Look at your wrist or maybe at the corner of your computer screen – see those innocent-looking numbers telling you the time—what if I told you they aren’t so innocent, that those numbers are controlling your life in ways you never imagined?
It might sound odd for a productivity researcher to have anything against the clock. After all, isn’t the definition of productivity someone who is efficient with their time and always “on time”?
But what if I told you that this seemingly neutral tool—the mechanical clock—has warped our understanding of time and impacted our spirituality, health, work, and relationships? What if the stress you feel daily at work, the rushed prayers, the family moments you regret, and the constant anxiety about “being late” all trace back to a single cultural imposition: mechanical time?
In this article, we’ll explore how the mechanical clock transformed from a humble monastery tool into an instrument of cultural dominance that shapes every aspect of our modern lives. More importantly, we’ll discover how to reclaim our natural relationship with time—one that aligns with a God-centered, Barakah Culture approach to time.
Imagine you were born in a village or city in the Islamic world, before European colonization. How would you tell time?
You’d probably tell time by a sundial in the courtyard of a mosque and by the rhythm of the five daily prayers. This wasn’t just true for the Islamic world— across ancient civilizations, from the Babylonians to the Chinese, time was measured through natural cycles and celestial events.
Time wasn’t “precise” – divided into 24 hours, each hour 60 minutes, and each minute 60 seconds. It was more free-flowing, more natural. Below is a description of how Muslim societies organized their time from a book called “Time Sticks: How Islam and Other Cultures Have Measured Time,” by Dr. Barbara Freyer Stowasser:
If you had to meet someone, you’d coordinate around prayer times (“I’ll meet you after Dhuhr at such and such place”) or social events (“I’ll meet you at my brother’s wedding after the walimah”). More importantly, time felt ‘slow’ because there wasn’t a device hurrying you from one thing to the next like a machine.
The transformation to the modern perception of time came gradually. Historical records show that mechanical clocks first appeared in European monasteries in the 13th century, initially (interestingly enough) to regulate prayer times. As historian David Landes notes in his seminal work “Revolution in Time,” these devices slowly transformed from religious tools into commercial and colonial power instruments.
When the European colonizers arrived with their modern weaponry and techniques, they introduced clock towers and watches as hallmarks of modernity. This wasn’t just a technological change – it was a philosophical one. As sociologist Lewis Mumford observed, “The clock, not the steam engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age.” Suddenly, a new concept of time emerged, based not on the natural rhythm of the sun, moon, or prayer times but on mechanical precision.
You might wonder – what’s wrong with that? We just replaced one time system with another – a far ‘superior’ time system that’s more precise, more accurate, and is responsible for the advent of modernity and globalization. After all, how would factories, planes, trains, and global meetups across time zones work without the mechanical clock?
That’s all well and good, and I have no personal qualms against watches or clocks as an organizing system. However, I do have an issue when our concept of time becomes completely warped around the mechanical clock in a way that affects our spirituality, our relationships, our health, and our appreciation of time itself.
How many times have you heard the expression “Muslims are always late”? By “late,” critics mean Muslims aren’t adhering to the mechanical clock’s strict precision—being somewhere at 6:00 PM on the dot. This criticism often comes with undertones suggesting a lack of respect for others’ time or professional incompetence.
But this perception misses something crucial about cultural relationships with time. European colonizers weaponized this notion of punctuality to emphasize their supposed superiority and make other cultures feel backward. They equated their mechanical precision with civilization itself, dismissing other ways of organizing time as primitive or disorganized.
Yet, we need to understand that people experience and value time differently, and these differences reflect deep cultural wisdom rather than deficiency. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall, in his groundbreaking work “The Silent Language,” introduced the concepts of “monochronic” and “polychronic” time orientations. Western societies tend to be monochronic – treating time as linear, segmented, and strictly scheduled. Many traditional societies, including Muslim cultures, are often polychronic – viewing time as flowing, with multiple activities happening simultaneously and relationships taking precedence over rigid schedules.
This isn’t about being “late” or “on time” – it’s about fundamentally different cultural approaches to time. In polychronic cultures, being present in a moment until its natural conclusion is often seen as more respectful than cutting off a meaningful interaction just because a clock says so. When a conversation needs to continue, when someone needs help, or when a situation requires more attention, the mechanical clock takes a back seat to human needs and relationships.
“Technology has also created the concept of linear time, a relatively recent Western invention that is replacing, or is poised to replace, the multiple, subjective, and situation-specific times of the past. The new form of clock-based time is producing a new global psychology in which time equals punctuality, efficiency, and economic rationality.” – Time Sticks, Dr. Barbara Freyer Stowasser.
This “global psychology” pressures us to see time only through the lens of mechanical precision. But consider this: In many traditional cultures, including Muslim societies, it’s more important to be present than just showing up at a predetermined moment while mentally rushing to the next appointment.
So the next time someone comments about “Muslim Standard Time” or cultural punctuality, remember: different isn’t deficient. These alternative approaches to time often preserve something we’re desperately trying to reclaim in our rushed modern world—the ability to be fully present, prioritize human connections, and let things take their natural course rather than forcing them into artificial timeframes.
When was the last time you truly enjoyed your prayers?
Most probably, it was a time when you felt you could pray without the time pressure to finish your prayers at a certain time dictated by a clock.
We tend to blame mobile phones for the epidemic of losing our focus in Salah. However, way before the advent of mobile phones and their annoying ringtones, clocks invaded our mosques and created a different type of distraction – a time distraction.
Ibn al-Qayyim wrote beautifully about the concept of “spiritual time” in his work “Al-Wabil al-Sayyib,” describing how the early Muslims would experience time during worship: “Their hearts were present with Allah, so time passed without their awareness of its passing.” This natural, spiritual experience of time stands in stark contrast to our modern experience.
Today, you walk into the masjid and face a huge clock with a countdown to the next prayer/iqamah as if we’re about to launch a rocket ship! The clocks started dictating when and how long each prayer would be, making you feel ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘frustrated’ when prayer is ‘late’ or is taking ‘too long’ because a clock on the wall says so.
This transformation would have seemed alien to our predecessors. During the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ time, different muathins (callers to prayer) would call to prayer at slightly different times, as authenticated in Sahih al-Bukhari, where Bilal would give adhan at dawn while Ibn Umm Maktum would wait until it was lighter. The athans were not all called at a precise time! Another example is when people entered the masjid, they would sit and wait for the Imam and only stand up for iqamah when the Imam entered the mosque—not when a digital display dictated it was time for Iqamah.
The impact on Friday prayers (Jumu’ah) has been particularly profound. Historically, the khutbah was a dynamic discourse that could extend or contract based on the community’s needs. Some of the most impactful khutbahs in Islamic history lasted well over an hour. But now – due to modernity’s demand that we work on Fridays, and accelerated by COVID – the Jumu’ah has been squeezed into a 15-20 minute show with strict start/end times, often losing the soul that was once the vibrant pulpit of the community.
We see the same issue at Islamic conferences. We invite prominent scholars with a wealth of knowledge and expertise, but instead of respectfully listening until they’ve completed their thoughts, we give them strict time slots. Sometimes, a scholar is in the middle of a heartfelt reminder that moves people’s hearts, and then the young volunteer timekeeper appears with a “5 minutes left!” note, disrupting the scholar’s train of thought and forcing a hurried conclusion.
Even Ramadan hasn’t escaped this transformation. The early Muslims spent significant portions of their nights in prayer, with flexible starting and ending times. The length of prayers varied based on energy, spiritual needs, and community circumstances. Today, we put strict mechanical clock boundaries on taraweeh/qiyam prayers, causing them to shrink from reciting one juz per night to a few pages to fit within predetermined time slots.
Time is God’s Creation – Not Dictated by Mankind
I know what you’re thinking – you might say: “Shouldn’t we celebrate this precision in how we organize our prayers? After all, doesn’t Allah say in the Quran: ‘Indeed, prayer has been decreed upon the believers at specified times’ (4:103)?”
Here’s my pushback: There’s a difference between being ‘on time’ according to the mechanical clock and being in harmony with the natural rhythms that Allah established. The specified prayer times in the Quran and Sunnah aren’t bound to mechanical hours – they’re tied to natural phenomena. Dhuhr isn’t permanently fixed at 12:30 PM or 2:00 PM; it begins when the sun passes its zenith, a time that shifts throughout the year.
Our traditional appreciation of time – one that values the natural order of time over mechanical precision and understands time as flowing rather than fractured – might actually be more aligned with the Qur’an’s vision of time as God-centered.
“Time is God’s creation. There can be no abstract time because God, ruler of the universe who is beyond time, is lord over time from the beginning to the end of creation. While time is a function of God’s omnipotence, so is its measurement a divine gift that God created for the benefit of mankind.” – Time Sticks, Dr. Barbara Freyer Stowasser.
The Arabs and early Muslims developed a sophisticated understanding of time based on natural observations. They had specific names for different parts of the day (duha, zawal, asr, etc.), each marking distinct periods that shifted with the seasons rather than being locked to fixed mechanical hours.
This disconnect between natural and mechanical time creates a deeper spiritual issue. Many modern Muslim professionals complain that prayer times are “inconvenient” because they don’t align with their 9-to-5 schedules. But consider this: If a king requested your presence at specific times determined by the sun’s position, would you reply, “No, I prefer to visit when it’s convenient for me”? How would the king react? And to Allah belongs the highest example.
When we dig deeper into the argument about prayer times being “inconvenient,” we uncover an issue of control. Someone says, “I want control over my life, including my prayer times.” Yet we forget that we are slaves of Allah, and a slave doesn’t choose when to meet their Master – they respond when called. We show up to prayer not when it’s most convenient for us but when Allah calls us.
“The Qur’an presents richly designed concrete and practical examples that establish God’s authorship of all celestial movements and their usefulness to the human race as devices to measure time. Night and day and even the 12 lunar months of the year are appointed times for the believing people. Reading the sky for the five prayers of the day and for the 12 months of the year is a constant reminder of divine power and providence. Despite the acts of the International Meridian Conference of 1884, time itself cannot be zoned.” – Time Sticks, Dr. Barbara Freyer Stowasser.
Interestingly, have you noticed that malls and restaurants rarely have visible clocks? The absence is intentional – our consumerist societies don’t want you to experience the passage of time when you’re fulfilling your role as a consumer. Casinos, too, never have clocks, so you waste your hours gambling. The message seems clear: spend as much time as possible in the market, but don’t linger too long in the mosque. That’s why our shopping centers are clockless while our mosques are filled with timers and alerts.
“Yalla! It’s time to go!”
“We’re so late!”
“What took you so long!”
These phrases probably echo through every family’s home (including my own), creating a constant undercurrent of tension between parents, spouses, children, and siblings.
Sometimes the time pressure is legitimate, like when you’re trying to catch a flight. But often, it’s simply habitual – a product of our warped perception of time. Sociologist Judy Wajcman, in her research on Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism, found that modern families experience what she calls “time pressure contagion” – where one person’s sense of time urgency spreads anxiety throughout the household.
If we were supposed to go out at 8 pm and it’s 8:15 pm, we ‘feel late’, and for some of us, that creates genuine discomfort. We discount legitimate reasons for the delay – the kids took longer than usual to get ready, someone had unexpected bathroom needs, or you went for a quick errand to get flowers for your host. Instead of accepting these natural variations in how long things take, we let the mechanical clock dictate our emotional state.
Research from family therapist Dr. William Doherty shows that this “time pressure cooker” particularly affects parent-child relationships. In his book “The Intentional Family,” he found that parents’ obsession with punctuality often overshadows meaningful family moments. As a parent, I’ve felt the guilt of wanting to hurry my child towards our destination because “we were late” while my child wanted to stop and smell the roses. This constant rush creates what psychologists call “time-based conflict” – a form of stress that arises not from actual time constraints but from perceived pressure to conform to rigid schedules.
The impact is particularly visible in how we spend time together as families. Anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, in his work “Tyranny of the Moment,” describes how mechanical time has transformed family gatherings from organic, flowing experiences into highly scheduled events with clear start and end times. “Coming together as a family,” he writes, “has become less about being present with each other and more about managing a schedule.”
Think about your most meaningful family memories. Were they scheduled, timed events? Or were they spontaneous moments when no one was watching the clock? When we let mechanical time dictate our family life, we risk missing these precious, unscheduled moments of connection.
To be clear, I’m not encouraging people to be ‘fashionably late’ or disregard others’ time. Rather, I’m suggesting we need to distinguish between necessary time constraints (like catching a flight or attending a medical appointment) and artificial time pressure we create out of habit or use as a passive-aggressive tool to settle family scores.
There once was a man who would experience intense anxiety whenever his family took too long to get ready for outings. Like many of us, he’d find himself pacing, checking his watch repeatedly, and eventually erupting in anger – creating an atmosphere of tension that would cloud the entire family outing before it even began.
One day, realizing how this behavior was poisoning his family relationships and his own peace of mind, he made a conscious decision to transform these “waiting moments” into something meaningful. Instead of letting the mechanical clock fuel his anxiety, he began using these periods to recite Quran.
His wife later commented that this simple change had filled their family outings with barakah. The tension that used to accompany their departures was replaced with a sense of tranquility. His children no longer associated leaving the house with their father’s anger but instead would sometimes find him so peacefully engaged in recitation that they’d slow down just to avoid interrupting him.
How many times have we induced unnecessary stress on ourselves because of the mechanical clock?
We’re working on something, and we’re in the flow – that beautiful state where time seems to disappear and our work feels effortless. Then we glance at our watches, notice the passage of time, and panic sets in. We either abruptly stop what we’re doing or hurry it along to a low-quality finish.
This isn’t just a matter of productivity – it’s about our health. Research from the American Psychological Association shows that time-related stress triggers the same physiological responses as being in physical danger. Our bodies release cortisol and adrenaline, our heart rates increase, and our immune systems weaken – all because a mechanical device tells us we’re “running late.”
Dr. Robert Levine, in his groundbreaking work “A Geography of Time,” describes what he calls “clock-time sickness” – a modern phenomenon where constant awareness of mechanical time creates chronic stress. His research across different cultures found that societies more rigidly bound to mechanical time show higher rates of stress-related illnesses.
This is why I personally don’t like wearing watches, especially when I’m writing (as I’m writing this, I don’t have my watch on and I can’t see my clock on my computer, so I have no idea what time it is, but I’m in the flow and won’t look at it!)
“Wait, you don’t wear a watch?!”
I do, but very occasionally. Mainly when I’m traveling or delivering a workshop and I have certain ‘mechanical clock’ deadlines to meet. This isn’t just personal preference – it’s backed by science. Research on “flow states” by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi shows that one key characteristic of peak performance is losing track of time. When we’re constantly checking the time, we interrupt these flow states and reduce both our performance and our enjoyment of the task.
The Japanese even have a term, “karoshi,” meaning death by overwork, which often involves the tyranny of mechanical time – strict schedules, rigid deadlines, and the constant pressure to be “on time.” Similarly, the World Health Organization has recognized “burnout” as an occupational phenomenon, with time pressure being a key contributing factor.
I’m mindful of when I use the mechanical clock/watch rather than letting it dictate my life and stress me out all the time. This awareness isn’t about rejecting time management altogether—it’s about finding a healthier relationship with time that aligns with Barakah Culture and our natural rhythms rather than being at the mercy of hustle culture and all that it entails.
Many of history’s most productive individuals structured their days around natural rhythms rather than mechanical time. They worked when they felt most alert, rested when tired, and let their creative processes flow naturally rather than forcing them into predetermined time slots.
The mechanical clock is a tool, just like the internet or AI – beneficial in many ways, and certainly crucial for modern transportation and global synchronization. However, just as we’re learning to be mindful of our use of smartphones and social media, we need to be intentional about our relationship with mechanical time.
As philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously observed, “We shape our tools, and afterwards our tools shape us.” The mechanical clock shaped not just how we measure time, but how we experience it. Each piece of technology comes with the worldview of its inventor. The mechanical clock emerged from a European worldview that saw time as linear, mechanical, and needing to be measured and synchronized.
Time is our most precious resource; therefore, whoever controls how you measure and use time, controls you psychologically and socially. The renowned scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues in his work “Traditional Islam in the Modern World” that the adoption of mechanical time was more than just technological change – it was a fundamental shift in how we perceive our relationship with the divine and natural world.
This may sound extreme, but essentially, the mechanical clock was another way for colonial powers to reshape our understanding of time itself. That’s why I’m a strong advocate for organizing our day along the five daily prayers, not the 9-to-5 schedule, and our year according to the Hijri calendar (see GoHijri.org).
1. Practice Time Pressure Awareness
- Notice when you feel time pressure in your life, your salah, your relationships, and your work
- Ask yourself: Is this time pressure necessary? If not, find something else to replace it (adhkar, Quran, etc).
2. Experiment with “Watch-Free” Periods
- Try not to wear a watch during weekends or evenings
- Experience “watch-free” walks or mosque visits or Quran recitation
- Practice reading or writing without time constraints
- Notice how your stress levels and creativity change during these periods
3. Heal Your Relationships with Time
- When you notice yourself getting upset about ‘being late,’ pause and reflect
- Ask whether you’re responding to genuine time constraints or internalized pressure
- Have family discussions about time pressure and its impact on your relationships
- Create “time-free zones” in your home where clocks are removed or covered
- Talk about time pressure at work with your boss and colleagues and discuss how time pressure can be used selectively and not all the time!
4. Reconnect with Allah’s Time System
- Learn to read the sun’s position for prayer times
- Follow the lunar calendar for Islamic months
- Spend time in nature observing natural cycles
- Practice timing activities by natural markers rather than mechanical time
5. Establish Healthy Boundaries
- Use mechanical time when truly necessary (appointments, travel, etc.)
- Create buffer zones around scheduled events to reduce time pressure
- Communicate your approach to time with family and colleagues
- Set realistic expectations about timing and punctuality with family, friends, and colleagues.
Imagine walking into a masjid with no clocks on the wall. At first, you might panic since you won’t know how long you have until prayer starts. But gradually, you settle down, pray your two rak’aat tahiyyatul masjid, and start making dua. After some time, the imam appears, and everyone rises to pray. The prayer proceeds without time pressure – it feels ‘slower’ than usual, but instead of checking your watch (which you left at home), you’re simply present and focused on your salah. After prayer, there’s no big clock telling you to rush off… you spend quality time with adhkar and Quran before leaving the mosque when you feel spiritually nourished.
At work, this new relationship with time continues. You begin with your most important task, diving deep into your work without the constant interruption of clock-checking. Yes, you note the time for necessary appointments, but otherwise, you stay immersed in your work until it reaches its natural completion.
The evening comes, and you sit with your family for dinner. There are no watches on wrists, no clocks on walls, no phones on tables. Instead, there’s the beauty of unhurried presence with each other.
And when that familiar time pressure monster rears its head – as it’ll inevitable would- you recognize it for what it is: a reminder to be acknowledged and gently put in its place. You meet its urgency with dhikr and Quran, and its pressure with a loving presence for yourself and those around you.
The challenge before us isn’t to reject mechanical time entirely but to put it in its proper place – as a tool to serve us, not a master to rule us. By understanding its impact and taking practical steps to limit its influence, we can work toward a more balanced, healthy, and spiritually authentic relationship with time, insha’Allah.
