The Fifth Premise
If figures of speech (mecaz) fall into the hand of the ignorance from that of learning, they are taken literally and open the door to superstition. It is like this:
whenever the dark left hand of ignorance seizes figures of speech and similes (teşbih) from the luminous right hand of knowledge, or when such figures are long‑lived, they acquire a literal meaning and lose their freshness and translucence. While being a cordial they turn into vinegar, and though once fresh and comely they grow old and withered.
Yes, it is the transparency of figurative language that allows the rays of reality to shine out from it. Once it is taken literally, it becomes opaque and obscures the original truth. Such a transformation is a natural law. If you want evidence for this, refer to the mysteries of the change and renewal of words, and their shared and synonymous meanings.
If you listen carefully, you will hear the following: Numerous words, tales, fantasies, and meanings which were to the taste of the people of early times have become old and vapid. Since they did not coincide with the childish caprices of the people of later times, they gave rise to the desire for renewal and the idea of invention, and bold desire for change. This rule governs in imaginings, meanings, and stories as it does in words. In which case, everything should not be judged according to its apparent meaning.
The mark of the investigative scholar is to be thorough, divest himself of the influences of time, enter the depths of the past, weigh up things on the scales of logic, and find the source of everything.
What made me aware of this was an eclipse of the moon when I was young. I asked my mother about it, and she replied: “A snake has swallowed the moon.” So I asked: “Why can you still see it?” So she said: “The snakes in the sky are semi‑transparent.”
See how a simile (teşbih) had become reality and with its interposition, obscured the reality. For employing a simile, astronomers called the intersections of the two arcs of the two imaginary circles formed by the moon’s orbit and the zodiac, the head and tail of the great serpent. Then when the moon passes either the head or the tail and the sun passes the other, the moon will be eclipsed by the interposition of the earth.
Gentle reader who is not bored with these confused words of mine! Study this Premise attentively too. Scrutinise it with a microscope. For numerous superstitions and contradictions have been born of this stock. Logic and rhetoric should be taken as the guide.
Conclusion
The true meaning should bear a stamp. What defines the stamp is the sheer beauty born of the balance between the aims of the Shari‘a. Figurative language (mecaz) is permissible if subject to the rules of rhetoric. For to look on a rhetorical figure as reality and reality as figurative, and to show them thus, is to strengthen the despotism of ignorance. However harmful the tendency to be negligent, which continually understanding everything literally gave rise to the misguided way of the literalists (zâhiriyyûn; Ar. ẓāhiriyyūn); so love of excess was even more harmful, for continually interpreting everything figuratively, it gave rise to the futile school of the esoterists (batınıyyûn; Ar. bāṭiniyyūn).
It is only the philosophy of the Shari‘a and rhetoric, and logic and science (hikmet) that will show the middle way and confute the two extremes. I say science (hikmet), because for the greater part it is good. It contains evil, but this is minor. It is an incontestable principle that to abandon a matter which is mostly good because of some minor evil is to perpetrate a greater evil. It is essential to choose the lesser of two evils. Yes, ancient philosophy contained little good, its superstitions were many, [it led to] minds losing their capacity, to the limiting of ideas due to blind imitation, and to ignorance ruling the mass of people. For these reasons later generations prohibited it to an extent. But relatively to ancient philosophy, philosophy now [modern science] contains much good from the material point of view, its lies are few; thought is free and learning predominates. In any event, every age has its ethos.