A shared meaning alone does not establish theft, and synonym replacement alone does not demonstrate originality. General ideas, unusual images, overt copying, concealed transformation, reversal and meaningful additions call for separate classifications.
A careful critic distinguishes artistic success, the mode of adaptation and the evidence for attribution. This also explains the difference between unacceptable wholesale copying and creative work that genuinely transforms inherited material.
The subsequent section addresses iqtibās, taḍmīn, ʿaqd, ḥall and talmīḥ, more specific techniques of incorporating and transforming prior discourse.