A Brief Note on ‘Bayna Yadayhi’

What does this phrase mean, literally ‘between his/its hands’? ‘Before’? If so, in which sense? ‘Before’ can have a temporal sense, e.g. ‘Before he got in he tripped over the cat’, or in a spatial sense, e.g. ‘I stood before the Queen’.

Rather like the two prostitutes in 1 Kings 3:16, which the Arabic Bible renders: حِينَئِذٍ أَتَتْ زَانِيَتَانِ إِلَى الْمَلِكِ وَوَقَفَتَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ. The KJV renders it: Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him. https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/parallel/arabic/

Did they stand prior to him or did they stand in front of him? It was the latter.

Thus we read in, for example, S 3:3 He has sent down upon you the book with truth confirming what is in front of him and he sent down the Torah and the Injil

Min qabl means ‘before’ in a temporal sense, as in the following verse: Before, guidance for people, and he sent down the Furqan. Those who have disbelieved in Allah’s verses have severe torture. And Allah is mighty, the one of vengeance.

So a Muslim translator may render bayna yadayhi as ‘before’, knowing the temporal meaning of the English word. Bayna yadayhi is not used in a temporal sense. Min qabl is. And in the quotation above there is no past tense ‘was’. It is “what IS in front of him”.