MBITI’S CONCEPT OF TIME: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

By
Onuh Justus Izuchukwu
Onuh Justus Izuchukwu (IZUNWAONU) is a philosopher who studies in Bigard, an
Affiliate Institute Urban University Rome and University of Ibadan. This work was
written under the guidance of Prof. Silvanus Nnoruka
Date: 28/02/2018
Table of Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................... 3
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 4
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM ....................................................................... 5
MBITI’S CONCEPT OF TIME ...................................................................... 5
WHAT IS TIME? ..................................................................................... 5
POTENTIAL TIME AND ACTUAL TIME. ................................................... 5
TWO MAIN DIMENSIONS OF TIME ....................................................... 6
TIME RECKONING AND CHRONOLOGY ................................................. 7
THE CONCEPT OF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE ................................. 10
THE CONCEPT OF HISTORY AND PRE-HISTORY ................................... 11
THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME ...................... 12
DEATH AND IMMORTALITY ................................................................ 12
SPACE AND TIME ................................................................................ 13
DISCOVERING OR EXTENDING THE FUTURE DIMENSION OF TIME .... 13
EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION ........................................................... 14
BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................... 15
Abstract
This research work is centered on Mbiti’s concept of time. The concept of time is
a key to the understanding and interpretation of African Religion and Philosophy.
Africans are not devoid of their indigenous concept of time and as such this piece
tends to suggest through Mbiti’s concept of time, that Africans have their own
pattern and system of thought that is not less philosophical as some may think
and try to jettison African as incapable of any philosophical conception akin to
them. It is wonderful to not that Mbiti generalized his concept of time as Arican’s
concept of time”. Be that as it may, no idea is absolute as we know. I equally
intend to evaluate Mbiti’s concept of time and find out what I consider as flaws as
well as derogatory.
INTRODUCTION
J.S. Mbiti is a Kenyan born Christian religious philosopher adnwriter. He was born
on November 30, 1931. He is an ordained Anglican priest. In his masterpiece
entitled “African Religions & philosophy” Mbiti discussed extensively the African
concept of tome. His idea of the African concept of time is hinged or built around
his research on the Kikamba and Gikuyu languages.
Pertinent to say that KwasiWiredumaintained that John Mbiti’s discussion of the
traditional African concept of time is “philosophically the most interesting
chapter”1 in a book which is regarded “in some places, as the classic exposition of
African philosophy”2. This highlights that Mbiti is a pioneer, one of the first to
attempt to systematize and analyse the African understanding of the world from
this perspective. Little wonder Mbiti himself acknowledged this by saying “on this
subject there is, unfortunately, no literature, and this is no more than a pioneer
attempt which calls for further research and discussion”3.
Similarly, every race and people, tribe and nation has her past which constitutes
part of the identity of such a race. Time concept in Africa, in the distant past and
in the present dispensation is intrinsically part if the identity of Africans. In Africa
today, it has become colloquial for people to say “African Time”. Although this
usage signifies or portrays complacency and expressing that Africans are not
conscious o time, it on a bigger scale accent to the fact that Africans have their
own concept of time and as well as value time.
A closer examination of Mbiti’s concept of time will show that Africans keep time,
value time and not only have their conception of time, but that their conception
of time is highly philosophical and thought provoking.

1
KwasiWiredu. “on Defining African Philosophy”, in TsenaySerequeberhan, ed., African Philosophy: The Essential
Readings(Mew York: Paragon House, 1991). P. 90
2
Ibid. p. 88
3
J. S. Mbiti. P. 16
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
This piece battles with these problems viz:
1. Has Africans a traditional idea of time?
2. What is time to an African?
3. Are Africans conscious of time?
4. Do Africans value time?
5. Is the African concept of time in any way philosophical?
All these enquiries constitute the task for this piece. The answers to these
questions will run through the work.

MBITI’S CONCEPT OF TIME

“The question of time is of little or no academic concern to African peoples in
their traditional life”4. Since the Africans do not understand time as a concept just
to be analysed academically or as an academic idea that exists there, the question
is: what is time for the African man?
WHAT IS TIME?
Mbiti defines the African concept of time as “a composition of events which have
occurred, those that are taking place now and those which are to immediately
occur”5.
POTENTIAL TIME AND ACTUAL TIME.
Mbiti differentiated between categories of timeviz: potential time and Actual
time.According to Mbiti, any time that cuts out of this two times is no- time. He
said “what has not taken place or what has no likelihood of an immediate
occurrence falls in the category of ‘No-time”6. The first category he called
potential because according to him “what is certain to occur, or what falls within
the rhythm of natural phenomena, is in the category of inevitable or potential
time”7. He went further to say that if however future events are certain to occur,
or if they fall within the inevitable rhythm of nature, they at best constitute
potential time. Accordingly, Mbiti thinks that when anything falls into the natural
4
Mbiti p.16-17
5
Ibid. 17
6
Ibid . p.7
7
Mbiti. P.17
rhythm like seasons of the year, such event was certain to occur and as such
classified as potential time.
The second category Mbiti calls Actual time because it is what is present and past.
According to Mbiti “Actual time is therefore what is present and what is past. It
moves ‘backward’ rather than ‘forward’; and people set their minds not on future
things, but chiefly on what has taken place”8. This brings us to what Mbiti calls the
“Two Main Dimensions of time”.
TWO MAIN DIMENSIONS OF TIME
1. Present.
2. Past.
This dimensions of time in the African understanding differs from the linear
Western understanding of time with an indefinite past, present and infinite
future. According to Mbiti the future is virtually absent in African system of
thought because events which lie in it have not taken place, they have not been
realized and cannot therefore constitute time. This two dimensions of time
dominates African understanding of the individual, the community and the
universe.
Kalumba and Parker English maintain that there are two reasons why Mbiti
regards traditional Africans as having a two dimensional concept of time. First,
time must be experienced to become real for those people. Second, only the past
and present have been experienced by anybody. Mbiti had this to say:
“Time has to be experienced in order to make sense or become real. A
person experiences time partly in his individual life, and partly through the
society which goes back many generations before his own birth. Since
what is in the future has not been experienced, it does not make sense; it
cannot therefore constitute part of time, and people do not know how to
think about it – unless, of course, it is something which falls within the
rhythm of natural phenomena”9.
From the above, it stresses the obvious that the African concept of time denotes
“event” which is either about to occur or in the process of realization or recently
experienced.

8
Ibid. p. 17
9
Ibid. p 17
Mbiti having carried out an intense research in the east African Language of
Kikamba and Gikuyu, found out that there were no concrete words or expression
to convey the idea of a distant future. Mbiti’s doctoral dissertation proposes
Kikamba names for the two dimensions of time: tene and mituki. Tenecovers the
far or remote past, and mituki the immediate past to the near future (there being
no concept for the remote future according to Mbiti). In a later work precisely
“African Religion and Philosophy”, Mbiti adopted the Swahili terms Zemani and
Sasaas their respective equivalents. Mbiti maintains that such categorization is
justified by the analysis of verb tenses available in the languages of the tribes he
had studied. To illustrate, he lists nine tenses commonly used among the Akamba
and Gikuyu of Kenya providing examples to illustrate the distinction between
Zamani and Sasa. He went further to say that the three verb tenses that referred
to future, cover the period of about six months, or not beyond two years at most.
According to Mbiti, “at most we can say that this short future is only an extension
of te present. People have little or no active interest in events that lie in the
future beyond, at most, two years from now; and the languages concerned lack
words by which such events can be conceived or expressed”10.
TIME RECKONING AND CHRONOLOGY
Mbiti buttresses his understandings by an analysis of time reckoning and
chronology among the two Kenyan tribes he researched on. According to Mbiti:
“When Africans reckon time, it is for a concrete and specific
purpose, in connection with events but not just for the sake of
mathematics. Since time is a composition of events, people cannot
and do not reckon it in the vacuum. Numerical calendars, with one
or two possible exceptions, do not exist in African traditional
societies as far as I know. “11
African concept of time is concrete and substantive. It is epochal, as it is wrapped
around events and activities12. The African time is usually time-for or time-to or
time-of. Mbiti argues that exists for the Africans is what he called “phenomenon
calendars, in which the events or phenomena which constitute time are reckoned
or considered in their relation with one another and as they take place, ie. as they
constitute time. For example, an expectant mother counts the lunar months of

10
Ibid. p. 19
11
Ibid. p. 19
12
Kanu, Ikechukwu Anthony. “J.S. Mbiti’s African Concept of Time and the Problem of Development”. International
Conference on Humanities, Literature and Management. Jan. 9-10. 2015 Dubai.
her pregnancy. Thus time is meaningful at the point of the event and not the
mathematical abstract time or counting. The day, the month, the year, one’s life
time or human history, are all divided up or reckoned according to their specific
events, for it is these that make them meaningful13.
Another example Mbiti used was the rising sun as an event which is recognized by
the whole community. From this understanding, it is irrelevant whether the sun
rises at 5am or 7am, what is important is the event of its rising. For instance if I
decide to sacrifice to the god at sun set, it doesn’t matter whether the sun sets at
12 or 10 minutes after 12. What matters is the fact that the sacrificed happened
when it happened. This brings to focus the fact that time in Africa, time does not
control human beings rather human beings manipulate and control time. Man is
not slave to time; instead, he ‘makes’ as much time as he wants14. When
foreigners especially from Europe and America, come to Africa and see people
sitting under a tree without evidently doing anything, they often remark “these
Africans waste their time by just sitting down idle”. This kind of remark according
to Mbiti is as a result of ignorance for the Africans are not wasting time rather
waiting for time. For instance, on Tuesday, 28th October 2003, 16:03 GMT, BBC
NEWS reported thtat international journalists in the UK were kept waiting by the
king of Ghana’s largest ethnic group who was visiting Alexander Palace in north
London at the climax of a Ghanaian trade exhibition, Ghana Expo 2003. The
journalists were told that the king OtumfuoOsei Tutu II from the Ashanti would
arrive at the exhibition at 1100. The time was changed to 1400, but the king did
not show up until two hours later when the journalist had already packed and
left. The incident made the whites to remark that “Africans are terrible time-
keepers”. Following Mbiti’s conception of time, it becomes clear that such
statements about Africans are based on misunderstanding of the African concept
of time by the whites.
Apt to say that the day in traditional life I reckoned according to its significant
event, there is always a time for doing something or something happening. Mbiti
gives a example with the Ankore of Uganda where cattle are at the heart of the
people. Therefore the day is reckoned in reference to events pertaining to cattle.
Thus approximately:
6am- milking time

13
Mbiti. P. 19
14
Ibid. p. 19
12noon- time for cattle and people to rest
1pm- time to draw water from the wells
2pm- time for cattle to drink water
3pm- time for cattle to leave their watering places and start grazing
5pm- time when the cattle return home
6pm- time when the cattle enter their sleeping places
7pm- milking time again, before the cattle sleep; and this really closes the day.
Time makes meaning for these people in the day when they are attached to these
events, for example one makes statements like ‘I will go out as early as milking
time’.
According to Mbiti, for the Month, lunar rather than numerical months are
recognized, because of the events of the moon’s changes. Mbiti says “in the life of
the people, certain events are associated to either the most important events or
the prevailing weather conditions. For example, there is the ‘hot’ month, the
month of the first rains, the weeding month, the beans harvest month, the
hunting month, etc.”15Mbiti made reference to teLatuka tribe of Sudan to show
how events govern the approximate reckoning of months:
October- is called “the Sun”, because the sun is very hot at that time.
December- is called ‘give your uncle water’, because water is very scarce and
people become thirty readily.
February- is called ‘let them dig’, because it is at this time that people begin to
prepare their fields for planting, since the rain are about to return.
May- is known as ‘grain in ear’, for at that time grain begins to bear.
June- is called ‘Dirty mouth’, because children can now begin to eat the new
grain, and in so doing get their mouth dirty.
July- is known as ‘drying grass’, because the rains top, the grond becomes dry and
the grass begins to wither.

15
Ibid. p. 20
August- is called ‘sweet grain’, when people eat and harvest ‘sweet grain’.
September- is known as ‘Sausage tree’, because at this time the sausage tree
begins to bear fruit.
From these analysis, it then becomes common for the Africans to make
statements like ‘my daughter will get married at the sweet grain month’ and it
makes meaning to them.
The year is likewise composed of events, but in a wider scale than those of the
days and months. Where the community is agricultural, it is seasonal activities
that compose an agricultural year. The actual number of years is irrelevant since
the year is not reckoned by the numerical mathematical days but by events. The
years usually differ in their length according to days but not in their season and
other regular events. Therefore, events like rain season, planting season,
harvesting season, dry season make up endless years that come and go.
THE CONCEPT OF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
The time that covers the now period, with the sense of immediacy, nearness, and
nowness, andalso concerns the people because that is where and when they
exist, Mbniti calls Sasa. Time covers the future that is extremely brief. If the future
is beyond two years, it cannot be spoken of since it has no place in Swahili
language. According to Mbiti “when an event is far in the future, its reality is
completely beyond or outside the horizon of the Sasa period. Therefore in African
thought, the Sasa ‘swallows’ up what in Western or linear concept of time would
be considered as future.”16
Sasa according to Mbiti is in itself a complete or full time dimension, with its own
short future, a dynamic present, and an experienced past, Mbiti called it the
Micro-time (little time). The micro-time is meaningful to the individual or the
community only through their participating in it or experiencing it.
Zamani as mentioned previously is not limited to what in English is called ‘past’.
Zamani is said to have its own past, present and future but on a wider scale. Mbiti
calls Zamani the Macro-time (Big Time). Zamani overlaps with Sasa and the two
are not seperable. Sasa feeds or disappears into zamani. But before events
become incorporated into the Zamani, they have been realized or actualized in
the sasa dimension. According to Mbiti:

16
Ibid. p. 22
 “Zamani is the graveyard of time, the period of termination, the
dimension in which everything finds its halting point. It is the final
store of all phenomena and events, the ocean of time in which
everything becomes absorbed into reality that is neither after nor
before”17.
Be that as it may, if Zamani is the graveyard of time, it then means that with the
Zamani, the Sasa ends and events move backwards from the sasa into the Zamani.

THE CONCEPT OF HISTORY AND PRE-HISTORY

According to Mbiti’s concept of time, there is no concept of history moving
‘forward’ towards a future climax, or towards an end of the world. This history
moves ‘backward’ from Sasa period to the Zamani, from moment of intense
experience to the period beyond which nothing can go. Mbiti avers: “since the
future does not exist beyond a few months, the future cannot be expected to
usher in a golden age, or a radically different state of affairs from what is in the
Sasa and the zamani.”18Mbiti went further to say that the notion of a messianic
hope, or a final destruction of the world, has no place in traditional concept of
history. This is due to the fact that history in their understanding moves backward
and also future does not exist beyond a few months. Invariably, it stands that
Mbiti holds therefore that “African peoples have no belief in progress, the idea
that the development of human activities and achievements move from a low to a
higher degree. The people neither plan for the distant future nor build castles on
the air.”19
Singularly, for the Africans, both history and pre-history are dominated by myth.
Myths abound in African attempts to explain issues like the creation of the
universe, the first man, the apparent withdrawal of God from the affairs of men
and so on. People constantly, wait for the Zamani and look forward to the Zamani
which is a period full of activities and happenings. According to Mbiti “it is by
looking towards the Zamani that people give or find an explanation about the
creation of the world, the coming of death, the evolution of their language and

17
Ibid. p. 23
18
Ibid. p.23
19
Ibid. p. 23
customs, the emergence of their wisdom and so on.”20 The so-called ‘golden age’
lies in the Zamani, and not in the otherwise very short or non-existent future.
African man according to Mbiti, looks back from whence he came, and man is
certain that nothing will bring this world to a conclusion. Since time has no end,
Africans expect human history to continue forever.
THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME
Mbiti drew a relationship between human life and time from the fact that human
life has another rhythm of nature which nothing can destroy. He says “on the
level of the individual, this rhythm includes birth, puberty, initiation, marriage,
procreation, old age, death, entry into the community of the departed and finally
entry into the company of the spirits.”21 Existentially, one comes to agree that
these moments are very vital moments in the life of any individual.
On the community or national level, Mbiti says “there is the cycle of the seasons
with their different activities like sowing, cultivating, harvesting and hunting. The
key events or moments are given more attention than others, and may often be
marked by religious rites and ceremonies.”22In most African villages, there are
seasons reserved as sacred and as such of utmost importance to the entire
community that anyone who even assaults those seasons are regarded as social
deviants.
The import of this relationship is to drive the point that Africans were always
conscious of time in their own way akin to them because time was in relation to
human life both in the individual level and community level.
DEATH AND IMMORTALITY
Just like Heidegger had it, he said Dasein is “Sein Zun Tote” (a being towards
death), equally Mbiti said “as an individual gets older, he is in effect moving
gradually from the Sasa to the Zamani…similarly, death is a process which
removes a person gradually from the Sasa period to the Zamani.”23Most
importantly for the African is the immortality of man as well as in relation to time.
This is because after the physical death of an individual, the individual continues
to exist in the Sasa period and does not immediately disappear from it.

20
Ibid. p. 23
21
Ibid. p. 24
22
Ibid. p.25
23
Ibid. p. 25
This resonate the idea of Ancestral cult and sacrifice in the African context. This is
because the dead person is being remembered by his relatives who survived him.
They call his name; remember his personality, character, his words and incidents
of his live. This person being remembered is said to be a living-dead. A living-dead
is a person who is physically dead but alive in the memory of those who knew him
in his life as well as being alive in the world of the spirits. So far as the living-dead
is remembered, he is in the state of ‘personal immortality’24 with the passing of
time, the living-dead sink beyond the horizon of Sasa. This happens when no living
is living to remember the living-dead anymore and the living-dead then enters
into the state of collective immortality. Therefore, it buttresses the connection
between the eternity if time in relationship with immortality of human soul.
SPACE AND TIME
Space and time are two related forms. Africans value space as they value time.
What matters most to the people is what is geographically near, just as Sasa
embraces the life that people experience.25 This informs why Africans are so much
tied to their lands. This is because it is the concrete expression of the Sasa and
Zamani. Little wonder why Africans see one being ostracized from the land or sent
on exile as the greatest thing that can befall one as well as to remove one from
ones land forcefully seen as the greatest injustice. This is because according to
Mbiti the land provides them with the roots of existence as well as binding them
mystically to their departed.
DISCOVERING OR EXTENDING THE FUTURE DIMENSION OF TIME
The influence of Christianity and western culture in Africa cannot be over looked
as regards the African notion of time. Mbiti took notice of this when he said
“partly because of Christian missionary teaching, partly because of western type
of education, together with the invasion of modern technology with all it involves,
African peoples are discovering the future dimension of time.26 This invariably
means that there is an influence of the Western linear concept of time to the
modern African man. One cannot pay blind eyes to these influences. Owing to the
hitherto discussed concept of future in African concept of time as being No-time
and as such that African’s time is backward and their not having the idea of
progress, this secular level and influences according to Mbiti “leads to national
planning for economic growth, political independence, extension of educational

24
Ibid. p. 25
25
Ibid. p. 27
26
Ibid. p. 27
facilities and so on.”27 This change from the traditional dimension of the concept
of time to a new discovery of the future dimension, according to Mbiti is not a
smooth one and as such is at the root of many of African problems. Little wonder,
this has made the average African to think in like manners with the Christians as
regards a strong expectation of the millennium and hope and idly wait for the
goodies in paradise.
Mbiti agrees that if Africans can put to use this discovery of the extension of the
future dimension of time, that they will be beneficial if harnessed and channeled
into creative and productive use.

EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION

Mbiti’s concept of time no doubt has lots of applaudable nuances. Mbiti astutely
and masterly researched into the concept of time using two languages of Kenya. It
follows from the above that to a reasonable sense one can say that the traditional
Africans have their own peculiar understanding of the concept of time that differs
from that of the West. One can say the Africans value time very much. This is
made true from the statement ‘time na money’ (ogebu ego).
However, Mbiti has been criticized on the bases of African time being backward.
This is because for the African time to be backward it implies retrogressions in
progress and lack of progress in the Africans mindset. Equally for the Africans not
to have the conception of future also sounds chords of African’s not bordered
about what the future has in stock. But this is not so in existential parlance of
Africans for in Africa we see the African man making plans for the far future. This
informs why an African man will work hard to earn a living in view of his getting
married and having children. All these point to the fact the Africans have the idea
of future time and they hold it so dear.
From this review of Mbiti’s concept of time, I found out that the Africans have not
just in the present times mixed up their indigenous concept of time with the
linear western concept of time, but they seem to approximate fully to the
western’s conception of time. The Africans to a reasonable extent now label
derogatorily the African time as meaning laziness, lateness, sluggishness, etc. and
as such Africans are branded as not having the sense of time and not keeping to
time. These are influences of the western linear notion of time.

27
Ibid. p. 27
BIBLIOGRAPHY
John, Mbiti. African Religious and Philosophy. London: Heinemann Educational
Books Ltd. Morrison & Gibb. 1969;
Kanu, Ikechukwu Anthony. “J.S. Mbiti’s African Concept of Time and the Problem
of Development”. International Conference on Humanities, Literature
and Management. Jan. 9-10. 2015 Dubai.
KwasiWiredu. “on Defining African Philosophy”, in TsenaySerequeberhan, ed.,
African Philosophy: The Essential Readings(Mew York: Paragon House,
1991).