The suffix-conjugation designating eschatological events in the Qur'ān

Judgment Day is one of the Qur'ān’s main themes which include eschatological descriptions that are diverse not only in their content; they also differ in their syntactical aspects. This article discusses a specific feature used in eschatological descriptions - the use of past verbs to indicate future actions or events. The research literature mentions in this context the term 'prophetic perfect', i.e., the prophet transports himself in imagination into the future and then describes the future event as if it had been already seen or heard by him. Examination of the eschatological descriptions in the Qur'ān shows that the use of verbs in perfect depends on the type of the description and their place in it. Additionally, some of the verbs in perfect do not necessarily indicate future events, but also present events.