Majāz Mursal and Istiʿārah: Non-similarity Relations and Their Types

1. The criterion for the new division of majāz

المجاز المرسل والاستعارة
Non-similarity-based majāz (mursal) and metaphor (istiʿārah).

In figurative usage, an expression moves from its assigned sense to another intended sense. The route is called the semantic relation (ʿalāqah). If resemblance is the intended basis of transfer, the figure is a metaphor. If the relation is something other than resemblance, it is majāz mursal.

“Raʾaytu asadan yarmī” — calling a brave archer a lion: resemblance in courage, metaphor.
“Kathurat ayādī fulān” — hands used for a person's favors: a causal association, mursal.

This division asks how the meaning is transferred, not whether the convention is lexical or technical.

2. Non-resemblance defines majāz mursal

والمجاز مرسل إن كانت العلاقة المصححة غير المشابهة، وإلا فاستعارة
A figure is mursal if the validating relation is other than resemblance; otherwise it is metaphor.

The term al-ʿalāqah al-muṣaḥḥiḥah means a connection sufficient to make the transfer intelligible. A random association or a word used with no rational basis does not satisfy the definition.

Hands are involved in giving; therefore “hands” can denote a person's acts of beneficence. The favors are not literally shaped like hands. The transfer depends on their causal association. In contrast, using “lion” for a brave human is based on similarity in courage.

3. Why the figure is termed mursal

المرسل
A figurative transfer not restricted to one particular relation of resemblance.

Istiʿārah is tied to similarity. Mursal permits a range of other relations: cause/effect, part/whole, place/inhabitant, instrument/effect, former state or anticipated outcome. The name reflects this plurality of admissible connections.

“Mursal” does not mean unregulated speech. Each example still requires a recognizable and valid semantic relation. The variety concerns the kinds of relation available, not permission to make arbitrary substitutions.

4. Borrowed expression and the act of borrowing

الاستعارة
The borrowed expression, or the speaker's act of employing that expression figuratively.

The term istiʿārah can denote the word used as a metaphor or the act of borrowing its use. The verbal noun sense accounts for the related terminology.

When “asad” is said of a brave human:
Mustaʿār minhu — the original lion meaning, from which the word is borrowed.
Mustaʿār lahu — the courageous human, for whom it is employed.
Mustaʿār — the borrowed expression “asad.”

Keeping the word, original concept and intended referent distinct prevents confusion in later classifications of metaphor.

5. A metaphor depends on intended resemblance

رَأَيْتُ أَسَدًا يَرْمِي
“I saw a lion shooting arrows.”

The activity of shooting is a contextual indicator excluding an actual animal. The resemblance between a lion and a courageous person in bravery supplies the basis for metaphor.

The important point is intended resemblance. A careless misnomer or a random naming does not become rhetorical metaphor merely because some incidental likeness could be discovered afterward.

Relation, contextual indication and intended communicative effect work together to determine the figure.

6. Causal relation: a hand and a favor

كَثُرَتْ أَيَادِي فُلَانٍ
“So-and-so has bestowed many favors.”

The word yad originally denotes a bodily hand, but here the intended sense is benefits or gifts. A hand is a familiar means of giving, so the name of the instrument is transferred to the benefit associated with it.

The benefit is not represented as visually similar to a hand. Rather, causal or instrumental association motivates the expression. This is majāz mursal.

Original expression: hand.
Intended sense: favors.
Relation: the hand's role in producing or dispensing gifts.

7. From effect to cause: favor and power

النِّعْمَةُ فِي القُدْرَةِ
Using “favor/benefit” to mean the power that produces it.

A favor or benefit is an effect made possible by capacity or power. When the name of that benefit is used for the power generating it, the effect is named in place of its cause.

This direction differs from “hand → favor,” where an instrument or cause is named to signify its resulting benefit. Keeping the direction of transfer explicit is essential: cause-to-effect and effect-to-cause are different relations, even though both belong to majāz mursal.

8. Visible effects and the power behind them

كَالْيَدِ فِي الْقُدْرَةِ
As in using “hand” to signify power or capability.

The relation is not bodily resemblance. Effects of power are commonly manifested through hands: grasping, striking, cutting and taking. Thus “hand” can convey the underlying faculty or power.

Effects of power should not be confused with power itself. An act of taking is one manifestation; capability is the underlying capacity. In different contexts the same expression “hand” may designate benefaction or power. The specific intended sense must be inferred from the utterance, not from an unchanging substitution rule.

9. A carrier and its load: rāwiyah and mizādah

الرَّاوِيَةُ فِي الْمَزَادَةِ
Employing rāwiyah for the water-container or waterskin carried by an animal.

The term was used for the camel carrying a water-container and was then extended to the vessel itself. The carrier–carried relation supplies the link.

A camel and a water-container do not share the same essential form. Their connection is practical: one transports the other. This shows that a mursal relation need not be physical resemblance; a stable association of bearer and burden can also allow the listener to reach the intended referent.

10. Naming the whole by a distinctive part

تَسْمِيَةُ الشَّيْءِ بِاسْمِ جُزْئِهِ
Naming an entity by one of its parts.

Part-for-whole transfer occurs when an expression originally denotes a component but now signifies the entire entity. Not every incidental part makes a convincing label. The chosen component should usually be salient to recognizing the whole.

“ʿAyn” — literally an eye; in an appropriate context, a watcher or sentinel.

Watching is so closely associated with the eye that the part can designate the observer. The whole person, rather than merely the physical eye, is the intended referent.

11. Why the chosen part must be relevant

When “ʿayn” is used for a watcher, its salience is clear: observation is primarily associated with the eyes. Merely naming a watcher after any unrelated organ would not convey the person with the same intelligibility.

Part-for-whole transfer requires more than physical membership. The selected part should direct the hearer to the whole in a meaningful way.

Two questions therefore matter:
1. Is the named thing genuinely a part of the intended whole?
2. Does that part provide a sufficient route to identifying the whole?

This distinction separates a justified figure from arbitrary naming.

12. Naming a part through the whole

وَعَكْسُهُ
And the reverse: naming a part by the name of the whole.

يَجْعَلُونَ أَصَابِعَهُمْ فِي آذَانِهِمْ
“They put their fingers into their ears.”

In Qurʾān 2:19, “fingers” literally names the complete digits. In the actual act of blocking the ears, it is the fingertips that enter. This is whole-for-part transfer.

The expression also vividly presents the act of blocking the ears, but the technical distinction is the relation between the named whole finger and the physically relevant tips.

13. Part-for-whole versus whole-for-part

RelationOriginal expressionIntended referent
Part-for-wholeʿAyn — eyeA complete watcher
Whole-for-partAṣābiʿ — fingersFingertips

Both involve part–whole relations, yet the direction of naming is opposite.

Part-for-whole: the word names a part and intends the whole.
Whole-for-part: the word names a whole and intends a part.

An adequate analysis identifies the originally named entity and the intended entity; simply noticing that bodily parts occur in both examples is insufficient.

14. Naming an effect by its cause: rain and plants

رَعَيْنَا الْغَيْثَ
“We grazed the rain,” meaning we grazed the vegetation brought forth by rainfall.

The verb “grazed” does not naturally take rain as the animals' food; it takes grass or herbage. The word “rain,” a cause, denotes its effect, the vegetation.

Original sense: rain, the cause.
Intended sense: the grass that grows from rain, its effect.
Relation: causal production.

This is not a similarity between the shape of rain and the shape of vegetation. It is the connection between rainfall and growth.

15. Reversing the direction of causal naming

أَمْطَرَتِ السَّمَاءُ نَبَاتًا
“The sky rained plants,” meaning rain occurred that would bring vegetation.

The word “plants” signifies the product of rain, yet in the context of raining it indicates the water that brings about that product. Here the effect's name is transferred to its cause.

“Raʿaynā al-ghayth” — cause named, effect intended.
“Amṭarat al-samāʾ nabātan” — effect named, cause intended.

The distinction depends on which side supplies the expression and which side supplies its contextual meaning, rather than on a label memorized without analysis.

16. Do not infer the direction from grammar alone

To determine cause-to-effect versus effect-to-cause transfer, first identify the expression's ordinary referent and the sense actually intended in the sentence. Only then name the direction of the relation.

If ghayth is not recognized as rain or nabāt as vegetation, a student may rely on grammar without analyzing meaning. The associated verb—grazing, raining, producing—provides an essential contextual cue.

The same principle applies to “hand”: it may signify benefaction in one sentence and power in another. One word does not have to carry the same transferred sense everywhere.

17. Naming a person by a former condition

وَآتُوا الْيَتَامَىٰ أَمْوَالَهُمْ
“And give the orphans their property.”

In Qurʾān 4:2, the persons whose property is to be handed over are described by a former state of orphanhood, even though the relevant handover requires a change in their legal capacity as they mature.

This relation is called iʿtibār mā kān: naming someone or something after what they formerly were. The temporal feature of the word does not exactly match the state in which the command is implemented.

The expression thus preserves an earlier designation while the actual handover concerns people at a later stage.

18. Naming something by what it will become

إِنِّي أَرَانِي أَعْصِرُ خَمْرًا
“I see myself pressing wine.”

In Qurʾān 12:36, the material being pressed is grapes, whereas khamr names wine that may be made from their juice. The present substance is named after its anticipated result.

This is iʿtibār mā yakūn: designation by a state the thing will later acquire.

Iʿtibār mā kān: designation by a former condition.
Iʿtibār mā yakūn: designation by a later condition.

Both involve a temporal association rather than a likeness of form or quality.

19. Place-for-people: the assembly and its members

فَلْيَدْعُ نَادِيَهُ
“Let him call his assembly.”

In Qurʾān 96:17, nādī refers to the meeting place or assembly, while the persons who can respond to a summons are the people associated with it. The place designates its occupants.

Original sense: meeting place.
Intended sense: those gathered there.
Relation: locality or place-for-people.

The action “call” helps direct the listener from the location to the persons meant by the utterance.

20. The contained condition for its location

فَفِي رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ
“Then they shall be within God's mercy.”

In one rhetorical analysis of Qurʾān 3:107, “mercy” is understood as referring to Paradise, the place where divine mercy is manifest. An associated condition is thus named in order to indicate its location.

“Fal-yadʿu nādiyah” — a place is named and its occupants intended.
“Fa-fī raḥmat Allāh” — mercy is named and its locus of manifestation intended.

The relation concerns location and what is present or manifest within it. The direction of reference is what distinguishes the two uses.

21. Instrument-for-result: a tongue and good remembrance

وَاجْعَلْ لِي لِسَانَ صِدْقٍ فِي الْآخِرِينَ
“Grant me truthful and favorable remembrance among later generations.”

In Qurʾān 26:84, lisān literally means tongue, but the intended benefit is enduring good remembrance. Speech and praise are produced through the tongue, so the instrument gives its name to the outcome.

Original sense: physical tongue.
Intended sense: enduring honorable remembrance.
Relation: instrumentality, as speech uses the tongue.

This is not resemblance between a tongue and reputation. It is a relation of means and resulting communication.

22. Consolidated relations of majāz mursal

RelationNamed sense → intended sense
Cause for effectRain → vegetation
Effect for causePlants → rain
Part for wholeEye → watcher
Whole for partFingers → fingertips
Former stateOrphans → formerly orphaned persons
Future stateWine → grapes
Place for occupantsAssembly place → participants
InstrumentalityTongue → good remembrance

Each term has a specific direction of transfer. When facing a new sentence, the analyst must still consider its verb, situation, speaker's purpose and contextual indication.

23. Analyzing Quranic examples without flattening their meaning

When examining Qurʾānic instances, intended meaning, contextual action and figurative relation should be kept distinct. Naming a category does not by itself exhaust the passage's interpretation.

“They put their fingers in their ears” — fingertips carry out the physical act, while the whole fingers are named.
“Let him call his nādī” — people can be summoned, although the word refers to an assembly place.
“I see myself pressing wine” — the present substance receives the name of its future product.

Each has its own semantic relation and contextual clue. None is automatically a metaphor of resemblance.

24. Contextual indicator is not the semantic relation

Two questions must be kept separate when analyzing a figure:
What is the relation? — which connection joins the original and intended senses?
What is the indicator? — what feature of the utterance steers us away from the ordinary literal interpretation?

In “raʿaynā al-ghayth,” rainfall causes vegetation: that is the relation. The verb “graze” indicates that the intended object is grass rather than rainwater.

By contrast, in “I saw a lion shooting,” resemblance in courage is the relation, while “shooting” is the indicator excluding the animal.

Relation and indicator perform different explanatory tasks.

25. An admissible relation need not be strict logical entailment

A figurative relation may involve a cause and its result, a place and its occupants, or a carrier and its load. In some examples the relation is a recognizable contextual association rather than strict necessary entailment.

Not every relation must be an unbreakable logical implication. Any particular waterskin can be transported by different carriers, and a meeting place can be occupied by different people. Yet established association and contextual wording may guide the listener successfully.

The requirement is a legitimate pathway of semantic transfer, not the claim that the two things must be inseparable in all possible circumstances.

26. Some classifications depend on the underlying convention

Some part–whole cases also invite discussion about established linguistic convention. A broad word may become customary for a particular relevant part, while another analysis regards the same occurrence as figurative transfer.

The aṣābiʿ/anāmil example can be understood rhetorically as naming fingertips through the full fingers; however, the exact classification also calls for attention to the accepted ordinary use and the specific context.

The point is not to eliminate the rule, but to recognize that lexical assignment and occasion-specific transferred meaning must be distinguished in careful analysis.

27. A reliable method for classifying an occurrence

A sound analysis of a new occurrence can proceed in the following order:
1. Establish the intended sense from context.
2. Identify the expression's assigned sense in that speech convention.
3. Find the contextual indicator excluding the literal referent.
4. Explain the relation between the two senses.
5. Decide whether the intended basis is resemblance or another relation.

“Fal-yadʿu nādiyah”: an assembly place is named; the people are called; place-for-occupants, therefore mursal.

“I saw a lion shooting”: the lion-name denotes a brave man through likeness in courage, therefore metaphor.

This approach avoids superficial labeling based on a word alone.

28. Consolidating the division before detailed metaphor

Majāz mursal — the semantic relation is something other than resemblance.
Istiʿārah — the relation is resemblance, intentionally used to support the transferred description.

For majāz mursal, the main analytical task is to identify the type and direction of the connection: cause/effect, part/whole, earlier/later condition, place/occupant, or instrument/result. With metaphor, one additionally analyzes the two compared things, the original and target meanings and the distinctive contextual indication.

Compare:
“We grazed the rain” — rain to vegetation, mursal.
“I saw a lion shooting” — lion to brave human, metaphor.

The following lesson develops metaphor's distinct structural classifications in detail.