Greetings Brother Joseph,
This verse in the Qur'an has made me ponder deeply and I have a question regarding it that I believe others may have asked themselves also.
Surah 7: 172
Yusuf Ali: When thy Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves, (saying): "Am I not your Lord (who cherishes and sustains you)?"- They said: "Yea! We do testify!" (This), lest ye should say on the Day of Judgment: "Of this we were never mindful":
One may ask " How am I supposed to be accounted for a testimony that I don't ever remember making?
That question arose in me but I was wondering whether the testimony was done by our spiritual self or the part of the Rooh (Spirit) before it was activated within our human body's central nervous system?
Also, in my readings of the Quran years ago, I always felt that it was jumbled and all out of place and order and had difficulty understanding it. But having gone through Physics lessons and the relativity of Time, I understand that it is not messy but it seems "jumbled" to me because the Speaker/Author exists outside of the time/space boundary and thus sees all things in all views while I am stuck in a 3 dimenionsal reality with a forward moving time velocity. This also explains the various scenes of the Day of Judgement which are played out in the Qur'an even though from our relative time, we have not reached there yet.
With reference to the verse above, since all of the "Children of Adam" are mentioned, could it be referring to our spirits in a future time scale (to our future) in a different realm or does it refer to a past time while we were still in the wombs?
Also, when this verse was addressed to the 7th century Arabs, they may have had the same question of "when did I make testimony, I don't remember"..How could it have been addressed?
I appreciate your response.
Thank You,
Abdur Rahman