Contemplating Summer: The Preserved Book and the Invisible Traces of Existence

Sometimes the past returns through a forgotten style: gentle, perhaps excessively metaphorical, capable of transforming a thought into a floating form suspended between imagination and reality.

It happens, then, that one opens an old chest, one of those that preserve fragments of a life without ever truly questioning why they were kept. Among papers nearly yellowed by time and forgotten photographs, a piece of writing dedicated to summer may reappear. A simple title: Contemplating Summer. Reading it again, one sometimes has the impression that it was never truly finished, as though there were pages that continue to write themselves through the events of life. And it is precisely from those pages that a reflection emerges once more—a reflection that time itself never ceases to deepen.

The Qur'an teaches that human beings possess free will and are responsible for their actions. The manuscript of our existence, in a sense, is written by our own hands. It is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to grasp. According to the Qur'an, Allah knows everything that has happened, everything that is happening, and everything that will happen. Yet this knowledge does not imply compulsion. Imagine a teacher who knows a particular student very well. The teacher knows that the student never studies, avoids every commitment, and never prepares for examinations. He may predict with near certainty that the student will fail. Yet the teacher's prediction is not the cause of the failure. The student fails because he chose not to study. In the same way, according to the Qur'an, Allah already knows the choices we will make, but it is we who make them, and it is we who are accountable for them. We are the authors of our pages; God, meanwhile, is the director who already knows the ending.

The Qur'an frequently evokes the image of a Book in which everything is recorded. Not only great deeds, but even the smallest details—the ones we ourselves forget. “Not a leaf falls but that He knows it” (6:59). “The Book will be placed before them, and they will say: Woe to us! What sort of Book is this that leaves nothing, small or great, without recording it?” (18:49). “And We have recorded all things in a Book” (78:29). In the Islamic tradition, these verses are connected to the concept of the Preserved Tablet (al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ), the repository of divine knowledge.

As time passes, these verses may be read not merely as religious principles, but as keys to understanding existence itself. Perhaps, before leaving this world, we will be granted the opportunity to read that Book. Many people who have undergone near-death experiences recount that, in an instant suspended between time and eternity, their entire lives appeared before their eyes. Forgotten faces, words spoken carelessly, decisive choices, seemingly insignificant moments—everything re-emerges with extraordinary clarity, as though every fragment of life had been preserved somewhere, waiting to be seen again.

It is as if the pages of existence suddenly begin to turn, one after another, without omissions, without any possibility of concealment. An endless sequence of images, like the old slides that once passed across a screen, yet capable of revealing not only events themselves, but also their weight, their meaning, and the consequences they carried for others.

A complete account.

A final examination.

Or perhaps, more simply, the last opportunity to understand the deeper meaning of what we have written in the book of our existence.

Curiously, certain reflections within modern physics seem to evoke images not entirely distant from this idea. Every event leaves traces. Light carries information, and waves preserve memories of their passage. Interactions between particles continually modify the structure of reality. Science does not claim that there exists an accessible cosmic archive preserving every instant of existence. Yet many contemporary theories attribute a fundamental role to information in the architecture of the universe. In other words, nothing appears to happen without leaving some imprint behind. It is fascinating to observe the resonance between the Qur'anic vision and certain intuitions of modern physics: both suggest that nothing is ever truly lost.

Photographs, letters, and notes are merely representations of what once was. The mind is the platform upon which life takes shape, but it is the heart that teaches us how to interpret it. And death? Perhaps it is simply a change of channel, a passage into a dimension we are not yet capable of observing. Allah may be the center of everything, that invisible point sustaining the entire structure of reality, just as a black hole sustains a galaxy without ever revealing itself directly. Once His instructions are understood, one becomes capable of perceiving what today remains hidden.

Summer has only just begun, and yet the flowers have already started releasing sophisticated and elusive fragrances. They drift through the air like invisible messages, passing through the senses and opening gateways once thought closed. For a fleeting moment, it feels as though one has already lived that instant, that light, that wind, and that fragrance arriving from elsewhere. Many attribute such sensations to previous lives. They may instead be traces, impressions left within the fabric of the cosmos by those who came before us—vibrations that continue to travel through the invisible texture of the universe, like ancient sediments embedded in stone after the passing of forgotten ages, released once more whenever a kindred energy passes nearby.

The sea understands this mystery well. No wave is identical to the one before it, and yet its movement seems eternal. The wave dissolves and returns, changing form without ever truly disappearing. So it is with memories, intuitions, encounters, and people. Everything is transformed. Nothing remains still.

The Qur'an states: “Indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of those which you count,” and “The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day whose measure is fifty thousand years.” These are not scientific formulas, but windows opened onto mystery. They suggest that time may not flow in the same way across every level of existence. Perhaps the past has not entirely vanished, and the future has not yet been born. There may be perspectives that our limited perception is not yet capable of embracing.

The true secret of summer is this: not remembering what we once were, but intuiting what we are. Part of a universe that existed before us and will continue to blossom after us. Part of a larger story, of a Book that continues to write itself season after season, petal after petal, wave after wave. And as the sea continues to whisper its secrets to those who know how to listen, one comes to understand that the Preserved Book is not merely memory, but meaning and continuity. The awareness that nothing we truly live ever disappears. For every experience leaves a trace, every choice writes a line, and every summer adds a page.

The book of existence continues to be written until the final word has found its place in eternity.