Conditionality in the Qur’an: A Speech-Act Approach to Divine Discourse

This study examines conditional sentences in the Qur’an through the lens of speech act theory, offering a novel interdisciplinary approach that integrates classical Islamic insights with contemporary philosophy of language. Moving beyond traditional logical or grammatical analyses, the paper demonstrates that Qur’anic conditionals function not merely as descriptive propositions but as performative acts with diverse illocutionary forces. Drawing on a detailed typology, the study classifies conditionals as assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, or hybrid, illustrating how a single sentence may simultaneously convey theological truths, moral exhortation, divine commitment, and evaluative judgment. Case studies of key verses show that the force of these conditionals persists independently of whether their antecedents are fulfilled, highlighting the inadequacy of purely truth-conditional accounts. The paper contributes conceptually, theoretically, and methodologically by reconceptualizing Qur’anic conditionality as conditional speech acts, bridging contemporary philosophical theory with classical Islamic distinctions between declarative (khabar) and performative (inshāʾ) discourse.

کلیدواژه ها:

Qur'anic conditionals ، Speech act theory ، Divine discourse ، Illocutionary force ، Conditionality ، Philosophy of language ، Qur'anic linguistics