Discover the meaning of the term Al-mjaz (مجاز) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 2 min readWhat crosses over and passes from its coined locus to something else, by reason of a relation between them: either by the image, or by the well-known necessary meaning, or by nearness and contiguity; as the lion's name for the brave man, and the expressions by which intercourse is referred to indirectly (kinaya).
Its origin is majuz on the maf'al pattern, taken from al-jawaz meaning crossing: one says 'jaztu the river', meaning I crossed it; and majaz: a mim-form verbal noun valid for time, place, and event: it is either the crossing itself, or its place, or its time; the sense was transferred from this meaning to the permitted, which is the one who crosses.
The word used in a meaning other than that for which it was coined, one that fits the designation.
Passing from the entailed (malzum) to the entailing (lazim).
The name for what is intended by it other than its coinage, by a relation between them, as naming the brave man 'lion'; from jaza when transitive, like al-mawla meaning al-wali; so named because it crosses from the locus of the literal to the locus of the figurative (at-Ta'rifat, p. 214).
The name for what is intended by it other than what it was coined for, by a relation between the two, as naming the brave man 'lion.'
It is the word used outside its proper locus.