Istiʿārah: Definition, Figurative Identification and the Linguistic–Intellectual Debate

1. Defining metaphor through intended resemblance

والاستعارة وهي مجاز تكون علاقته المشابهة
Metaphor is figurative usage whose relation between the assigned and intended senses is resemblance.

Mere similarity between two things does not suffice. The phrase qaṣd anna al-iṭlāq bi-sabab al-mushābahah means that the speaker uses the expression for the new sense precisely because of the likeness. A courageous person is called a lion because of courage, not because of an accidental association.

When a transferred meaning instead relies on a non-similarity relation, the class is majāz mursal. Thus classification depends on intended meaning, contextual evidence and semantic relation rather than a word in isolation.

2. Why intended resemblance is an essential condition

فإن قصد تشبيهها ... فهو استعارة
If the usage intends an analogy, it is metaphor.

The source considers a term such as *mishfar*, conventionally associated with a camel's lip, applied to the lip of a human. If resemblance of the organs motivates the usage, metaphor is possible. A slip of the tongue or an accidental misnaming is not a rhetorical metaphor.

The decisive question is not merely which object the hearer eventually identifies. It is why the speaker transferred the term: likeness, another admissible association, or no figurative intention at all. This clarifies why an apparent substitution must be examined in context.

3. Absolute and restricted senses in the lip example

وإن أريد به من غير إطلاق المقيد على المطلق
A different reading arises when a restricted sense is extended to an unrestricted one.

Applied to a human lip, *mishfar* may transfer through resemblance between camel and human lips. Another analysis treats the expression as moving from a qualified lip-concept to the more general lip-concept by setting aside the specific restriction. That latter account involves the relation between restricted and unrestricted meaning, not necessarily similarity.

Whether the animal-related restriction belongs to the term's conventional sense is important. Merely observing that the word is not being used literally does not decide whether the figure is istiʿārah or mursal.

4. One expression can admit different figurative analyses

فاللفظ الواحد بالنسبة إلى المعنى الواحد قد يكون استعارة وقد يكون مجازا مرسلا
One expression, even with the same apparent target, can be analyzed as metaphor or mursal depending on the intended relation.

The classification does not attach automatically to the letters or to the external object. It depends on the semantic connection intended by the speaker. In the lip example, similarity gives metaphor; a restricted-to-general move belongs to another kind of relation.

Intended relationClassification
Perceptual or intelligible resemblanceMetaphor
Restricted/general or another non-similarity connectionMajāz mursal

The table explains why contextual intention must be established before applying a label.

5. Actual resemblance, figurative construal and error

والاستعارة قد تقيد بالحقيقية
Metaphor may be qualified as “ḥaqīqiyyah” in this discussion.

Here “real” does not say that the expression has returned to its literal lexical meaning. It says that the intended referent is an actual object accessible to sense or intellect, as opposed to cases involving an imaginative or indirect construal that later distinctions will address.

If “ladayya asad” (“I have a lion”) refers, with an adequate indicator, to a courageous person, the person is a real referent. “Lion” remains a figurative description founded on bravery. Reality of the person and literalness of the expression are separate questions.

6. A metaphorical target accessible to perception

كَقَوْلِهِ: لَدَيَّ أَسَدٌ
As in saying, “I have a lion.”

When the context indicates a human, the target is an actually perceivable individual. The source concept is the wild lion, and the intended target is a brave person. Courage is the common feature that warrants the transferred expression.

Three elements should be kept distinct:
Mustaʿār minhu — the lion as source.
Mustaʿār lahu — the brave human as target.
Qarīnah — evidence excluding the literal animal.

The effect is stronger than merely saying “brave”: the lion-image is deployed to intensify the description.

7. An intelligible target: the straight path

اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ
“Guide us to the straight path.”

The words evoke a physical route and straightness. In the rhetorical application to the true religion and correct way of life, the intended target is intelligible rather than an object of sight. This does not make the target an impossible invention.

A physical path carries a traveler toward a destination; a right course guides human conduct to its proper end. This functional likeness motivates the transfer. The designation ʿaqlī concerns how the target is grasped, not whether the expression is an unreliable or false statement.

8. A stated borrowed word versus an explicit comparison

شَاكِي السِّلَاحِ ... مُقْذَفٌ
Armed and strongly built: descriptive expressions discussed in the source.

Some words may be extended to a sense different from their initial assignment. To decide whether their use is metaphorical one must ask whether resemblance is intended, or whether the usage belongs to some other semantic extension.

“Zayd is like a lion” presents both members of the comparison openly. “I saw a lion shooting” transfers “lion” to a man while suppressing the ordinary noun for that person. The distinction is not simply the presence or absence of a particle; the assigned and employed senses of the key expression must be identified.

9. A technical difficulty with defining metaphor by implicit simile

فَالِاسْتِعَارَةُ مَا تَضَمَّنَ تَشْبِيهَ مَعْنَاهُ بِمَا وُضِعَ لَهُ
Metaphor has been described as usage whose meaning involves comparison with the sense for which its word was assigned.

The definition prompts a precise objection: if the employed sense is identical with the assigned sense, comparison becomes self-comparison. If a different sense is intended, the account must specify which word is transferred and at what level the analogy operates.

Expressions such as “Zayd is a lion” or “I saw Zayd as a lion” require analysis of predicate structure and the intended use of “lion.” Suppressing a comparative particle alone is not enough to prove lexical metaphor in every construction.

10. Intensive simile and metaphor are not identical

زَيْدٌ أَسَدٌ
“Zayd is a lion.”

The sentence strongly attributes courage to Zayd, but two analytical perspectives must be distinguished. If both the compared subject and the model of comparison remain explicit, the construction may be analyzed as an intensive simile. A lexical-metaphor analysis, by contrast, must account for what meaning “asad” is employed to convey.

“I saw Zayd as a lion” similarly names both the person and the lion-description. Its grammar and rhetorical force have to be read together. Omitting “like” is not in itself a sufficient universal criterion for classifying every bold comparison as metaphor.

11. The central dispute: linguistic or intellectual majāz?

اختلفوا في أن الاستعارة مجاز لغوي أو عقلي
Scholars differed over whether metaphor is linguistic majāz or intellectual majāz.

Linguistic account: a word is used outside its assigned meaning. “Asad” is assigned to the animal but applied to a courageous person.

Intellectual account: the decisive figurative act is a mental claim that the courageous person belongs to the class of lions. On this view, the imagined class-membership underlies the apparent application of the term.

The disagreement concerns the locus of the rhetorical move: transfer in linguistic signification or a prior conceptual judgment about the compared subject.

12. The majority view: a change in lexical application

فالجمهور على أنها مجاز لغوي
The majority hold that metaphor is linguistic majāz.

“Asad” is conventionally assigned to the predatory lion, whereas “I saw a lion shooting” intends a brave human. The two referents differ, and shooting arrows excludes the actual animal. The lexical account therefore treats the word as used outside its primary assigned domain.

Compare the general word “animal”: it can literally apply to a lion and a human within its general meaning. Selecting a specific member of an already assigned general category does not by itself constitute metaphor. Transfer outside a word's assigned sense is the issue.

13. Why applying a general word to an instance is literal

فَهُوَ لَيْسَ مِنَ الْمَجَازِ فِي شَيْءٍ
In this respect, it is not figurative at all.

Calling Zayd a “human” is literal: the general word is assigned to the human kind and Zayd is a member of it. No additional class-membership needs to be imagined, nor is the word shifted away from its normal domain.

By contrast, a brave man is not literally a member of the zoological class of lions. Calling him “asad” needs a rhetorical account. The intellectual theory claims that the speaker first imagines or asserts his inclusion among lions and then applies the lion-name on the strength of that assertion.

14. The mental claim of class inclusion

بِأَنْ يَجْعَلَ الرَّجُلَ الشُّجَاعَ فَرْدًا مِنْ أَفْرَادِ الْأَسَدِ
By treating the brave man as one member of the class of lions.

This does not assert a biological transformation. It is a rhetorical claim of membership: the man's courage is portrayed as so remarkable that he is counted among lions rather than merely compared with them.

The difference between asserted and actual membership is essential. The person remains human, while the utterance constructs an emphatic conceptual identity. In the intellectual theory, the force of the figure lies more in the mind's new predication than in a simple replacement of dictionary meanings.

15. Why merely renaming something lacks rhetorical force

لَكَانَتِ الْأَعْلَامُ الْمَنْقُولَةُ اسْتِعَارَةً
Transferred proper names would then count as metaphors.

If metaphor were merely giving an entity a different expression, every newly adopted name or transferred proper name would become metaphorical. Yet naming a person “Asad” is not automatically the same rhetorical act as depicting a brave person as a lion.

A personal name may become established without conveying any immediate likeness in courage. A metaphor deliberately activates the lion's salient attribute to magnify a human quality. The intellectual account uses this difference to argue that a simple verbal substitution cannot explain all the force of metaphor.

16. How jaʿala expresses attribution, not a change of species

إِنَّهُ جَعَلَهُ أَسَدًا
“He made him a lion,” in the sense of treating or declaring him one.

The verb *jaʿala* can express a rhetorical assignment of a property or status rather than a physical transformation. The intended force is to represent a man's courage as so great that it warrants the lion-class claim.

If the phrase were reduced to “he renamed him Asad,” the strong praise would disappear. The source's discussion therefore distinguishes the lexical label, the sentence's predication and the speaker's deliberate hyperbole.

17. Metaphor's force beyond a straightforward simile

وَلَمَا كَانَتِ الِاسْتِعَارَةُ أَبْلَغَ مِنَ الْحَقِيقَةِ
Otherwise, how would metaphor become more emphatic than a plain literal expression?

“Zayd is brave like a lion” keeps the two subjects distinct. “Zayd is a lion” can make a stronger rhetorical claim of identity. On the intellectual account, the degree of hyperbole created by that claim is a major source of metaphor's effectiveness.

This is not a rule that every metaphor is always superior to every simile; fitness to context still matters. The technical issue is narrower: mere replacement of one name with another does not fully explain the intensification produced by a well-formed metaphorical assertion.

18. The metaphor within predicate constructions

كَانَ أَسَدًا
“He was a lion.”

The word “asad” can function predicatively of a human to intensify bravery. The presence of a copular verb does not extinguish the rhetorical effect. Yet analysis still needs to locate the transferred expression and the conceptual claim that accompanies it.

The competing positions differ at precisely this level. A linguistic theory treats the predicative word as used outside its conventional animal-sense; an intellectual theory emphasizes the predication that depicts the human as belonging to the lion-kind.

19. Metaphorical imagery in the shade-giving sun

قَامَتْ تُظَلِّلُنِي مِنَ الشَّمْسِ ... شَمْسٌ تُظَلِّلُنِي مِنَ الشَّمْسِ
“She stood to shade me from the sun; a sun was shading me from the sun.”

A beloved or beautiful person is called a “sun” figuratively, while the actual sun remains present in the scene. The rhetorical surprise comes from the apparently impossible picture of one sun providing shade against another sun.

If both occurrences were treated simply as the literal astronomical sun, the sense and admiration created by the image would be lost. Its effect depends on granting a human the sun's name and then drawing out the consequences of that imagined identification.

20. Argument from wonder and the limits of the inference

وَمِنْ عَجَبٍ ... شَمْسٌ تُظَلِّلُنِي مِنَ الشَّمْسِ
“And strangely, a sun shades me from the sun.”

The poem is used to show how metaphorical identification supports wonder and hyperbole. The beautiful person is not a literal sun, yet the poetic image treats her as one and then finds the resulting shade paradoxical.

A critical question remains: must every kind of metaphorical surprise depend on exactly the same theory of class-membership? Other figures can also create striking associations. The poem illustrates the proposed effect well; using it as universal proof of one theoretical account requires further argument.

21. The moon-figure and a different kind of wonder

لَا تَعْجَبُوا مِنْ بِلَى غِلَالَتِهِ ... قَدْ زَرَّ أَزْرَارَهُ عَلَى الْقَمَرِ
“Do not wonder that his undergarment wears thin; he has fastened its buttons upon the moon.”

A beautiful person is called a “moon,” bringing exceptional beauty to the foreground. Literal clothing on the celestial moon is not intended. The figure's effect lies in imagining the wearer as a moon and allowing that image to interact with the garment.

This differs from the sun-poem, where a figurative sun shelters someone from the literal sun. Both employ metaphorical naming and surprise, but the rhetorical relations and their results are not identical.

22. Does hyperbole imply literal impossibility?

لِأَنَّ التَّشْبِيهَ قَضَاءٌ لِحَقِّ الْمُبَالَغَةِ
Completing the resemblance is a way of fulfilling the demands of rhetorical intensification.

Calling a person a “sun” or “moon” does not assert that they have literally become a celestial body. It powerfully attributes a salient trait until the distance ordinarily perceived in comparison seems to disappear.

Two levels must be kept separate: external fact, where the human and sun remain distinct; and rhetorical assertion, where likeness in beauty or brilliance supports their imaginative identification. Hyperbole operates at the second level and does not overturn the first.

23. Metaphor versus falsehood

وَالِاسْتِعَارَةُ تُفَارِقُ الْكَذِبَ بِوَجْهَيْنِ
Metaphor differs from falsehood in two respects.

First, it is built upon an interpretable resemblance: “lion” can indicate courage or power. Second, a contextual indicator signals that the speaker does not intend the literal zoological assertion.

A false assertion, by contrast, purports to establish the very proposition that fails to match reality. In metaphor the apparent nonliteral attribution is a vehicle for communicating the intended trait or sense. Therefore nonliteral expression and deliberate false reporting must not be treated as synonymous.

24. The necessity and function of a contextual indicator

لَا بُدَّ لِلْمَجَازِ مِنْ قَرِينَةٍ مَانِعَةٍ
Figurative language requires a contextual indication excluding the literal sense.

In “I saw a lion shooting,” “shooting” points away from the zoological lion. In “I saw a Ḥātim today,” situational and historical context can indicate that a generous contemporary person is meant, not the famous Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī. The indicator need not always be an explicit extra word; usage, situation and context can guide the interpretation.

The relation explains why the sense can move from lion to man; the indicator explains why the literal lion is not intended in this occurrence. These are distinct rhetorical functions.

25. Metaphorical transfer of an individual proper name

كَحَاتِمٍ الْمُتَضَمِّنِ لِلِاتِّصَافِ بِالْجُودِ
As with “Ḥātim,” associated with generosity.

“Ḥātim” is originally the proper name of a particular historical person. When his generosity becomes so celebrated that his name calls the trait to mind, saying “this man is a Ḥātim” can operate metaphorically.

A proper name raises a technical issue: how can a designation for one individual apply to another? The rhetorical answer draws on the trait conspicuously associated with the named person. The new referent is represented as worthy of that exemplary name; merely reproducing the letters of the name would not supply the relation.

26. Famous names functioning as models of qualities

وَمَارِدٌ بِالْبُخْلِ، وَسَحْبَانُ بِالْفَصَاحَةِ، وَبَاقِلٌ بِالْفَهَاهَةِ
Mādir is associated with miserliness, Saḥbān with eloquence, and Bāqil with faltering or inept speech.

These names serve as prototypes for prominent qualities, not merely as isolated historical labels. Calling another person “a Saḥbān” may signal exceptional eloquence; likening someone to Bāqil invokes the opposite quality in speech.

The proper name does not become an ordinary literal class-term for everybody. Such a use still requires a perceived likeness in the salient trait and suitable contextual indication. The original person and the new person being described are distinct individuals.

27. Two modes of interpreting an exemplary name

بِطَرِيقِ التَّأْوِيلِ قِسْمَيْنِ: أَحَدُهُمَا الْمُتَعَارَفُ
An exemplary name may be considered in two interpretive modes, beginning with the familiar instance.

One reading keeps the well-known original individual in mind as the standard of the trait. Another uses the salient property to present a second, unfamiliar individual as falling under the same rhetorical designation.

The case of Ḥātim demonstrates this distinction. The historical person is still a definite individual, but extraordinary generosity can make another person a candidate for that name in figurative speech. The resemblance lies in the characteristic, not in replacing the original person's identity.

28. Why an ordinary generic noun differs from a proper name

لِأَنَّهُ يَقْتَضِي التَّشَخُّصَ وَمَنْعَ الِاشْتِرَاكِ
A proper name carries individual determination rather than ordinary distribution across members.

“Human” is a general noun whose instances are many; “Ḥātim” identifies a particular person. Calling someone else a Ḥātim cannot simply mean that this different human is literally the same historical individual. Its figurative interpretation must rest on the relevant resemblance, such as generosity.

Distinguishing the logical status of a proper name from that of a common noun safeguards rhetorical meaning. Treating every proper name as freely generic would dissolve the special effect of invoking an exemplary person.

29. A metaphor needs intelligible likeness and an excluding indicator

كَقَوْلِكَ: رَأَيْتُ الْيَوْمَ حَاتِمًا
As in saying, “Today I saw a Ḥātim.”

The name calls to mind the model of generosity. The word “today” and the present conversational setting can exclude identifying the person with the original historical Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī. Two elements therefore cooperate: a resemblance in character and evidence excluding the literal personal referent.

The contextual indication need not always be a single word intentionally appended to the metaphor. Common historical knowledge and the surrounding situation may suffice. Conversely, one should not declare every surprising use of a name metaphorical without examining its context.

30. One indicator or several cooperating clues

أَوْ أَكْثَرَ ... فَإِنْ تَعَاوَنُوا
Or several indications may cooperate to reveal the intended meaning.

In some examples a single word excludes the literal sense: “shooting” can suffice in “I saw a lion shooting.” In other passages, several lexical and contextual signals jointly complete the poetic image; isolating any one of them may leave the sense underdetermined.

The indication can therefore be single or multiple. Multiple indicators may independently be sufficient, or they may work together as a cluster. Careful literary analysis reads the full construction rather than mechanically selecting one alleged clue without its surrounding context.

31. Combining several cues in a martial image

سُيُوفًا تَلْمَعُ ... وَصَاعِقَةٌ مِنْ نَصْلِهِ
“Gleaming swords ... and a thunderbolt from his blade,” a martial image.

Expressions such as “swords,” “gleam,” “thunderbolt” and “blade” reinforce one another. Linking a sword's flash to lightning suggests brilliance and force, yet the image cannot always be interpreted adequately by isolating only one word.

The analytic task is not merely to call unusual language beautiful. It is to establish the borrowed expression, its original referent, the feature that motivates the transfer, and the contextual evidence that differentiates literal and figurative readings.

32. Five clouds: numerical context as an indicator

خَمْسُ سَحَائِبَ
“Five clouds.”

In the poetic description, the benefactor's five fingers are pictured as rain-clouds. Clouds pour rain; the generous hand dispenses gifts. The number “five” guides the listener toward fingers rather than literal weather clouds.

Thus a numeral can function as a contextual clue alongside the borrowed cloud-image and the surrounding praise. The intended meaning emerges through their combined effect. A metaphor's indicator need not always be a verb or a direct negation of the literal sense; it may be numerical or situational.

33. An integrated method for analyzing a metaphor

A practical method of analyzing metaphor
Determine conventional meaning, target meaning, resemblance and contextual indicator in order.

1. Establish the expression's assigned sense and relevant usage.
2. Identify the intended target in the utterance.
3. Explain the resemblance deliberately invoked.
4. Identify evidence that excludes the literal referent.
5. Say whether the analysis emphasizes lexical transfer or imaginative predication.

“I saw a lion shooting”: original sense, wild lion; target, brave human; similarity, courage; indicator, shooting. The intellectual gloss then represents the person as though included in the lion-kind to intensify the description.

34. Concluding the disagreement and preparing the next classification

الاستعارة: مجاز لغوي أو عقلي؟
Is metaphor linguistic or intellectual majāz?

The majority linguistic account focuses on transferring an expression beyond its assigned sense. The intellectual account emphasizes the mental claim that the target belongs to the class represented by the borrowed name. The two analyses illuminate different aspects of emphatic figurative speech, though the terminological dispute is substantive.

Distinguishing literal speech, simile, metaphor, accidental misnaming and false reporting requires attention to word, predication, intention, resemblance and contextual evidence. The next lesson begins the classification of metaphor by its two parties: source and target of borrowing.