Tiempo e historia en el Islam

Abstract

As in other civilizations, time in Islam is one of the organizing principies of its concepts, representations and identity. The very emergence of this civilization, in 7^thcentury Arabia, resulted in the establishment of an era, a calendar and an historical consciousness of its own. Within this specificity, there are different ways of understanding, living and feeling time and history: from the personal, subjective perspective to that of philosophers and astronomers to time in the organization of daily activities, and from history as a succession of reigns and dynasties. These different concepts and vantage points reflect the richness and complexity of a civilization that is currently spread across all five continents and more than 1400 years old since Hegira. Thus, for the "orthodox" Sunnites time is linear, whereas for the Shiites it is cyclical. Yet even the rationalization of history as a linear occurring is not free from a contested meaning relative to the political circumstances of the present, as a semantic analysis of the term dawla indicates.