“If there is a God, who came before Him?” “How do you know nothing came before Him?” These are some of the most infamous questions one will hear from atheists and agnostics. Theists too may ask this question too out of curiosity.

This can be tackled in several ways:

1. Logically, there has to be an end. Imagine in a police department, you are a lieutenant and have an issue. You go to the captain. If the captain doesn’t have the answer, he goes to the major. What if he doesn’t? That can go on and on! When will the issue get resolved? Will you keep saying, “Let me go to the higher authority” or expect there to be an end eventually?
2. When you ask such a question, you are never going to address the matter itself – whether God exists or not. You have to face that first and foremost. The rest is all secondary. If God exists, you better find His True Religion and then follow it. Otherwise, there will be consequences. Why get lost in what-ifs? Very often, people will ask “Who came before God?” and not tackle the more fundamental questions of life. If you don’t even do that, what are you prioritizing?
3. In Islam, the texts suggest that God created time and/or has control of it. See the examples below. If that is the case, and if time is different in the “realm” of God and the hereafter, then we can’t ask questions like “What came before God?” That is because time isn’t a factor to warrant such a question. The word “before” doesn’t apply anymore because God is and has been there for eternity!
   • “And He it is Who has created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, each in an orbit floating” [Qur’an 21:33]
   • Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Allah the Almighty said: The son of Adam abuses me. He curses time and I am time, for in my hand are the night and day.” [Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4549, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2246] “I am time” is, of course, a figure of speech.
   • “And indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of those which you count.” [Qur’an 22:47] So time is different to God!