القرون المفضلة : مفهومها و تحديدها

Abstract EN

The present study aims to illustrate the concept of preferable centuries, identify their number, determine their beginnings and ends and underline their importance, since they are the standard against which knowledge, views, and conditions are benchmarked.

Whatever agrees with their guidelines is accepted, and whatever contradicts their guidelines is rejected.

The study adopts the inductive research methodology which is utilized to track down scholarly materials in the books of Linguistics, Theology, Qur'an Interpretation, and Prophetic Tradition 'Hadith'.

It also adopts the comparative approach when drawing comparisons among different views.

It also adopts the critical analytical approach when scrutinizing and testing the materials analyzed.

The study concludes that a century refers to both a generation of people in reality, and a certain period of time.

It cannot be used to refer to only one of these two meanings except when there is a presumption or a circumstantial clue.

This is true in the case of the Prophet's hadith that states, “The best of centuries is my century (i.

e.

, people of my generation)”.

The word 'century' in this hadith cannot be used to refer to a certain period of time.

Rather, it refers to the people of the generation that includes the Prophet's Companions, their Successors and their Followers.

In addition, determining the beginning and the end of a 'century' is only approximate, due to the nature of the overlapping of generations.

A century can be known by one of two criterions: either by knowing the majority of its people, or by knowing the first and the last one of them.

The former is more precise.

The fixed temporal demarcation of a century has triggered ten views, the most acceptable of which is that it is a period of one hundred years.

Prophetic hadiths that mention the Arabic word qurūn (centuries) cannot be interpreted by reference to this temporal limitation.

They are not intended to refer to a specific period of time.

There was some doubt casted over the number of preferable centuries due to the suspicion expressed by ˁImrān Ibn Al-Ḥuṣayn (the hadith narrator), may God be pleased with him, as to whether they are three or four.

The study concludes that they are four centuries; the first three ones are certainly stated while the fourth one is presumptively defined.