Suhaib Webb – Usul al Fiqh Lesson Thirteen The Figurative Part II
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Welcome back to our readings
and gleanings
from the Warakat of Imam,
Al Haramain Al Jawayni
in the
kind
of framework of the meta explanation of Imam
Al
Last time we talked about something super important
and that is he says
says
that speech is divided also into the literal
and figurative.
And we talked about the literal is hapiqa,
just an FYI, the word failla, the word
failla, that form hapiqa, the form failla
could mean fa'il or maf'ul for those of
you who are serious students of knowledge.
And I gave an example, ra'i to Asad
and Filghaba, I saw the lion in the
jungle. So here, obviously, this is the literal
meaning.
What is the definition for that?
Talked about this before. Right? Using a word
in its or with its original meaning.
And then we talked about majaz from mafal
ismakan,
right and how majaz means to literally pass
by something. So here I'm passing by the
literal meaning on to a figurative meaning, but
this can't be sloppy.
And that's why if I say for example,
Ra'aitu
asadaniyahtubu'alal
mimbar.
I saw a lion giving a sermon from
the pulpit. Obviously,
this is majaz.
How do you know that? Because I said
lion, but there's no way an actual lion
is giving the chotbah from the pulpit. So,
obviously, I'm talking about a brave person.
And as we noted before, the definition of
majaz,
It's very important.
So what that means is now I'm using
the word in a way that it's going
beyond its original usage.
I talked about the idea of Alakat.
Right?
I talked about
so instead of mentioning the cause, I mentioned
the outcome.
And I talked about
which means instead of mentioning
here here the cause, I mentioned the outcome.
Right? So
Right? So they eat
fire. Those are the outcomes, not the causes.
SubhanAllah.
If you think about these different alaqa,
you'll notice that they are all related to
meaning.
So we say that
half of Majaz, if you will, is related
to meaning
ziada, naxleisakimithlihishewasalqariya.
But there's a second component of majaz
that deals with comparisons.
So rhetoric is based on these three important
sciences and El Mual Bayan, the first one,
deals with the art of expression
and a component of this is comparisons.
If I say for example,
The khateb is like a lion.
This is mushaba
and mushaba.
The
is acid.
The
is katib.
So I'm saying the katib is like a
lion. This is from El Mo Bayan. El
Mo Bayan deals largely
with comparisons.
Tashbih.
Added to this is something called istiara,
which is a form of Mejaz. And Istiaara
is a little different. In Istiaara,
I'm going to cancel the Mosheb Berunbihi
and bring one of its qualities
and bring one of its qualities.
So for example, if I said
right? I took out,
I've left
and I brought a verb
that is something a katib does. This is
a higher level of tashbi.
So
I say as though I'm saying
But now I hid the word khatib
and brought sifam and sifatihi
and left the word asid
and this gives you even a more kind
of intense
illustration.
This is called istiara.
So Istiara
is a form of comparison
where what I'm comparing
is taken out and I bring one of
its attributes whether a verb or something that
is unique to it from adjectives, for example.
If I say
If I
say
I saw a lion in the battlefield
carrying weapons. Carrying weapons means the soldier is
like a lion. This is called.
Why is this
important? Because Imam Al Haramain says
So after talking about what's called Al Majaz
Al Mursal,
right, those first things,
Now we're moving into Istiara
And Istiara
is about
comparisons.
About
teshbih
where I take the
and I get rid of it and I
bring one of its qualities and I leave
them
So now
Can I give you an example of this
in the Quran?
Right?
So it is though it is saying that
while Islam
But here you took out
and you look you took out
iman or Islam
and you left these qualities
SubhanAllah.
So this is a form of Istiara.
I'm not gonna go into too much detail
about tabeiyeh and asliyeh and tamthiliayeh
and different types of Istiara,
but I just want you to know that
there's a form of
whose primary function is to talk about comparisons.
And it does so by erasing
the 2 kind of components of a comparative
sentence and rhetoric, the
and leaving the
and bringing one of the qualities
of the
So the sheikh, he says
and that's why Sayidna Imam Al Hatab ur
Rahim Uhullah he says
Saidna Imam Al Hataab says that any type
of Majaz that is
related to comparisons
is called
Okay?
Imam Al Haramain says something really really important.
He says
Right. He describes Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala a wall
right around the city
That wanted to fall.
This is as though it's saying
And what is the or
the
is
in the will.
In the Iradah
right I didn't talk about that I don't
want to make it too complicated.
But you read Wa'ayonqab
does a wall have irada? Does a wall
have will? Absolutely not. The jidaras
But
to
to, you know, intensify the meaning
and to allow us to picture
how dramatic the situation was,
We find Istia'ra here describing the jidar as
though it is hay.
The jidar has irada SubhanAllah.
Now he's explaining exactly what I told you,
Sayyidina Imam
Al HaTab says that Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la
is comparing,
the leaning over of this wall
and it's falling over
to the will of something which
was to fall over that's alive. And
we know that this is not the quality
of things which are not living. So this
is a form of majaz
that we're going to find the scholars of
Uso engage
especially when they talk about istiara
and how do you make istidlal?
How do you
use phrases
and sentences
that have istiara
when you're trying to prove something? What are
the rules for that? That's gonna come up
in the mawtawwalat
in the bigger books.
Then, Saydna Imam Al Khattab, he says something
important.
But before I go into that let's just
back it up. So we talked about Mejaz,
we just touched on it, we introduced what
is Mejaz, we talked about the different Alakat.
The first are Alakat and Morsal.
And then we went after that into the
comparisons,
right? And that is
But Imam Al Khattab makes a very important
point here he says
he said that you know the the the
expression of the writer meaning Imam Al Haramain
is kind of like a wrong assumption.
And what he's talking about is the statement
of Sayidina Imam
Awanakli.
And how he mentioned it mentions it as
a separate component of majaz.
He said this is this is an incorrect
assumption.
Why?
He said because every come every aspect, every
type of is so
is like an umbrella that covers all these
things. Isn't a separate component of majaz.
Knuckle is part of every aspect of majaz.
Every alaka, majaziah,
there is some kind of knuckle happening.
So what he's saying here is there was
no need to mention knuckle in isolation
because
All this falls under knuckle because the word
majaz means
knuckle.
Interesting,
Masha'Allah.
So he said because the meaning of Naqal
is to transfer one meaning to another or
as we talked about different components to another.
He says, you know, for example,
is
Naqal. Right? That takes us from a partial
comparison
to there is no comparison
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala because the word
kaaf means partial by the way I didn't
talk about this we'll get to that in
future.
And he says that, you know, the verse
right again is of
the meaning
of this verse from, you know, asking
people,
right, which is normal now to, like, I'm
asking the city.
Right? So the word used to mean the
place where people use the restroom. So now
it's being transferred from meaning,
that to now
someone actually their excrement. Right? So
Then He says, you know, the verse
in is a transfer
of the meaning of the word from that
to something which is living and has iurada
to something which isn't.
And it gives it the Surah as I
talked about earlier one of the purposes of
listiara
is what tasidul
afkar wal jamad
is to give like a physical representation
to ideas as well as
to,
you know, objects that have no sense of
intellect or acol or brain.
Then he says
Allahi this is a very important statement.
He says
He says something very important here that Ma'az
every aspect of majaz involves the transfer
of one word
to another. So the first to the second.
The first meaning to another meaning.
He said but at times
the actual form of the word doesn't change
like
right, the form of the word
doesn't change.
And he gives some examples of this, he
says. For example,
the transfer of the word
So for example the word acid when I
say acid in the in the jungle and
I saw an acid on the minbar the
word doesn't change.
And the same thing with the word
right so the same word
but the meaning changes and we talked about
that
before.
Because there's a lot more to say about
majaz
that we'll talk about in the future but
just what I wanted you to take from
this is that there's this idea of mejaz
that is going to play an incredible role.
We talk about Mathahibs
and different opinions and istidlal
in the future. Next time, inshallah, we're going
to talk about commands.