What is meant by the hour in his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): “Whoever comes in the first hour on Friday is as if he had offered a camel”?

The questioner : What is meant by the hour in the hadith ?

The Shaykh : It is the time hour, which is sixty minutes, and every minute is sixty seconds. Do you know what an hour is?

The questioner : It was not in the time of their era.

The Shaykh : We are not currently discussing a historical or geographical topic; our topic now is hadith. You asked me what the meaning is, so I gave you the meaning; but I did not say that the hour was like this in the early time only. The day is twelve hours. The day today has twelve hours, do you know or not? Why are you upset? I am upset by your being upset?

The questioner : ... Allah knows best.

The Shaykh : It appears you did not finish your sleep, Professor, ...
Al-Halabi : Or you are more energetic than necessary.

The questioner : ... called me and told me to ask.The Shaykh : I tell him, “You ask him,” and I tell him now, “Put me in the category of the ignorant and I will be embarrassed.”

The Shaykh : People, why are you upset... and he says, “People, why are you five sleepers? Why are you upset with ...”

The questioner : The correct thing is that we learn from these things, and may Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : That means you believe that my intention is good, not that my intention is to upset you or embarrass you. We are not finished, what brought this up? The Messenger (peace be upon him) says: , and the hadith is in Sunan al-Nasa'i from the narration of Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah al-Ansari; so the division of the day and night into twenty-four hours, this is an old division, not the modern hour. They divided the day and night into twenty-four hours, no, they inherited this division, so they created the hour to match the division they inherited from ancient times, twelve hours in the day, ... in old hours, some of which may be preserved in some museums. My father (may Allah have mercy on him) had some interest in the science of astronomy. He had in his modest house in Damascus what is called in the language of astronomy the *mizwala*. The *mizwala* is derived from *zala*, *yazulu*, *zalat al-shams* (the sun passed from the middle of the sky). This *mizwala* is a marble plate with an iron nail planted in it, but in a geometric way that is vertical. If you go to the carpenters, there is a machine they call the angle... there is a pole that casts a long shadow. As the sun rises, the shadow shortens. It is moved from place to place. I do not know exactly now, I think it is five minutes or less or more; so the hours in our hands were present in the *mizwala* or the *mizwala*, and these exist to this day in some old mosques in Damascus and in Morocco in the Rabat mosque and similar places in the city.

The questioner : Is this modern?

The Shaykh : No, it is not modern, it is old. And then there is the hourglass, have you seen it? This hourglass, you should imagine it like this cup, with another one opposite it below, here it is narrow, very narrow, with sand. This sand is placed with a very precise balance so that if you turn this device, the sand starts to fall to the bottom place, taking a specific, defined time, by the minute or by five minutes; so in the past they would assign a person, of course this determines what is precise, I do not know how long its time is, it may be measurements, I have no idea; the important thing is that the Arabs knew the hours in a way that may be primitive, but this does not mean they did not know; so the saying of the Messenger, so we do not go far, is the time hour, so for him this and for him that; ... from the rising of the sun, yes.