Literal and Figurative Meaning: Rules, Categories and Interpretive Indicators

Read-only question overview. Answers and scoring remain inside authenticated learner attempts.

• What is the basic rule for preferring literal or figurative usage?
• In the oath example, what is significant about “aqqadtum”?
• Which distinction between yamin ghamus and yamin mun‘aqidah matters here?
• What chiefly distinguishes impossible, abandoned, and living literal usage?
• Why may “I shall eat this tree” be interpreted as eating its fruit?
• What semantic relationship operates in the “eat the pot” example?
• Why does “I will not set foot in the house” ordinarily mean not entering it?
• Which example plainly uses a living literal sense with no figurative indication?
• In which two kinds of literal usage does the book give agreed resort to majaz?
• When a familiar metaphor accompanies a living literal sense, what does Abu Hanifa prefer?
• What approach is attributed to Abu Yusuf and Muhammad in that issue?
• Which statement best explains “generality of figurative meaning”?
• On what level does metaphor replace literal meaning in Abu Hanifa’s formulation?
• How does the text formulate substitution for the two companions?
• An owner says “This is my son” about an enslaved person older than himself. What outcome does the textbook give?
• What does the non-combination rule mean?
• In the textbook’s Hanafi interpretation of “aw lamastum al-nisa”, which sense is selected?
• Why is using “asad” for a courageous person a valid figurative use?
• What supports figurative movement between purchase and ownership?
• What is the main interpretive issue in “If I purchase an enslaved person, they are free”?
• Why do the manumission and divorce examples not work symmetrically?
• Which set correctly lists the textbook’s indicators for moving beyond a literal sense?
• Which indicator limits “I will not buy heads” to the class intended in the marketplace?
• Which indicator is illustrated by distinguishing the mukatab under “Every person owned by me is free”?
• Why do “Come down” and “Come down if you are a man” differ in the historical example?
• Which indication is exemplified by yamin al-fawr (an oath tied to an immediate occasion)?
• If an abandoned literal sense is physically possible, the established idiom must always be ignored.
• Asad can denote a courageous person figuratively because of the shared attribute of courage.
• Under the source rule, both literal and figurative meanings can be intended simultaneously from one occurrence of a word.
• The subject matter can rule out a literal proprietary meaning, as in the textbook’s historical marriage example.