A Structural Analysis of Narrative Timein the Story of Musa and the Bani Israel in the Qur’an

The structural analysis of narrative is highly important in order to know the dimensions of the narrative and to describe the general and generic literary structures and the role they play in the production of meaning. Time as one dimension of narrative has an irreplaceable role in determining the timeline’s relations between discourse and story. The present library-analytical research analyzed the Story of Musa (UHBP) and the Bani Israel as an important and long story, which is narrated in three different Qur’anic surahs, through studying the attributes of time structure from a structuralist viewpoint, which can be investigated in three main categories of duration, order and frequency. This research intends to shed light on the structures of time of these three surahs and to analyze one of the elements of the linguistic miracle of the Qur’an and the recognition of one of the dimensions of narrative in it by acquiring knowledge about the time dimension in the plot of this story as well as the relationship between story-time and discourse-time. In other words, it aims to initially analyze the narrative time in the Story of Musa (UHBP) and the Bani Israel, and then explain the most important temporal devices used in the narration process of this story. The findings suggest that in this story time traverses its simple and linear mode and all temporal devices have been employed in the narration flow.