Histories without Clocks: Islamic temporality and the postcolonial condition

This paper interrogates the multifaceted conception of temporality in Arab-Muslim societies, tracing its theological, linguistic, and philosophical articulations from classical Islamic thought to postcolonial modernity. Engaging with temporality as a culturally contingent category, it reveals how Arab-Islamic traditions juxtapose divine eternity with human historicity, privileging aspectual temporality over linear progression. The study emphasizes the enduring significance of the Ummah as a temporally fluid communal identity, contrasted with the modern territorial nation. By drawing on linguistic structures, ethical time constructs, and historiographical practices, the paper situates Islamic temporality as both a moral category and a resistant epistemology to Eurocentric temporalities. Ultimately, it posits temporality as a critical site of negotiation between heritage and modernity, highlighting the dynamic interplay between sacred cyclicality and political linearity in shaping collective memory and national identity. This synthesis advances a situated universalism that challenges the homogenizing logics of modern nationhood.