Printed pp. 71–79: apparent and remote likeness, recurring images, intricate respects, conditions and rhetorical purpose Read the bilingual lesson for Familiar and Remote Simile: Detail, Conditional Resemblance, and Rhetorical Acceptance and test your understanding with a focused quiz.
Lesson
1. Familiar and remote similes: the criterion
A familiar (qarīb mubtadhal) simile is one in which the comparison term and its resemblance to the subject occur readily to the mind. In a remote or unusual (baʿīd gharīb) simile, the audience needs further reflection, the combination of several attributes, or the recognition of an uncommon image.
The division is not a simple count of words. It concerns the accessibility of the shared respect and the mind's transition between the compared terms. A short statement can be remote, while an elaborate expression can still rest on a familiar association.
Identify the subject and comparison term first; then examine the immediacy of their association, the detail required, and how commonly the comparison image comes to mind.
2. Two leading causes of an apparent resemblance
The first factor is closeness of resemblance: the intended likeness is readily visible, as when a beautiful face is compared with the moon in a suitable context. The audience does not need to reconstruct a distant chain of associations.
The second is repeated mental presence. A comparison term may be recalled frequently through common usage or sensory experience, making it readily available whenever the subject is mentioned, even if the resemblance has several aspects.
These causes must be distinguished. Closeness concerns the relationship between the terms; repetition concerns the familiarity of the image in the mind. Both can operate together.
3. Closeness is not mere verbal brevity
“The face is like the moon” is familiar not merely because it uses few words. Brightness or beauty and the moon's recognized appearance form an association many hearers immediately understand.
A longer comparison involving a particular colour, movement, or reflection is not necessarily remote simply because its wording is longer. If the relevant features are obvious and commonly connected, the analogy may remain easy.
The instructional test is to establish the intended meaning first, then ask whether the shared respect emerges promptly or requires a series of less apparent mental connections.
4. Mental transition when the subject is present
عند حضور المشبه
When the subject of comparison becomes present to the mind.
An important feature of a familiar simile is that thinking of the subject readily evokes the comparison term. A luminous face, for instance, commonly evokes the moon in certain literary conventions. This is about the movement from subject to model, not merely knowing both words.
A comparison model may itself be well known without immediately seeming relevant to a particular subject. Familiarity with the model alone is insufficient; the resemblance in this context must also be apparent.
5. Few details versus frequent recollection
A simile may be easy because one conspicuous attribute is enough to establish its point. Alternatively, its model may have been recalled so often that its connection is recognized with little explanation.
In the first case, little detail makes the transition simple. In the second, habitual mental presence makes it simple. Even a configuration containing several elements may feel immediate if the association is deeply familiar.
Thus “few features” does not always equal “familiar,” and “many features” does not automatically equal “remote.” The causes must be considered independently.
6. A crescent and a sun: different degrees of access
كصورة القمر غير منخسف
Like the image of an uneclipsed moon.
The moon is repeatedly present in ordinary experience and literary usage. When an appropriate form or luminous quality is mentioned, the moon may be recalled immediately. This illustrates the role of habitual recollection.
By contrast, likening the sun to a mirror held in a particular impaired hand is not the audience's first routine association. One has to reconstruct its position, movement, and reflection. Both involve celestial light, but they differ in cognitive accessibility.
7. The sun compared to a mirror in an impaired hand
والشمس كالمرآة في كف الأشل
And the sun is like a mirror in the palm of a person with an impaired hand.
The point is not merely that both the sun and a mirror shine. The particular condition of the impaired hand contributes instability, movement, or a changing reflection to the intended image. Several visual features must be assembled before the resemblance becomes apparent.
A simple mirror can suggest an ordinary likeness. A mirror under this special condition requires an additional mental step. Such qualification can move the comparison toward the remote and uncommon.
8. The competing effects of detail and repetition
Increasing the detail of a shared respect can slow recognition, whereas repeated use of that same image can make the association quicker. These tendencies can oppose one another.
A simile containing several characteristics may still be immediately understood because it is conventional. Another involving only one feature may be remote because that connection is unfamiliar.
Judgment therefore requires considering the combined effect of the factors and the audience's actual familiarity with the intended likeness, rather than treating one factor as an inflexible test.
9. The core idea of a remote simile
وإما بعيد غريب
The other class is the remote or unusual simile.
In this type, the hearer does not move immediately from subject to comparison term. The connection requires reflection and careful scrutiny, perhaps because the common respect is concealed, because a distinctive condition has been added, or because the image is rarely recalled.
“Unusual” is not equivalent to obscure vocabulary. All the words may be familiar while the proposed resemblance remains subtle. The rhetorical classification concerns the inferred relationship, not the lexical difficulty alone.
10. Hidden resemblance and rare mental presence
لعدم الظهور
Because the point of resemblance is not immediately apparent.
Two main routes produce remoteness: the hiddenness of the shared respect and the rarity with which the model occurs to the mind. These are distinct causal explanations.
An image may be famous while the particular resemblance drawn from it is obscure. Conversely, a reasonable likeness may involve a model the audience seldom thinks of. Both make transition from subject to model less immediate, but they do so for different reasons.
11. Rare imaginative and intellectual configurations
Some comparison models are imaginative composite scenes assembled from perceptible elements, although the complete configuration is not commonly encountered. Other models are intellectual composites made from several conceptual circumstances.
A poetic image combining red, jewel-like banners with green lances requires the audience to assemble colour, position, and arrangement. Likewise, the comparison of a bearer of unbenefited knowledge with a donkey carrying books concerns a conceptual relationship, not merely bodily appearance.
In these cases, a composite configuration or an intellectual connection may rarely occur to the mind. Nevertheless, not every remote image is imaginative; the nature of the underlying respect must still be determined.
12. The intellectual dimension of a Qur’anic comparison
كَمَثَلِ الْحِمَارِ يَحْمِلُ أَسْفَارًا
Like the example of a donkey carrying books.
The image brings out the distinction between bearing books physically and benefiting from their knowledge. Applied to someone who possesses knowledge but does not attain its intended benefit, the shared respect is an intellectual and composite condition.
The rhetorical point is not merely “a person resembles a donkey.” It is the structured relation between carrying knowledge and failing to benefit from it. Fixating on the physical forms of the two terms would miss the intended argument.
13. How detailed respects of likeness increase remoteness
If the shared respect is simply brightness, the connection between a lamp and a star may be immediate. Add colour, form, movement, setting, the quality of reflection, and the absence of some feature, and the audience must integrate more conditions.
Multiplicity of detail can concern many attributes of one object or attributes of several objects arranged in an integrated scene. The relevant likeness emerges only after the conditions have been related to one another.
Detail helps describe the intended respect precisely, but it may also make that respect harder to grasp immediately. The apparent tension disappears when we distinguish precise explanation from quick mental accessibility.
14. Presence, absence, and combinations of features
Detail is not limited to listing positive attributes. The shared respect may depend on the presence of certain features, the absence of others, or a purposeful combination of presence and absence.
Examples:
Presence: considering redness, lustre, and roundness together.
Absence: jointly negating movement and sound in a state.
Combined: a flame-like brilliance exists without the smoke one would normally expect.
These show different ways in which a respect of resemblance is constructed. The need to relate positive and negative conditions can make the comparison less immediately accessible.
15. Selecting and omitting attributes in a detailed comparison
Objects have innumerable attributes, but not all are relevant in a simile. A speaker may select a few precise characteristics while setting aside the rest, or may require several features together to establish a distinctive image.
If the shared respect depends on three features, identifying only one does not reveal the complete comparison. Similarly, when the absence of a feature is essential, a list of positive qualities alone is inadequate.
The crucial distinction is between all the properties an object happens to possess and those selected for the rhetorical comparison. Only the latter define its intended point.
16. A spear image: combining positive and negative conditions
حملت ردينيا
She bore a Rudaynī spear.
لم يتصل بدخان
It was not accompanied by smoke.
The image combines a sharp or shining spear-point, the quality of flame, and the absence of smoke. Reducing it to “the tip is fire” would discard the feature that gives the expression its particular force.
By attaching a negative condition to an affirmative image, the speaker moves the mind beyond the ordinary picture of a burning flame. This selective detail can enrich a remote comparison when the features support one coherent effect.
17. The Pleiades and a luminous cluster
Comparing a cluster of stars to a luminous bunch requires the hearer to consider not the light of one star but the spatial arrangement of several points of light. If colour, proximity, and rounded form also matter, the likeness becomes a coordinated whole.
It is insufficient to name mere brightness as the point. The relation is between two clusters and their constituent arrangement. The hearer must therefore reconstruct the overall visual configuration.
The same comparison model can be familiar under a simple respect and remote or subtle when additional, carefully chosen restrictions are included.
18. Why a remote simile must still make sense
ولأن نيل الشيء بعد طلبه ألذ
Because attaining something after seeking it can be more delightful.
This expresses a possible aesthetic advantage of a remote simile. The hearer seeks the connection; when a subtle but fitting relation becomes clear, the act of discovery adds pleasure. Difficulty alone, however, is not a sign of excellence.
A forced or incoherent resemblance does not become good rhetoric simply because it is unusual. The association disclosed by reflection must be precise, coherent, and suited to the communicative purpose.
19. Transforming a familiar comparison into a remote one
وقد يتصرف في التشبيه القريب المبتذل بما يجعله غريبا
A familiar simile may be reshaped so that it becomes unusual.
Comparing a face to the sun is conventional. But a new and unexpected respect of comparison can force the audience to reinterpret that familiarity and discover a subtler connection.
This transformation is not just verbal ornament. Altering the angle of resemblance, adding a meaningful condition, or introducing an unexpected claim into a standard likeness can make a familiar simile remote.
20. Face and sun: an unexpected contrast involving modesty
لم تلق هذا الوجه شمس نهارنا إلا بوجه ليس فيه حياء
The sun of our day faces this countenance only with a face devoid of modesty.
The conventional comparison likens a bright face to the sun. Here the claim is reversed and intensified: the praised face is so brilliant that the sun's willingness to confront it is depicted as shamelessness. The audience must connect solar brilliance, praise, and an imaginative attribution of modesty.
The line thus gives indirect praise rather than a simple statement about visual form. A familiar comparison is made comparatively remote by changing the angle from which its meaning is approached.
21. Conditional simile: novelty through an explicit condition
عزماته مثل النجوم ثواقبا لو لم يكن للثاقبات أفول
His resolutions are like piercing stars, if only those stars did not set.
Comparing lofty resolve to brilliant stars could be conventional. Here, however, the condition “if the stars did not set” changes the comparison: the resolutions must possess not only brilliance but endurance, while actual stars disappear from view in due course.
The audience first recognizes the familiar likeness and then asks why setting has been negated. That additional condition refines the praise and makes an ordinary comparison intellectually more distinctive.
22. Affirmative and negative conditions in conditional likeness
A conditional simile makes the proposed likeness depend on a stated condition. That condition may require the presence of a feature or the absence of some limitation.
In “if the stars did not set,” the negative condition is explicit. The intended comparison is not only the stars' brilliance but brilliance coupled with permanence; without the condition the two terms would not align in that respect.
A useful condition protects the precise intended point of praise, blame, or description. An irrelevant condition merely increases verbal burden without improving the image.
23. Emphatic and explicit similes: classification by particle
An emphatic (muʾakkad) simile omits the overt comparison particle; an explicitly marked (mursal) simile includes one. This division concerns expression of the particle, not whether the resemblance is familiar or remote.
وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ
And they will pass like the passing of clouds.
In Qur'an 27:88, the mode of passing supplies the resemblance even without the common particle “ka-.” Omission may make the resemblance appear more closely integrated with the description.
24. What omitting the simile particle changes
زیدٌ كالأسد
Zayd is like a lion.
زیدٌ أسدٌ
Zayd is a lion.
The first wording expressly states a comparison through “ka-.” The second omits that particle and presents the lion-like quality as more closely joined to Zayd. Omission does not, however, guarantee that a simile is better in every context.
Emphatic versus explicit concerns the particle. Eloquent, familiar, remote, condensed, and detailed examine other aspects. Their criteria should not be conflated.
25. Caution in recognizing an implicit simile
Not every statement lacking “ka-” is necessarily a simile. The context may point instead to literal predication, metaphor, or another rhetorical device. One must first establish the intended relation.
Sometimes a statement implies comparison without expressing it in the usual comparative pattern. The poetic description of a sun confronting a superior face illustrates how a likeness may be conveyed through an indirect claim.
The sound method is to establish the meaning, then identify the subject, model, and shared respect. Absence of a comparison particle alone does not prove that the full structure of a simile is intended.
26. Water, silver, and the colours of evening
Near sunset, golden rays striking a clear surface or water can produce a scene expressed through the imagery of gold and silver. The poet is not primarily discussing two metals; the image depends on colour, radiance, and reflection.
Water that appears silver-bright and rays that appear golden make a composed visual analogy. The effect lies in the arrangement of colours, not in a bare assertion that “water is silver” or “sunlight is gold.”
The presence or absence of a particle is a separate stylistic question. First establish the underlying composition of the image, then classify its verbal form.
27. Acceptable and unacceptable similes by rhetorical purpose
والتشبيه باعتبار الغرض إما مقبول
Considered by its purpose, a simile may be acceptable.
An acceptable simile successfully serves its purpose: clarifying the subject's state, showing an unusual condition to be possible, intensifying a quality, or establishing a judgment through something the audience already recognizes.
An unacceptable simile fails to achieve the intended purpose. This judgment does not follow automatically from a simile's being familiar or remote. Either type may succeed or fail depending on how well it serves the context.
28. Testing success in clarification and possibility
For clarifying a state, the purpose is to make the subject easier to understand. If the comparison model is itself more obscure to the audience, the simile may increase confusion rather than reduce it.
For establishing possibility, an apparently unlikely state is explained through an accepted analogous case. If that supposed model is equally unintelligible, it fails as a persuasive comparison.
The assessment of rhetorical success therefore begins by identifying the purpose, then asking whether this particular model genuinely advances it for the intended audience.
29. Confirmation and embellishment as rhetorical goals
To confirm a state, the comparison should use a model whose relevant property is already accepted by the audience, thereby reinforcing the proposition about the subject. A disputed model would offer weak confirmation.
For embellishment, the image should make the praised quality attractive; for disparagement, it should effectively disclose the negative aspect. One model cannot be presumed suitable for both goals in every context.
Thus the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable goes beyond verbal form to involve audience, context, and rhetorical purpose, integrating the previously studied purposes of simile.
30. Keeping distinct classifications distinct
CriterionQuestion answeredFamiliar / remoteHow readily is the resemblance recognized?Emphatic / explicitIs the simile particle omitted or stated?Detailed / condensedIs the shared respect specified?Acceptable / unacceptableDoes the simile achieve its purpose?
One simile may belong to several such categories simultaneously. A remote simile can explicitly mention its particle, describe the shared respect in detail, and successfully serve its purpose. These are not contradictions because the labels answer different questions.
31. Lesson synthesis and the next section
In a familiar simile, the likeness is readily apparent through closeness of association, limited detail, or frequent recall of the model. In a remote simile, the shared respect may be hidden, elaborate, or based on a rarely contemplated model, requiring reflective interpretation.
A conditional simile adds a restriction to redefine the likeness; the emphatic/explicit distinction concerns the comparison particle. The acceptable/unacceptable distinction concerns whether the rhetorical purpose has been fulfilled.
The next section, Khātimah fī taqsīm al-tashbīh, completes the divisions of simile in terms of strength and mention or omission of its components. The book then turns to the new discussion of literal and figurative usage.