according to whether it is unqualified or qualified. When something that changes the meaning is joined to a statement—such as a condition, an exception, or another qualification attached to it, as in His words:

“A thousand years less fifty”—

the expression as a whole literally denotes nine hundred and fifty years, according to the vast majority of people. Whoever calls this figurative usage is mistaken, for the expression as a whole has not been used outside its proper sense. The conventionally established verbal indicators accompanying an expression form an integral part of the statement. With these indicators, the statement does not admit two meanings, nor can the meaning they jointly convey validly be negated. This differs from using the word “lion” for a courageous man.

Nevertheless, whether one calls an expression literal or figurative is a merely verbal dispute. This is the basis on which some have denied figurative usage in language or in the Quran. None of the early generations or the imams spoke in these terms. The term majāz is not known to occur in the words of any of the imams except Imam Ahmad, who wrote in his Refutation of the Heretics and the Jahmiyyah: “This is an instance of majāz in the Quran.” The first to use this term at all was Abū ‘Ubaydah Ma‘mar ibn al-Muthannā, in his book Majāz al-Qur’ān (Modes of Expression in the Quran).

Among the earlier scholars, however, this meant what was permissible and acceptable in the language. They thus derived it from jawāz in the sense of permissibility, just as jurists speak of binding and nonbinding contracts. Many later scholars instead derived it from jawāz in the sense of crossing over: passing from a literal meaning to a figurative one. There is, moreover, no doubt that figurative usage may become so widespread and familiar that it becomes literal usage.