INTRODUCTION
The idea of time according to Mbiti, has been questioned by many people whether Mbiti had done correct research in clarifying time basing on traditional way of life. Also to say that African had no concept of time, Mbiti might be correct or wrong depending to the judgment and interpretation of the researcher. The matter is to understand why he based to such a conclusion that is very unique ending we are no sure at all, if all African could join Mbiti. Mbiti’s concept of time could have a meaning depending to the circumstance of his experience. But we could be more critical to him comparing our understanding of African way of time; this can help us to arrive at judgment about Mbiti because judging him without referring to our understanding could not help to get a conclusion. He said that African peoples in their traditional life the concept of time is little or no academic, here we should understand Mbiti when he says about the idea of academic where did he rely to?, African academic or western academic?.
In this way if we want to talk about the concept of time which Mbiti is relying we must not confuse with the western conceptual of time; mechanical or systematic concept of time. When we relate this two we find that according to Mbiti the concept of time in Africa is based in the phenomenology. In the other hand his conceptualization of time in the western view is based on methodic way that they can have time even in the absence of phenomena at hand.

1. The Concept of Time According to Mbiti
What Mbiti tries to say is very much challenging because his research might be having some fallacies of generalization, how could he come to such a conclusion about the whole African society, because every society has its own way of expressing the concept of time. He says that “what has not taken place or what has no likelihood of an immediate occurrence falls in the category of No-time.” Mbiti has said that African traditional concepts of time has two-dimensional phenomenon, which are with a long past, a present and virtually no future.
Therefore, Mbiti has explained that African had no idea of infinite future, that is the point which made Mbiti to be criticized by some African scholars because he look as if to be more western than to be African. Apart from that, Mbiti did not stand firmly in putting his opinion because he has put more hypothetical of concepts of time. For him he accepts that future is just potential time and not actual time. He has tried to show the progress of time by moving backward rather than forward; in this point he has tried to show the attention which African are taken in considering time, African have just setting mind not on future things, but chiefly on events at hand.
2. The Historical Perspective of Time and Space
Philosophers are debating whether space and time is a thing in it self or just a concept that comes from our mind through discussion on this world. Or we ask our self can space it self be measured? Or practically is it part of our measurement system? Or how do we relate this concept of time with space and make space and time. Parmenides in his teaching said that empty space exist, would be the same as to say that what is not there exists. However Aristotle and René Descartes rejected this notion. The following considerations try to pinpoint what different philosophers said about this subject matter of space and time.
According to St. Augustine, time can be taken as subjective, just an inner felling of duration that flows in each human person life and to some people it causes anxiety worries, especially when we are thinking about death that no body will escape it . Some religious and Philosophers say that; time and space have a linear and irreversible character. He is the author who takes space and time as an object and reality. On his side, Hegel is of the view that Space is empty just as being is in dominate, The interpretation of his words is that one end the nature launches emptiness and the other end it passes over the spirit. From words we can say that Hegel admits that space is a thing in itself.
Emmanuel Kant on the other hand, traces his words when he was writing the categories of thought and forms of intuitions, he said that we inevitably perceive a being in space and time but space and time are not ideas derived from the things we experience nor are only concepts. Space and time are encountered immediately intuition and are our the same time a priori or rather to put it more clearly, through space and time we always see objects of experience, figuratively speaking time and space is like tenses, we can see other object and therefore the space and time has been said as a thing in it self.
Potentiality and Actuality concept of Time
According to Mbiti the conceptual of time is not concern to African peoples in their traditional life for time is simply a masterpiece of phenomenon which have taken place (at zamani), those which are taking place in sasa and those which are immediately to occur. What has not taken place falls in the category of inconceivable or ‘no time’ and what is certainly to occur is in the category of potential time. According to traditional concepts time is a two-dimensional phenomenon with a long past (zamani), a present (sasa) and virtually no future. For Mbiti, the linear concept of time which according to western thinkers, like Aristotle who said is a number of motions according to before and after, with an indefinite past, present and infinite future is practically far-off to African philosophy.
The future is virtually absent because events which lie in it have not taken place, has not been realized and cannot, therefore represent time. Actual time is therefore what is sasa and what is zamani, this is true within phenomenological principles aspect. When the conceptualization is taking place, it moves from sasa (past) ‘back ward’ rather than ‘forward’ and people set their minds not on future things but on what has taken place and that phenomenon at hand. This time orientation, governed as in dimensions of the present and the past, takes over African understanding of an individual. Time has to be experienced in order to make sense or to be real, a person experiences time partly in his individualization and partly through the society which builds her foundation on many generations before his own birth. Since what is in the future has not been experienced it does not make sense.

Time Reckoning and Chronology
When African reckons time, it is far a concrete and a specific purpose in connection with events but not just for the sake of mathematics. Since time is the composition of events people cannot and do not reckon it in vacuum. Numerical calendars with one or two possible exceptions do not exist in African traditional societies. If such calendars exist they are to be of a short duration stretching back perhaps a few decades but certainly not the realm of centuries.
Instead of numerical calendar there are what we call phenomenon calendar in which the events or phenomena which constitute the time are reckoned or considered in relation with one another and as they take place. The day month year ones life time or human history are all divided up or reckoned according to their specific events for it is this mark them meaning full
If western or technological society time is a commodity which must be utilized sold and bought but in traditional Africa life time has to be created or produced. Man is not a slave of time instead he takes as much as he wants. When foreigner especially from Europe and America come to Africa and seeing people sitting down somewhere without evidently doing any thing they often remark. African waste time by just sitting down idle, another common cry is Oh African is always late. It is easily to jump to such judgments but they are judgments based on ignorance of what time means to African peoples. Those who are seen sitting down are not actually wasting time, but either waiting for time or in the process of producing time. One does not want to do labor but certainly the basic concept of time underlies and influences the life and attitude of African people in villages. The economic life of the people is deeply bound to their concept of time and many of their religious concept and practices are connected with the fundamental concept of time.

African Concept of Past, Present and Future
We must discuss further time dimensions and their relationship with African Ontology. Beyond a few months from now as we have seen African concepts of time is silent and indifferent. This means that the future is virtually non existent as actual time, apart from the relatively short projection of the present up to two years. Let us use the word sasa and Zamani for present and past respectively.
The word sasa covers the now period. Sasa has the sense of immediacy, nearness and newness and is the period of immediate concern for the people, since that is where or when they exist. When an event is far in future its reality is completely beyond or outside the horizon of the sasa period. Therefore, in African thought, the sasa swallows up what is western or linear concept of time would be considered as the future. Events which compose time in sasa dimension must be either about to occur or in the process of realization or recently experienced.
Zamani overlaps with sasa and the two are not separable. Sasa feeds or disappear into Zamani. Before the event becomes incorporated into zamani they have to become realized or actualized within the sasa dimension. When this has taken place the event move backward from the sasa into the zamani, so zamani become the period beyond which nothing can go. Zamani is the graveyard of the time of termination, the dimension in which everything finds its halting point. Both sasa and Zamani have quality and quantity. People speak of them big or small, little, short or long in relation to the particular event or phenomena. Sasa generally builds individuals and their immediate environment together hence is the period of conscious living.

Human Life in Relation to Time
According to Mbiti, the human life is Rhythm or part of nature which nothing can destroy. In the level of individual, this Rhythm includes birth, puberty/youth, initiation, marriage, procreation, old age, and death, entry into the community of the ancestral world. These are two key moments in the life of an individual, also an ontological rhythm. Apart from this on the level of community or rational level, there is the cycle of the seasons with their different activities like sowing, cultivating, harvesting and hunting. These are key events or moments which are given more attention than other and may often be marked by religious rites and ceremonies.

The unusual events or others which do not fit into this rhythm such as Eclipse, drought, the birth of twins and the like are generally thought to be ominous, or events requiring religious ritual, the abnormal invasion of the ontological harmony . According to Mbiti, Africans have divided the concept of time in two dimensions, zamani and the sasa essentially no future because the event at hand, he says the philosophical concept of time in African perspective is based on phenomenon.
Human life has another rhythm of nature which nothing can destroy. On the level of individual this rhythm include birth, puberty, initiation marriage, procreation, old age, death and entry into the community of the departed and finally into the company of spirit. These are the key moment in the life of individual. In the community or national level there is the cycle of season with their different activities like sowing, cultivating, harvesting. The key event or names are given more attention than others.

Extending Future Dimension of Time
Partly, because of Christian missionaries teaching, partly because of western education, together with the invasion of the new or modern technology with all it involves, African peoples are discovering the future dimension of time. On the secular level this lead to the national planning for economic growth political independence and extension of educational facilities. The discovering and the extension of the future dimension of time posses great potentialities and promises for the shaping of the entire life of African peoples. If these are harnessed and channeled into creative and productive use, they will not doubt become beneficial but they can get out of control and precipitate both tragedy and disillusionment.
The traditional concept of time in Africa is intimately bound up with the entire life of people and our understanding of it may help to pave the way for understanding the thinking, attitude and action of the people.

Death and Immortality Birth is a deliberate process which is finalized long after the person has been physically born. In many societies a person is not considered as full human being until he has gone through the whole process of physical birth, naming ceremonies, puberty and initiation rites and finally marriage, then he is a complete person. Death is the end of a person’s life gradually from the sasa period to the zamani. After the physical death, the individual continues to exist in the sasa period and does not immediately disappear from the minds of the society . Relatives and friends continue to remember him or her, calling him by name, they remember him or her personality, his character, his words and incidents of his life. Owing this conceptualization, commemoration of the ancestors is given through naming the grandsons/grand-daughters the names of their grand fathers, to keep the person's name alive as well as tributes to the fastidious ancestor in the community, i.e. Wahehe and Wabena use this kind of naming system. The recognition by name is extremely important and this may continue for four or five generations as long as some one is alive who knew the departed personally by name, then the former passes out of the horizon of the sasa period and in effect he or she become complete dead, he or she is suck into the zamani period. This person we call the “living died” that means a person is died physically but alive in his or her life as well as being alive in the world of spirits.
So long as the living dead is thus remembered he is in the state of “personal immortality” it is expressed or externalized in acts like respecting the departed, giving bits of food to them, pouring out liberation and carrying out instructions given by them either while they lived or when they appear . In African societies thus help us to understand the Religious significance of marriage. Unless a person has closed relatives to remember him or her when he or she has physically died, then will vanish like a flame.
So is a duty, religious and ontological for everyone to get married and if man has no children or only daughter, he finds another wife so that through her sons may be born who would survive his personal immortality. Procreation is the only way of insuring that a person is not cut off from personal immortality . The process of dying is completely when there is no one who remembers the departed one. But the living dead do not vanish out of existence; they enter into the state of ‘collective immortality’. The remembrance in most of Africans funeral ceremonies captures long time counting from one week to six months depending on the status of the deceased person and tradition of the society. For example the Luo, (From one week), Barbaig, (Two weeks to six months), and Kamba (One week) to mention a few.