.
- The Story of Creation, Al-Kharaan, p. 100.
For further information and review of the sources for the article, see:
The Book of The Story of The Beginning of Creation and The Creation of Adam, peace be upon him on the official website of Sheikh Dr. Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi:
