Multiple intellectual points consist of independent intellectual qualities; mixed multiple points combine sensory and intellectual respects. Simile based on opposition can use an apparently unsuitable epithet for wit or derision, but opposition does not thereby become literal identity.
Comparison markers include kāf, kaʾanna and expressions such as mithl. They reveal a formal comparison, but context is still required to identify the shared respect and rhetorical purpose. In the Qurʾānic expression “like water We sent down,” the image must be interpreted through the whole described sequence rather than water in isolation.
The next discussion develops the purposes of simile and expressions whose rhetorical comparison may be conveyed without the standard overt particle.