A couple of decades ago, upon doing some self - independent readings in the Quantum Physics Theory, and connecting to my old reading about the General and the Special Relativity theories, of Einstein, where I was always fascinated with the time - space concept, and how time and space are entangled and bent by the gravitational force, I came up with a phrase which I thought, based on my brief understanding, describes TIME in a simple definition; it was “Time is a displacement of Location”

Recently, I discussed this matter with someone who has much deeper knowledge of Physics
He was quite impressed by the comprehensibility of my phrase. His words were:

“This is quite insightful. In essence, you're saying that time only has meaning because things move — that without spatial change, the concept of time would be empty. This echoes what some philosophers of physics argue: that time is relational, not a thing in itself, but rather the record of change in the configuration of matter. The 17th - century philosopher Leibniz argued exactly this against Newton”.
I won’t deny that I was happy to get that response at all!

The topic itself is genuinely fascinating, and my phrase "time is displacement of location", resonates with some real physics ideas.

Let me try to expand on that from the little background I built on this subject.

Time is one of the most awkward concepts in quantum mechanics. Unlike position, momentum, or energy — which are all operators (things you can measure and get a range of probabilistic outcomes), time in quantum mechanics is treated as a background parameter, not a measurable quantity in the same sense. It's more like the stage on which the quantum drama unfolds, rather than an actor in it.

This is actually a deep, unresolved tension. In Einstein's relativity, time and space are unified into a single fabric, spacetime, and time can stretch or compress depending on gravity and velocity. But in quantum mechanics, time is treated as fixed and absolute in a way that sits uncomfortably with relativity. Reconciling the two remains one of the great unsolved problems in physics.

The measurement problem tells us that reality at the quantum level is not definite until observed, and there is something profoundly unresolved about the relationship between the quantum world and the world of experience.

Entanglement tells us that separated particles can be part of one system, that the universe is non - locally connected in ways that transcend spatial distance.

Together they suggest something that physics struggles to articulate but cannot avoid: that the universe is not a collection of independent, locally - interacting pieces. Its deepest structure is holistic, unified, and non-local.

Recall what we said about the unification of forces, how at every deeper level, multiplicity dissolves into unity. Entanglement takes this further. It is not just that the laws are unified. The states of particles, across any distance, can be unified, part of one inseparable quantum whole.

And recall the hadith of Al-Boukhary about Al-Dahr that Allah سبحانه وتعالى is behind the turning of time, behind all apparent causality in the universe. Entanglement shows that causality itself, at the quantum level, is not the simple local chain of billiard - ball cause - and - effect that Newton imagined. The universe is held together by connections that operate outside the ordinary framework of space and time.

My phrase "time is displacement of location" finds another echo here. In an entangled system, the two particles share a quantum state that is not located anywhere in particular. It is non - local. It transcends the very spatial framework that your phrase describes time as operating within.

At the frontier of physics, we keep arriving at the same boundary: the framework of space, time, and locality, which we use to describe the world, breaks down. What lies beyond that boundary, physics cannot say. But it keeps pointing toward it.

In essence, I would say that time has meaning only because things move, that without spatial change, the concept of time would be empty. This echoes what some philosophers argue: that time is relational, not a thing in itself, but rather the record of change in the configuration of matter. The 17th-century philosopher Leibniz argued exactly this against Newton.

In quantum field theory, particles are literally defined by their interactions and transitions If we go back in time, and search for how the meaning of time evolved, we will find that Time in Classical (Newtonian) Physics was treated time as absolute and universal, a cosmic clock ticking at the same rate everywhere, for everyone, regardless of what is happening in the universe. Time was a container; the universe was the contents.

His view: Even if nothing existed, time would still tick!

However, Einstein's great revolution showed that time and space are not separate things. They are woven together into a single fabric called spacetime. And crucially:

????Time slows down near massive objects (gravitational time dilation)
????Time slows down for objects moving at high speed
????There is no single "now"; simultaneity is relative to the observer

So, for Einstein, time is already partly what I described; it is geometrically linked to location and motion. Two clocks at different locations in a gravitational field will show different times. Time is not universal; it depends on where you are and how you are moving.

But, time in Quantum Mechanics gets strange! And Physics has a genuine unresolved problem.

In quantum mechanics, every physical quantity, position, momentum, energy, and spin is represented as an operator: something that acts on the quantum state and gives a probability distribution of outcomes.

But time is NOT an operator in standard quantum mechanics It is treated as an external classical parameter, essentially a label on the equation, not a thing to be measured. The famous Schrödinger equation tells you how a quantum state evolves as a function of time, but time itself is never put through the quantum machinery.

This is deeply unsatisfying, and many physicists know it. And here is where my phrase "time is displacement of location", in my view, becomes relevant.

In quantum gravity, the attempt to apply quantum mechanics to spacetime itself, there is something called the Wheeler - DeWitt equation (this equation starts with the Schrodinger equation: E=f(h), where the energy of a packet of electromagnetic charge, called a quantum, h equals the frequency of its vibration, and f = Planck constant. The Wheeler - DeWitt equation evolved into building a version of this equation, but not for a packet, or a quantum of energy, but for the whole universe. It had no time parameter in it at all!

This means that the universal wave function does not evolve. It is static. Frozen. The universe, described at the deepest level, appears timeless.

A very fundamental question arose: how do we experience time?
Page - Wootters mechanism says that time emerges from correlations between subsystems. One part of the universe acts as a "clock" relative to another part. Time is not fundamental; it is relational change between locations and configurations of matter.

Imagine a photograph of a river. Frozen. No time exists in that image.

Imagine, for example, a second photograph, taken one second later. The water has moved.

Time is the difference between those two photographs. It is the displacement of the water's location. Without that displacement, there is no time. Time is not the gap between the photos; time is the displacement itself.

Which is exactly what I suggested in my phrase: time is the displacement of location. If there is no displacement, there is no time. Time is the name we give to the fact that things have moved.

I will, InshaAllah, go further in my analysis to show how this relates to the theory of the Big Bang, the contribution of Stephen Hawking's theory of “no time beginning” (Hartle - Hawking no - boundary) to the ideology of Atheism, and how the Quran truly determined the relativity of time and space, , and how Muslim leading scholars such as Ibn Taymiyah and Ibn Alqayyem dealt with these concepts in more simple and definitive methodology and analogy.

Dr. Tariq Abdelhaleem
17 March 2026