Constructing Sacred Time: A Pragmatic–Semiotic Study of Temporality in Islamic and Jewish Ritual Discourse

Abstract

This study examines how sacred time is discursively constructed and regulated in Islamic and Jewish canonical traditions. Rather than treating ritual calendars as fixed religious structures, the paper investigates how sacred texts actively produce temporal authority through linguistic and pragmatic mechanisms. Drawing on Speech Act Theory, cultural semiotics, and contemporary discourse analysis, the study analyzes how temporal directives in the Qur’an, Hadith, Tanakh, and Talmud function as performative acts that organize communal religious life. Through a comparative analysis of key ritual practices, including lunar month determination, daily prayer schedules, and major observances such as Ramadan and the Sabbath, the paper demonstrates how language operates as a mechanism for the institutionalization of sacred temporality. Particular attention is given to pragmatic features such as deixis, vagueness, prescriptive authority, and ritual directives, which structure how communities interpret and enact sacred time. The analysis reveals an important divergence in the discursive strategies of the two traditions. Jewish textual discourse tends to centralize temporal authority through juridical institutions and legal declarations, whereas Islamic discourse frequently frames sacred time through direct engagement with natural signs and phenomenological observation.