Literal and Figurative Meanings: Principles and Legal Applications

1. The central distinction between literal and figurative use

فصل في الحقيقة والمجاز
The chapter on literal and figurative meaning.

Legal interpretation distinguishes a word used in its conventionally established sense from one employed for a related meaning on the strength of a contextual indication. The first is haqiqah (literal usage); the second is majaz (figurative usage). A plausible alternative sense alone is not enough: its transfer must be justified by usage and context.

For example, “lion” primarily names an animal but may describe a brave person through the relation of courage. Keeping the assigned sense distinct from a transferred sense is essential for interpreting legal expressions.

2. Defining haqiqah through linguistic assignment

كل لفظ وضعه واضع اللغة بإزاء شيء فهو حقيقة له
Every word assigned by the language community to a thing is literal for that thing.

Wadʿ means the conventional assignment of a word to a meaning. The word directly indicates that meaning without requiring a transfer to a different sense. “Rajul” for an adult man and “shajarah” for a tree illustrate this principle.

Literalness is not limited to something physically present before the speaker. The question is which meaning the word has been assigned in the language. Using it for that established meaning is literal even where the meaning has many instances.

3. Majaz and the need for an indication

ولو استعمل في غيره يكون مجازا لا حقيقة
If the word is used for something other than its assigned meaning, the usage is figurative rather than literal.

Figurative transfer rests on a recognized relation between the original and intended senses, guided by context. A vessel may be mentioned while its contents are intended.

For example, “He drank the whole cup” does not mean consuming the cup itself; it means consuming its contents. The vessel–contents relation accounts for this usage. Interpretation cannot, however, invent any convenient alternative meaning merely to escape the established sense.

4. Can one use carry both literal and figurative senses?

ثم الحقيقة مع المجاز لا يجتمعان من لفظ واحد في حالة واحدة
On the principle stated here, a single occurrence of a word does not simultaneously bear its literal and figurative senses.

If the literal meaning is intended, one should not automatically add a separate figurative meaning to that same occurrence. Conversely, where a valid indication establishes a figurative sense, interpretation proceeds in that sense.

This does not deny that the same word may be used literally in one setting and figuratively in another. The dispute concerns simultaneous reference in one occurrence. The lesson presents the line of Hanafi reasoning developed in this chapter, while recognizing disagreement among jurists.

5. The saʿ: a measure or what it contains?

لا تبيعوا الدرهم بالدرهمين، ولا الصاع بالصاعين
Do not exchange one dirham for two dirhams, or one saʿ for two saʿs.

Here saʿ names a measure. In a sale prohibition, however, the legally relevant matter is the measured commodity and the exchange, not trading empty measuring vessels. The expression is therefore understood through its relation to what is measured.

The example shows why the literal vessel and the figurative measured contents should not be combined as two independent intended objects of this one occurrence. The context first identifies the object to which the ruling relates.

6. Touching and genealogical usage

أو لامستم النساء
Or you have touched women.

The chapter uses kinship terms and the expression of touching to demonstrate the interpretive problem. A word such as “fathers” directly applies to fathers, while its use for ancestors may involve extension in relevant contexts. One should not independently insert both senses into the same legal wording.

Likewise, “touching” can be discussed in relation to physical contact and an extended sense associated with sexual relations. The intended sense must be decided by the legal context and supporting evidence, not by assuming that one occurrence simultaneously asserts both interpretations.

7. Mawla and conflicting relationships

إذا أوصى لمواليه وله موال أعتقهم ومواليه موال أعتقوه
If someone bequeaths to his mawali while having both people he freed and people who freed him.

Mawla can describe different directions of a legal relationship. The mere presence of the word in a bequest does not settle every beneficiary; its intended reference must be identified using context and the relevant rules of wording.

The interpretive concern is not to declare both groups automatically entitled without evidence. The need to determine one intended sense connects the earlier discussion of homonymous expressions with the present distinction between literal and figurative use.

8. Sons and grandsons in testamentary wording

ولو أوصى لبني فلان، وله بنون وبنو بنين كانت الوصية لبنيه دون بني بنيه
If a bequest is made to a person's sons, and he has both sons and sons' sons, the wording refers to the sons rather than the grandsons.

The direct referents of banun are sons. Including grandsons by an extended sense raises the problem of joining literal and figurative referents in one expression. In this stated interpretation, the bequest is confined to the immediate sons.

Entitlement under a testament therefore turns on the wording and its interpretive principles, not merely on family connection. A differently worded testament or a separate contextual indication could yield another case.

9. The term nikah in a legal oath

لو حلف لا ينكح فلانة وهي أجنبية، كان ذلك على العقد حتى لو زنى بها لا يحنث
If a man swears not to marry an unrelated woman, the oath concerns entering a marriage contract; the cited treatment does not regard illicit intercourse as breaking this particular oath.

The juristic analysis gives weight to the established legal use of nikah for the contract. It does not indiscriminately extend the oath to every lexical association of the word.

This is an example of how wording governs a specific oath, not a statement about the permissibility of illicit relations. An act can remain forbidden independently of whether it violates that particular oath.

10. Setting foot in a house and entering it

إذا حلف لا يضع قدمه في دار فلان يحنث لو دخلها حافيا أو منتعلا أو راكبا
If someone swears not to set foot in a person's house, entering barefoot, wearing footwear, or riding still breaks the oath.

In ordinary usage, setting foot somewhere can mean entering a place, not merely placing uncovered skin on the floor. Footwear or a ride does not defeat the apparent purpose of the expression when customary usage makes entry its intended sense.

The example illustrates the legal importance of conventional speech: the applied meaning can be broader than a strictly physical reconstruction of the words.

11. Swearing not to reside: ownership is irrelevant

لو حلف لا يسكن دار فلان يحنث لو كانت الدار ملكا لفلان أو كانت بأجرة أو عارية
A person who swears not to reside in someone's house violates the oath by residing there whether the house is owned, leased, or used on loan.

The ordinary attribution “so-and-so's house” need not exclusively identify legal title. Context may relate the property to someone's use or residence. The governing action in this oath is residing.

This must be distinguished from the previous example about entering a house. Entry and residence are different acts; their legal assessment follows the specific expression used.

12. The day of arrival and customary time reference

عبده حر يوم يقدم فلان، فقدم فلان ليلا أو نهارا يعتق
“If so-and-so arrives, my slave is free on the day of his arrival”: the cited ruling covers an arrival at night or by day.

Yawm may denote daylight specifically, but in conventional temporal references it can refer to the occasion of an event without excluding its night. Here the operative condition is the person's arrival.

The example shows why a technical fragment of a dictionary meaning cannot always displace an established contextual reference. Historical rules of manumission are used to illustrate the semantics, not as modern legal instructions.

13. The three conditions of literal meaning

ثم الحقيقة أنواع ثلاثة: متعذرة، ومهجورة، ومستعملة
Literal meaning is then divided into three conditions: impossible, abandoned, and still used.

1. Mutaʿadhdhirah: the literal referent cannot be acted upon in this setting.
2. Mahjurah: the literal use is possible in theory but has been left aside in normal speech in favor of an established alternative.
3. Mustaʿmalah: the literal use remains viable and current.

The classification affects priority in interpretation. Impossibility, the force of convention, and competition between living literal and figurative usages must not be treated as the same situation.

14. Impossible literal use: eating a tree

إذا حلف لا يأكل من هذه الشجرة أو من هذه القدر
Suppose someone swears not to eat from this tree or this cooking pot.

In normal food-related speech, “eating from a tree” refers to consuming its fruit, not gnawing its trunk. Eating from a pot refers to the food it holds, not the metal or clay vessel.

These are illustrations of mutaʿadhdhirah: the direct literal object is not a feasible instance of the intended action. Interpretation transfers to a related, practically intelligible referent, such as fruit or contents.

15. Limits of the tree and pot example

A transfer to figurative meaning does not mean that every remotely associated thing may be inserted into the oath. The intended substitute must have a recognized relation to the word and to the action described.

Tree: the edible fruit is the normal candidate.
Pot: the food prepared in or taken from it is what the statement concerns.

If literal consumption is realistically possible in a different context, one must reconsider the claim of impossibility and the role of convention. The classification depends on the actual statement and usage, not on a desire for the most convenient interpretation.

16. Drinking from a well and drawing water

إذا حلف لا يشرب من هذه البئر ينصرف ذلك إلى الاغتراف
An oath not to drink from this well is understood in relation to drawing water from it.

People normally drink water taken from a well with a bucket or vessel. They do not need to place their mouths inside the well. The word “well” identifies the source, while the legally relevant act concerns obtaining and drinking its water.

The discussion even considers an unusual, difficult hypothetical of drinking directly. The lesson is that legal language follows the recognized method and referent, not merely the most physically immediate connection to the noun.

17. Abandoned literal meaning and the force of custom

A mahjurah literal sense is physically or logically possible, but ordinary speech no longer employs the expression in that narrow sense in the relevant context. Established convention identifies what the speaker would normally mean.

Thus, “setting foot in a house” refers to entering it. A person cannot avoid that interpretation simply because shoes, a vehicle, or another means of entry prevented bare-foot contact with the floor.

This differs from an impossible literal meaning. In an abandoned usage, the literal action may be possible but is not the normally intended meaning. That distinction will matter when literal and figurative senses compete.

18. A literal sense that remains in use

Mustaʿmalah means that the original literal sense remains a living and possible use of the expression. The legal question is then whether, and on what grounds, the interpreter may prefer an associated figurative sense.

There are two cases:
1. The literal sense remains in use and has no established competing figurative use; the literal sense takes precedence.
2. Both a literal use and an established figurative use exist; the chapter records disagreements between Abu Hanifa and his two prominent students in certain applications.

It would be an error to apply the rules of abandoned literal usage automatically to this competing-usage case.

19. Wheat itself or the bread made from it?

لو حلف لا يأكل من هذه الحنطة
Suppose someone swears not to eat this wheat.

In the application attributed to Abu Hanifa, the literal sense of eating the wheat remains viable. The oath is therefore tied to consuming the wheat itself; eating bread made from it does not, on this analysis, violate the expression.

The position attributed to Abu Yusuf and Muhammad gives effect to the established figurative breadth and can include both the wheat and bread made from it.

The disagreement concerns the priority of a living literal sense against a recognized figurative generalization, not merely a disagreement about how to translate the noun.

20. Drinking from the Euphrates

لا يشرب من الفرات
He will not drink from the Euphrates.

The discussion assigns to Abu Hanifa priority for the direct literal mode of drinking from the river. The two companions include the recognized broader usage by which a person drinks water from that river even after it has been collected or transferred.

As in the wheat example, the disagreement concerns priority between a possible literal performance and a familiar expanded interpretation. It is not that “Euphrates” names multiple unrelated objects; it is how the action of drinking relates to the source of the water.

21. Prioritizing literal and conventional meaning

Treating the literal sense as primary does not require ignoring idiom, convention, or context. Equally, attention to convention does not erase every literal meaning in every setting.

A useful order of inquiry:
1. Is the literal meaning feasible in the present context?
2. Is it still used, or has ordinary speech abandoned it?
3. Is there an established figurative use?
4. Do the speaker's words, contextual clues, or legally fixed usage establish one meaning?

Some applications attributed to Abu Hanifa and his two students reflect different priorities among these considerations. Those results must be understood in their specific doctrinal contexts.

22. Agency for litigation and the scope of response

التوكيل بنفس الخصومة ينصرف إلى مطلق جواب الخصم
Authorization to conduct a dispute is discussed in relation to the full category of answers to the opposing party.

In litigation, an answer may include denial or admission. The passage examines what can be understood from agency “for the dispute itself.” Other issues concerning specific authorization to admit a claim are distinct and are not settled by this general semantic observation alone.

This is a historical usul illustration of scope of words, not a substitute for a contemporary power of attorney or the procedural rules of a particular legal system.

23. “This is my son” and manumission

إذا قال لعبده وهو أكبر سنا منه: هذا ابني
Suppose an owner says of an enslaved person older than himself, “This is my son.”

Given the ages, actual fatherhood is impossible. The legal-theoretical question is then whether a figurative meaning can generate a consequence such as manumission when the direct sense cannot hold.

The discussion assigns to Abu Hanifa room for figurative transfer and the resulting legal consequence, whereas the two companions do not derive that consequence in the same way from this impossible literal assertion. The disagreement concerns the validity and legal effect of figurative usage, not merely the physical fact that the slave is older.

24. Figurative meaning as a substitute in wording or in ruling

ثم المجاز عند أبي حنيفة خلف عن الحقيقة في حق اللفظ
For Abu Hanifa, figurative meaning substitutes for literal meaning with respect to the word's signification.

وعندهما: خلف عن الحقيقة في حق الحكم
For the two companions, the substitution is described in relation to the ruling associated with the original meaning.

This distinction asks a precise question: if the literal relation is itself impossible, may the expression nevertheless produce a legal consequence through an acceptable figurative meaning? Abu Hanifa's analysis places weight on transfer at the level of linguistic expression; the companions' analysis gives greater effect to the possibility of the original legal referent and its substitution.

The chapter uses “This is my son” when said of an enslaved person older than the speaker to illustrate the difference. Actual paternity is impossible, but Abu Hanifa's interpretation permits a manumission consequence by figurative transfer whereas the two companions do not derive it in the same way. The disagreement concerns conditions for effective figurative meaning.

25. Synthesis and boundary of the chapter

The central lesson is that legal consequences cannot be inferred from words without examining their conventional assignment, current usage, and contextual indicators.

Haqiqah is the assigned meaning; majaz is a transferred related meaning. The chapter states a particular restriction on combining the two in a single occurrence. An impossible literal sense cannot operate; an abandoned literal sense has yielded to customary usage; a living literal sense may compete with an established figurative sense, producing distinct juristic priorities.

The sale, bequest, oath, residence, litigation, and manumission cases show that semantic distinctions affect legal outcomes. The next chapter turns to the methods and justification of metaphorical transfer (istiʿarah).