Classifying Metaphor by Its Terms and Common Feature: Concordance, Opposition and Inclusion

1. Two further ways to classify metaphor

تقسيم الاستعارة باعتبار الطرفين
Classification of metaphor by its two related terms.

A metaphor transfers an expression from its established sense to an intended figurative target. The original model is the mustaʿār minhu, while the intended target is the mustaʿār lahu. The first classification asks whether both conditions could coexist in a single subject.

A distinct classification asks about the jāmiʿ, the common feature: is it internal to the concepts of both terms or does it connect them externally? These are two criteria, not competing answers to one question; one example may be analyzed under both.

2. Identifying the source and the target

المستعار منه والمستعار له
The sense from which a word is borrowed and the sense for which it is borrowed.

Calling a person “dead” because the person lacks guidance involves literal death as the source concept and spiritual or moral deadness as the intended target. Unless these two meanings are identified, a claim about their coexistence is too vague to assess.

When a brave person is called a “lion,” the zoological lion supplies the model, while the human is the intended target. Their identities cannot be taken as one literal kind; nevertheless, the criterion of this classification concerns the relevant states and their relation, not merely the biological names.

3. Possibility and impossibility of coexistence

لأن اجتماعهما أي اجتماع الطرفين في شيء إما ممكن وإما ممتنع
The two terms may either coexist in one subject or be incompatible there.

When the intended states can belong together to one subject, the metaphor is called wifāqiyyah, the concordant kind. It is not necessary that the two states be synonyms; their compatibility is the decisive consideration.

When the relevant conditions exclude each other in the same respect, the figure is ʿinādiyyah, the opposing or discordant kind. Genuine existence and absolute nonexistence cannot be simultaneously affirmed of the same thing in the same respect. This classification concerns conceptual relation rather than the accidental similarity of word forms.

4. The meaning of a concordant metaphor

ولقسم الاستعارة التي يمكن اجتماع طرفيها في شيء وفاقية
Metaphor whose two terms may coexist in one subject is called concordant.

Here concordance means compatibility. A living human being may also possess guidance and understanding, so biological life and the figuratively expressed life of guidance do not exclude one another. Both properties can be present in one person.

The term does not mean that every pleasant or approving metaphor is concordant. Evaluation as praise or blame is a different question. What determines this classification is whether the relevant senses are able to coexist in the same subject.

5. Reviving someone: the Qur’anic example

أَوَمَنْ كَانَ مَيْتًا فَأَحْيَيْنَاهُ
Is one who was dead and whom We gave life…?

Qur’an 6:122 uses the vocabulary of death and bringing to life to convey the move from misguidance to guidance. The expression aḥyaynāhu is not a claim that a physically deceased person was restored to life in this argumentative context; it conveys the bestowal of spiritual guidance.

The metaphor is classed as concordant because literal human life and the guidance described through “life” can coexist. Confusing the figurative spiritual condition with a literal physical resurrection would obscure the criterion the passage is being used to teach.

6. Four questions for analyzing concordance

A reliable analysis first separates the literal model and figurative target, then tests whether they can coexist. In aḥyaynāhu, the steps are:

1. Source: giving life in its familiar sense.
2. Target: the vitality of guidance.
3. Common feature: the emergence of benefit and effective activity; the context identifies guidance.
4. Classification: someone physically alive can also be guided, so the metaphor is concordant.

The common feature explains the transfer. Coexistence determines this particular classification. Combining those two tests produces mistaken labels.

7. An opposing metaphor and incompatible conditions

ولقسم الاستعارة التي لا يمكن اجتماع طرفيها في شيء عنادية
A metaphor whose two terms cannot coexist in one respect is called opposing.

To call an existing person “nonexistent,” intending that the person is of no practical help, borrows the idea of nonexistence for someone who actually exists. Literal existence and literal nonexistence in the same respect are incompatible; the opposition creates the emphatic figure.

The sentence need not be treated as a confused denial of the person's external existence. With an adequate contextual indication, it communicates the absence of benefit, not a metaphysical claim that the person has ceased to be.

8. Calling the existent nonexistent to deny benefit

كاستعارة اسم المعدوم للموجود لعدم غنائه
For instance, applying “nonexistent” to something that exists because it affords no benefit.

The external reality is that the person or thing exists. The figurative assertion treats it as nonexistent for a specific purpose: emphasizing the absence of practical use. Simply saying “he is absent” does not establish this kind of metaphor; the person might literally be away.

An opposing metaphor deliberately exploits the contrast between existing and nonexistent, rather than making a nonsensical metaphysical claim. The original state, the denied benefit, and the contextual indication must all be identified.

9. Treating the nonexistent as existent

وكذلك استعارة الموجود لمن عدم وفقد
Conversely, the name of something existent may be borrowed for what is absent or lost.

An absent or vanished thing may be portrayed as “present” because of its memory, effects, or relevance to a current discussion. Such usage does not ordinarily assert its literal external existence. The speaker transfers the word across the contrast for a purpose.

Analytical test: where external existence is actually asserted, one cannot infer a metaphor merely from an unusual claim. But where a missing entity is called present to highlight a surviving effect or conceptual presence, figurative opposition can be at work; context determines which reading is intended.

10. Comparing concordance and opposition

Both classes are defined by whether the two relevant terms can coexist, not by whether a sentence is complimentary or critical.

ClassCriterionCore example
ConcordantThe terms may coexistA living person also receiving the life of guidance
OpposingThe terms cannot coexistCalling an existing but useless person nonexistent

One must not equate different respects of existence. The coexistence of physical and spiritual life is one claim; being literally both existent and nonexistent in precisely the same respect is another.

11. Ironical metaphor within opposition

ومنها الاستعارة التهكمية والتمليحية
Ironical and wittily inverted metaphors are included under the opposing class.

Tahakkum is a deliberately derisive use of an expression whose ordinary sense would commend or promise something, while the discourse intends rebuke, threat, or degradation. The contrast is rhetorical: a positive-looking word can be made to serve a negative purpose.

Simply placing antonyms together is not sufficient. The larger context or tone must show that the speaker is using the mismatch intentionally. That dependence on opposition explains its place in the category of ʿinādiyyah.

12. A threat expressed with the vocabulary of glad tidings

فَبَشِّرْهُمْ بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ
So announce to them the “glad tidings” of a painful punishment.

In Qur’an 3:21, *bashshira* ordinarily introduces welcome news, but the accompanying ʿadhāb alīm names painful punishment. The reversal makes the threat and rebuke more forceful. The speaker is not promising something that would actually produce joy.

This is discussed as an opposing and ironical metaphor. The affirmative lexical surface is deliberately inverted by the punitive context. The phrase “painful punishment” functions as a direct indication that literal good news is not intended.

13. The difference between bringing good news and warning

Good tidings and warning normally point in different directions: one raises hope, the other signals danger. By placing the vocabulary of good tidings in a threatening context, the Qur’anic expression heightens the force of warning.

Surface expression: announcing welcome news.
Intended effect: threatening with punishment and awakening moral concern.
Contextual indication: “painful punishment.”

A genuinely happy announcement using the same verb would not be an ironical metaphor. Classification depends on the contextual intention, not on a particular word isolated from its sentence.

14. Irony and playful inversion

الاستعارة التهكمية والتمليحية
Metaphors involving derision or witty, playful reversal.

Tahakkum characteristically carries mockery, rebuke or contempt. Tamlīḥ can carry a witty or teasing twist, sometimes in a lighter tone. Both can employ a name in opposition to what is actually intended, which places them among opposing figures.

For example, “What a hero!” said unmistakably of a coward could convey irony, whereas the same words said of a courageous person might be ordinary praise. Punctuation or the expression alone cannot settle the issue; the situation and intention do.

15. How context changes the same commendatory label

Suppose someone is known to be cowardly and flees at the first sign of danger. Calling that person “a lion” in a transparently mocking tone differs from straightforward praise. The lion ordinarily evokes courage, but here the speaker intends ridicule.

Use the same word of someone who stood firm under danger and it conveys the ordinary metaphorical compliment. An ironic label cannot be diagnosed from the borrowed word alone. The external situation, speech setting and speaker's purpose must align.

The lesson illustrates a limit of rhetorical classification: the opposite meaning is not automatic but must be made intelligible by an indication.

16. Why these are technical labels

والاستعارة التي يمكن اجتماع طرفيها في شيء وفاقية ... وللقسم ... عنادية
The terms that can coexist yield concordance; those that cannot yield opposition.

These are technical labels about the logical relation of the two relevant notions, not about friendship and hostility or about moral approval. A morally positive context might still employ an opposing figure; an unpleasant context might employ a concordant one.

The common mistake is to equate wifāqiyyah with a “good simile” and ʿinādiyyah with a “bad simile.” The proper question is whether the two intended states can be true of one subject in the same relevant respect.

17. A second classification: the common feature

تقسيم الاستعارة باعتبار الجامع
Classification by the feature connecting the two terms.

الجامع أي ما قصد اشتراك الطرفين فيه
The common feature is that in which the two terms are intended to share.

Courage may connect a lion and a brave human; rapid movement through distance connects running and flying. Yet the fact that two things share a property does not show that the property belongs to the meaning of each concept.

This produces another distinction: the feature may be included within both concepts or not be included in that manner. Possessing a quality and containing that quality in a definition are not the same thing.

18. What conceptual inclusion actually means

إما داخل في مفهوم الطرفين
Or the common feature is internal to the concepts of both terms.

In this case, the linking meaning is not an accidental feature observed externally; it contributes to how the two activities or descriptions are conceived. Running and flying both involve covering a distance, and the discussion treats speed as relevant to their comparison.

By contrast, lions are commonly characterized as brave, but courage is not an essential constituent of the animal-kind, nor does the biological idea of lion enter the definition of a brave person. This distinction between an intrinsic conceptual element and an accompanying quality is crucial.

19. Borrowing “flying” for rapid running

كلما سمع هيعة طار إليها
Whenever he heard a call to arms, he flew toward it.

The image does not mean the person acquired wings. It portrays a swift response to an alarm. Flying is the borrowed model and rushing or running rapidly is the intended action.

The common feature is swiftly traversing distance. Traversal is integral to the meaning of each form of movement. The source therefore uses this image to explain a common feature located within the concepts of both terms, rather than a quality merely observed from outside.

20. How running and flying are related

فإن الجامع بين العدو والطيران هو قطع المسافة بسرعة
For the common feature of running and flying is rapidly covering distance.

ʿAdw: advancing quickly by running on the ground.
Ṭayarān: moving by flight through the air.
Common feature: speedy traversal of distance.

The activities do not agree in every aspect. Moving on legs and moving by flight are distinct modes. The metaphor selects speed and traversal as the ground of resemblance. Treating every property of the two activities as identical would defeat the purpose of explaining the transfer.

21. The objection: flight is faster than running

والأظهر أن الطيران أقوى منه في العدو
The feature appears more forcefully in flying than in running.

A challenge arises: if rapid traversal links the activities, must their speed be equal? Equality of degree is not necessary. The model may exhibit the feature more strongly, giving the transferred description its rhetorical emphasis.

One must distinguish the meaning of a property from its degree. Both activities can include rapid movement while one realizes it more intensely. Conceptual inclusion of a shared feature is therefore not equivalent to identical intensity of that feature.

22. The common feature is not the whole metaphor

The common feature, the borrowed expression, and the contextual indicator have different roles. In *ṭāra ilayhā*, the verb for flying supplies the imagery; rapid movement toward an alarm is intended; the human setting precludes taking bodily flight as the literal claim.

The common feature explains what grounds the analogy. The indication shows why the literal sense is not intended. The speaker's communicative goal ties these elements together.

Merely identifying “speed” is therefore an incomplete analysis. One must also identify the two meanings being connected and the evidence for the figurative use.

23. When the feature is external to the concepts

The contrasting case is where resemblance rests on a quality that does not form a defining element of both concepts. Courage is not a necessary part of the definition of human being, and it is not what makes an animal zoologically a lion.

In raʾaytu asadan yarmī, the lion-name describes a brave man. Courage is the recognized point of resemblance, but it is not an intrinsic defining constituent of both categories.

A quality being familiar or striking does not mean it is internal to a concept. Calling such a feature external does not diminish the metaphor's rhetorical effectiveness.

24. Common features in different grammatical forms

The question whether a common feature is intrinsic is not limited to a grammatical form. In a borrowed verb, the comparison may involve actions such as running and flying. In a borrowed noun, it may involve a lion and a brave person.

Verbal image: *ṭāra ilayhi* — movement, with rapid traversal as the common feature.
Nominal image: *asad yarmī* — an animal-name applied through the feature of courage.

The morphological form alone does not determine whether a feature is intrinsic. One must analyze what the words mean and which quality the speaker intentionally selects.

25. Severing and dispersing a group

وَقَطَّعْنَاهُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ أُمَمًا
And We dispersed them throughout the land as separate communities.

In Qur’an 7:168, the expression *qaṭṭaʿnāhum* portrays the separation of groups. Taqṭīʿ highlights breaking up a connected whole; tafrīq focuses on making a group separate or dispersed.

The shared direction is the removal of togetherness. The source uses the contrast to pursue the subtle question of how an element may contribute to the meanings of the related expressions. Merely declaring “severing” and “dispersing” to be identical fails to capture the nuance.

26. Why two related terms are not synonyms

والفرق بين هذا وبين إطلاق المرسن على الأنف
This differs from applying the animal-related term *mirsan* to the human nose.

In moving from *taqṭīʿ* to *tafrīq*, the action concepts have a close semantic connection that can support rhetorical comparison. Applying *mirsan* to a human nose may instead invite the question of a restricted source sense being widened or otherwise related through a non-resemblance relation.

The two expressions may look superficially like substitutions, but the nature of the semantic link is different. The analysis must establish whether resemblance or some other relation motivated the transfer.

27. Objection: how can a shared feature be conceptual?

فكيف يكون جامعًا والجامع يجب أن يكون في المستعار منه أقوى؟
How can it be the shared feature if the feature is supposed to be stronger in the model from which the expression is borrowed?

The objection presses a subtle issue: if the feature is internal to a concept, how can the comparison depend on different degrees of that feature? One response distinguishes an intelligible shared notion from the varying strength with which it is realized.

Conceptual commonality does not require numerical equality of degree. The feature can belong to both meanings while showing greater intensity in the borrowed model. This extends the distinction already encountered in comparing running with flying.

28. Degrees do not erase conceptual similarity

Two objects may share the concept “black” while one is darker than the other. The differing intensity does not automatically create two unrelated meanings of blackness. What the quality is and how much of it is displayed are separate questions.

The same distinction applies to running and flying. Both can involve rapid movement, while the borrowed flight-image makes the rapidity more striking. That asymmetry is often precisely what makes a metaphor rhetorically effective.

If complete equality were required for analogy, many powerful similes and metaphors would be excluded without good reason. Similarity does not mean identity in all measurable aspects.

29. Essential feature versus accompanying quality

امتناع الاختلاف إنما هو في الماهية الحقيقية
The prohibition against such variation concerns real essence.

The discussion distinguishes components of a thing's actual essence from a composite meaning formed in understanding. An intelligible composite may involve differences of strength, degree or condition without implying that every essential constituent of a real kind changes.

Consequently, “the feature is internal” must not be overextended into an unqualified scientific claim about all objects. Its import depends on the concept selected for rhetorical analysis and the respect in which its elements are being compared.

30. Composite concept and the case of blackness

ألا ترى أن السواد جزء من مفهوم الأسود
Do you not see that blackness is a component of the concept “black”?

The adjective “black” involves more than the abstract word “blackness”: it relates a bearer to a quality. Blackness can form part of that composite meaning even when the degree of blackness differs among objects.

The point is methodological. Conceptual inclusion is not a promise that every instance realizes a property at the same intensity. Variation in degree does not eliminate the shared intelligible feature.

31. Avoiding overly broad claims of inclusion

Calling a shared feature intrinsic does not mean that the two activities are the same kind in every respect, or that their real essences collapse into one. Running and flying remain distinct activities, though traversal and speed create a common conceptual basis.

By contrast, the lion and the brave man can share the familiar characteristic of courage without that quality being part of the zoological definition of a lion. In this example, the connecting quality remains external to the defining concepts.

Ignoring this distinction would allow every feature to be labeled intrinsic or extrinsic arbitrarily. The classification is useful only when the actual meanings under analysis are stated.

32. Applying both classification criteria to one example

For a fresh metaphor, ask two separate questions in sequence.

Question A: Can the relevant source and target states coexist in one subject? This supplies the concordant/opposing classification.
Question B: Is the linking feature internal to the meanings of both terms or external? This supplies the classification by the common feature.

With “he flew toward it,” the human's actual running and literal flying are different activities. That fact alone does not decide every taxonomic question. The passage is concerned with rapid traversal as a semantic link, so the two criteria must be considered separately.

33. A compact two-axis comparison

CriterionQuestionResult
By the two termsCan the relevant conditions coexist?Concordant / opposing
By the common featureIs the shared feature internal?Internal / not internal

The first axis studies compatibility of the relevant conditions. The second studies the relation of the common feature to the concepts themselves. They may be illustrated by the same speech but are not interchangeable classifications.

This method makes it possible to explain why a passage works, rather than describing its general emotional effect alone.

34. Resolving common analytical mistakes

Mistake 1: Concordant means aesthetically good. Correction: it concerns possible coexistence, not aesthetic approval.
Mistake 2: Opposing metaphors are merely false assertions. Correction: contextual indication communicates an intelligible figurative aim despite literal incompatibility.
Mistake 3: Praise words must communicate praise. Correction: warning or derision can reverse their effect.
Mistake 4: A common feature must occur equally in both terms. Correction: sharing a feature does not require equal strength.

Each correction requires analysis of the full discourse and the technical criterion, not recognition of a familiar expression alone.

35. Worked analysis: meaning, link, and indication

In the model phrase *raʾaytu asadan yarmī*, a lion is the source, and a courageous person capable of shooting is the intended target. The verb yarmī acts as an indicator excluding the literal animal; courage is the linking feature, though not an intrinsic part of either kind's definition.

Compare the Qur’anic expression “announce painful punishment as good tidings.” There the contrast between a positive announcement and punishment produces an ironical effect, rather than drawing on the lion's familiar courage.

Both are metaphors, but the reason for the transfer and the rhetorical purpose are different. The analysis must recognize that difference instead of supplying the same generic explanation to every example.

36. Consolidation and the next classification

By the two terms: Possibility of coexistence yields concordance, and impossibility yields opposition. Ironical and teasing reversals are treated under the opposing group when their intended effect depends on an inverted relation.

By the common feature: A feature can be internal to both concepts, as with rapid traversal in running and flying, or external to their definitions, as courage in a lion and a brave person.

Good analysis also distinguishes a shared meaning from the degree of its realization. The next section introduces another division by the common feature, including familiar/common and more unusual/metaphorically distinctive kinds.