WAQR IN THE QUR’AN AND THE ANATOMY OF HUMAN CLOSURE TO DIVINE GUIDANCE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24252/jdi.v14i2.71813Keywords:
waqr, algorithmic waqr, epistemic closure, digital religion, Qur’anic Epistemic ReceptivityAbstract
This study examines waqr in the Qur’an as a conceptual structure of human closure to divine guidance. Rather than reducing waqr to biological deafness, the study reconstructs its lexical, morphological, and exegetical network to explain how the Qur’an portrays people who physically hear revelation yet fail to receive its guidance. The research employs qualitative library research using thematic exegesis (tafsīr mawḍū‘ī), lexical-semantic analysis, intertextual reading, and comparative examination of classical and modern Qur’anic commentaries. The primary corpus comprises the nine Qur’anic occurrences of derivatives from the root w-q-r, with particular emphasis on the six verses in which waqr denotes an obstruction of hearing. The findings show that the semantic field of w-q-r moves around the idea of weight and develops into three major meanings: auditory obstruction, burden or load, and reverence or dignity. In its auditory sense, waqr operates together with akinnah as a paired metaphor for blocked hearing and blocked understanding, while ṣumm depicts the resulting state of deafness to truth. The Qur’anic subjects of waqr are primarily polytheists, Quraysh elites, and wrongdoers whose closure develops through four interconnected causes: rejection of truth, arrogance, blind imitation, and moral forgetfulness. The article argues that waqr forms an anatomy of closure in which persistent moral refusal precedes perceptive obstruction, perceptive obstruction reinforces non-understanding, and repeated refusal culminates in deprivation of guidance and eschatological accountability. This reconstruction contributes a more integrated reading of waqr by connecting semantics, moral agency, reception of revelation, and consequence within a single Qur’anic explanatory structure.
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