Formulation of the Claim
The vocabulary of place and time in the Qur’an often functions as signs-symbols that refer to spiritual meanings exceeding their literal sense.
Explanation
In Arkoun’s reading, terms of place and time are not understood as purely descriptive indications, because their abundance and apparent precision do not exhaust their function in the text. They open meaning onto a symbolic horizon that makes them more than mere spatial or temporal determinations.
These terms acquire their value from their capacity to refer to a deeper layer of signification, where place and time become part of the construction of spiritual meaning, not merely part of the surface of description. Thus these terms are connected to the Qur’an’s way of transforming familiar elements into meaningful signs.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom falls within Arkoun’s interest in the symbolic rhetoric of the Qur’an and in how its vocabulary operates on multiple levels of signification. It brings us closer to his general thesis that the Qur’anic text is not to be read in a superficial literalist way, but rather in relation to the field of meanings it opens within religious experience.
It is also connected to Arkoun’s distinction between direct meaning and the meaning that arises from symbolic transformation. Place and time here are not merely two external frames, but two elements that enter into the formation of Qur’anic discourse itself.
Limits of the Claim
This claim does not mean that every spatial or temporal term in the Qur’an carries the same meaning, nor that all of them can be reduced to a single fixed symbol. Nor does it require abolishing their direct historical or linguistic dimension.
Brief Evidence
“But they often function as signs/signs-symbols that refer to spiritual meanings”
“The vocabulary of place and time in the Qur’an is abundant and apparently precise, but it often functions”
Nearby Links
- Readings of the Qur’an
- Islamic Thought: Critique and Ijtihad