Sharh Durus al-Balagha by Ibn Uthaymeen (شرح دروس البلاغة) — Page 267

Line-by-line translation · المعاني

وَكَالْأَصَابِعِ الْمُسْتَعْمَلَةِ فِي الْأَنَامِلِ فِي قَوْلِهِ تَعَالَى: ﴿يَجْعَلُونَ أَصَابِعَهُمْ فِي آذَانِهِمْ﴾ فَإِنَّهَا مُسْتَعْمَلَةٌ فِي غَيْرِ مَا وُضِعَتْ لَهُ، لِعَلَاقَةِ أَنَّ الْأُنْمُلَةَ جُزْءٌ مِنَ الْأَصْبُعِ، فَاسْتُعْمِلَ الْكُلُّ فِي الْجُزْءِ، وَقَرِينَةُ ذَلِكَ أَنَّهُ لَا يُمْكِنُ جَعْلُ الْأَصَابِعِ بِتَمَامِهَا فِي الْآذَانِ.

And like the fingers used to mean the fingertips in His saying, the Almighty: 'They put their fingers in their ears,' for it is used for something other than what it was coined for, due to the relationship that the fingertip is a part of the finger, so the whole was used for the part, and the evidence for that is that it is impossible to put the fingers in their entirety into the ears.

وَلِهَذَا فَالْكَلَامُ عِنْدَ النَّحْوِيِّينَ - لَفْظٌ مُفِيدٌ: كَلَامُنَا لَفْظٌ مُفِيدٌ.

For this reason, speech according to the grammarians is a useful utterance: 'Our speech is a useful utterance.'

يَقُولُ الْمُؤَلِّفُ - رَحِمَهُ اللَّهُ -: الدُّرَرُ هُنَا مَجَازٌ؛ لِأَنَّهَا لَيْسَتْ هِيَ الدُّرَرَ بِمَعْنَى اللآلِئِ فَهُمْ لَا يَتَكَلَّمُونَ بِاللآلِئِ، وَإِنَّمَا يَتَكَلَّمُونَ بِكَلِمَاتٍ تُشْبِهُ اللآلِئَ فِي الْحُسْنِ فَأُطْلِقَ عَلَى هَذِهِ الْكَلِمَاتِ دُرَرًا، فَلِهَذَا كَانَتْ مَجَازًا.

The author—may God have mercy on him—says: 'Pearls' here is a metaphor, because they are not pearls in the sense of actual gems, for they do not speak with gems; rather, they speak with words that resemble gems in beauty, so these words were called pearls, and for this reason, it was a metaphor.

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Vocabulary · المفردات (11 verbs · 31 nouns)

• اِسْتَعْمَلَ — to use
• جَعَلَ — to insert
• وَضَعَ — to place
• إِصْبَع — finger
• أُنْمُلَة — fingertip
• قَوْل — saying