Since the 11th century, compilations of Sufi lexicon consolidated the semantic range of the language of Islamic mysticism and its distinctive nuances. Among its key technical terms, al-waqt (the mystic moment) advanced a new take within Islamic moral imagination on the relationship between temporal existence and moral redemption. From al-Risalah by Abu al-Qassim al-Qushayri (d. 465/1072) to Mi’raj al-tashawwuf by Ahmad Ibn Ajibah (d. 1223/1809), entries on al-waqt emphasized the transformative potential of the moment of the now and disputed the exclusivity of the referential authority of the past. Al-waqt shifts the understanding of Time within Islamic moral imaginary from an external power of negativity to an intimate structure of the self subsumed within its relationship with divinity. As it is developed within Sufi thought and poetics, al-waqt redefines the temporal instant as both a spiritual entity and a spatial frame of expansion. Fusing eternity and ephemerality in one temporal frame, it reinvigorates the present moment with a utopic dimension and advocates moral redemption as an unfolding potential rather than being fixedly tied to the modular past. This paper explores the concept of al-waqt in a number of foundational Sufi works including al-Qushayri’s Risalah, al-Hujwiri’s Kashf al-mahjub, Ibn Arabi’s Risalat al-anwar, and Abd al-Karim al-Jili’s commentary on Ibn Arabi’s aforementioned Risalah. It discusses the continuities and discontinuities between al-waqt and other Islamic temporal views such as the negativity of al-dahr and the occasionalist theory of the atomism of Time. Finally, it illustrates the moral and temporal nuances of Sufi waqt by offering a reading of the poem “Salamun ala Salma” (“Greetings to Salma”) from Ibn Arabi’s Turjuman al-ashwaq. The Sufi poem reformulates both the stylistic requirements of the Arabic qasida and its existential discourse. This paper explores how the traditional theme of nostalgic contemplation triggered by the sight of ruins and the absence of the beloved is counterbalanced by the idea of a renewable presence linked to the inward experience of al-waqt.