Discover the meaning of the term Isti'ara (استعارة) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 4 min readClaiming the literal sense in the thing, for exaggerating likeness, with omitting the compared’s mention: you say: I met a lion, meaning the brave man; when the comparer is named with the context it is called declarative, realistic istiana, as: I met a lion in the bath. When we say: death stretched, that is, hooked her claws on so-and-so, we liken death to the beast in slaying souls, their ruin, no split between harm and help, granting her claws without which the slaying is not complete: making real the likeness’ exaggeration. Death’s likeness to the beast is metaphor by allusion, and granting claws metaphor of imagination. Verb-metaphor is only dependent, as: the moment spoke.
Lexically: seeking the loan. Among rhetoric scholars: a figure whose use-relation is to other than what it was set for, by likeness: intending its use in that other for its resembling what it was set for. If the muzzle set for the camel’s muzzle is applied to man’s nose, intending likening to the camel’s muzzle in thickness, it is a metaphor; if intended is applying the restricted to the unrestricted, as applying moursan to the nose without intent of likening, it is free figure. It appears the one wording toward the one sense may be metaphor or free figure. (Moursan): place-name, the halter’s place; the nose, conditioned on being tethered, attesting that restriction’s regard by its derivation from the halter. (In al-Qamous): the halter: the rope’s holder, and what is of halter on nose. Then they differed whether metaphor is linguistic or intellectual: the majority: linguistic, meaning the word used other than set for, by resemblance-relation; said: intellectual figure, not meaning attaching the act to other than its subject, as « spring sprouted the greens », but that the handling is intellectual not linguistic: it being applied to the compared only after claiming the compared’s entry into the comparer’s genus, making the brave man an individual of lion; the lion’s use for the said man is then, in what it was set for, interpretation and claim. Hence the Sayyid chérif as-Sanad said: istiana is claiming the literal sense in the thing for likeness’ exaggeration, you say: I met a lion, meaning the brave man. As-Sakkaki defined istiana: mentioning one of the two sides of likeness, compared or comparer, meaning by the named side and the left side claiming the compared’s entry into the comparer’s genus, as you say of the bath: a lion, meaning the brave man, claiming he is of lion’s genus; then some of the comparer’s properties are attributed him, becoming context of the figurative sense. You know the context turning from the literal meaning is indispensable in the linguistic figure as-Sakkaki divided into istiana and others. Often istiana is applied to the speaker’s act, the comparer’s name’s use for the compared; then it is in the verbal noun’s sense, derivation valid: the speaker borrower, the comparer’s word borrowed, the comparer’s sense borrowed of him, the compared’s sense borrowed for.
It is seeking the loan; the loan: transferring the use without recompense. See: « ariya ».
Making the thing to the thing by way of exaggeration.
Claiming the literal sense in the thing for likeness’ exaggeration, omitting the compared, as: I met a lion, meaning a brave man; when the comparer named with context, called declarative, realistic istiana, as: I met a lion in the bath.