إما تمثيل وهو ما وجهه وصف منتزع من متعدد أمرين أو أمور
One kind is representational simile, whose common feature is abstracted from two or more elements.
The defining characteristic of tamthīl is not a sheer abundance of nouns on both sides. Rather, its respect of resemblance is drawn from the relationship of several components. The resulting description is a unified relational condition, such as possessing knowledge without benefiting from it.
The elements may be sensory, intellectual or conceptual. Thus sensory versus intellectual content alone cannot decide whether a comparison is tamthīl; the derivation of the common respect is decisive.