LessonsIstiʿārah: Definition, Figurative Identification and the Linguistic–Intellectual DebateQuiz

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.

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Metaphorical imagery in the shade-giving sun

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

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.