The Seventh Matter

Know that if imagination has a place in a style or literary device (uslûb), it definitely has to sprout from a seed of truth, and to be like a mirror reflecting onto non-material matters (ma'nawiyat) the physical laws and causes and effects in the chains of external beings. The philosophy of grammar (al-nahw), the works of which contain the above-mentioned relationships, is also of this sort - just as it is said that the nominative is the right of the doer, for the powerful takes the powerful. You can make further examples in the same way.

The Eighth Matter

Know that Sibawayh¹ stated categorically that particles that express numerous meanings like 'from' (min), 'to' (ilâ), and 'by' (al-ba), and others, in fact express only a single, unchanging, meaning. It is rather that they absorb a suspended meaning related to the context (lit. station - maqâm) and aim, drawing it into themselves, and their original meanings become forms or modes of expression (uslûb) for their guests. Similarly, when someone well-versed in the science of language studies these closely, he knows that a shared word [bearing several meanings] mostly has a single meaning. Then, because of the relationships between them, the meanings have become similies and some have become metaphorical, and others, becoming part of the common language, have lost their original meanings (haqâ'iq 'urfiyya). In this way single words have come to have numerous meanings. The word al-'ayn, which means 'eye' or 'spring,' was applied to the sun also, figuratively, for by means of it the celestial world looks down on the lower world, or because the water of life which is its light, floods down from that source onto lofty white peaks. You can make analogies with this for the rest.

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1'Umar ibn 'Uthmân Sibawayh (d. 796 H.), a leading authority on Arabic grammar