Isti'aare Ka Khauf

The people who initiated the movement to imitate the West in our literature during the nineteenth century had never actually read Western literature themselves. Having heard it translated by others, they became acquainted not with the literature itself, but merely with a few ideas. Since they were deeply awed by the conquering nation and looked upon everything they did with envy, these foreign ideas seemed weightier and more profound than their own. Even if it was never explicitly stated, a general consensus formed regarding literature: that literature is simply something that contains very good and useful ideas.

Literary style was considered to have no significance at all, or at most, a secondary one. The best style was determined to be one where the language was simple, the sentences short, and the prose clear, fluent, and uncomplicated. On top of this, it was assumed that these qualities could be cultivated through sheer willpower, practice, sincerity, or a sense of empathy for the nation. The idea, as Froude stated, that a writer's style is their autobiography, could never have even crossed the minds of our reformers. In fact, even if they had been told this, they would not have understood it, nor would it have been acceptable to them. Furthermore, utilitarianism and rationalism were highly popular in those days. Sir Syed and his companions were exerting all their energy to prove that the commandments of Islam were based on reason and were highly practical for worldly life. As for where the inherent irrationality in human nature would go—they did not worry about that in the slightest.

When people reduced the Holy Quran to a Dale Carnegie guidebook, literature, poor thing, was left as a helpless victim to be treated however one pleased. Consequently, a new sharia was imposed on literature, and three specific demands were made of it: (1) Literature must be impactful—that is, it should stir the emotions obviously and immediately. (2) It must be based on reality and confined within the boundaries of reason. (3) It must present useful and practical ideas. When classical Persian and Urdu literature was sifted through the sieve of these principles, it was found severely lacking. What is more, even the poor, simple-hearted Maulana Hali, who himself had said:

*Sakht mushkil hai shewa-e-tasleem*

*Hum bhi aakhir ko jee churane lage*

[The path of submission is incredibly difficult;

Eventually, even I began to shy away from it.]

...even he developed the complaint that a vast portion of our literature is devoid of emotion. If this literature is devoid of emotion, then why? What else is there in place of emotion? Despite this lack of emotion, is this literature actually literature or not? Hali’s generation never pondered these questions. A question that could not arise in the mind of Mr. Macaulay—how could it possibly enter the minds of these poor souls? Within his own limits, Hali composed tremendous poetry. However, his personality was so rigid that he remained completely indifferent to several other kinds of poetry. He certainly believed in emotions, but poor Maulana Hali was so terrified of ecstatic absorption (*jazb*) that he could not muster the courage to give his intellect even the slightest leeway. As an example of dryness, he presented this verse by Shah Naseer:

*Churai chadar-e-mahtab shab maikash ne Jaihoon par*

*Katora subh daurane laga khursheed gardoon par*

[At night, the wine-drinker stole the moonlight's sheet over the river Oxus;

By morning, the sun began to pass the drinking bowl across the sky.]

In his view, this is not a verse but a riddle—as if a riddle cannot possess poetic quality. After all, there is a distinct pleasure in detaching the mind from emotions and playing with objects and ideas purely for the sake of play. But since this provides neither emotional satisfaction nor any material for the welfare and betterment of the nation, the Maulana kept a wide berth from such pleasures. The acute awareness of the nation's decline and the constant anxiety for reform had further stifled him and others like him. Long story short, they could not fathom any other reason for the flaws they perceived in classical poetry and prose; they could only conclude that our literature was overloaded with rhetorical devices, and overflowing with far-fetched similes and metaphors. Therefore, our literature was deemed inferior to Western literature. On the one hand, Hali composed a verse like this:

*Ik umr chahiye keh gawara ho nesh-e-ishq*

*Rakhi hai aaj lazzat-e-zakhm-e-jigar kahan*

[A lifetime is needed to endure the sting of love;

Where can one find the relish of a wounded heart today?]

On the other hand, getting caught up in the cycle of literary criticism, he defined metaphor in such terms that one would be needlessly agitated. According to him, a metaphor has three benefits: (1) Through it, a lengthy matter can be expressed in brief words. (2) A dry and dull subject can be articulated with brilliance. In the expression of certain emotions and ideas, the original language falls short and ordinary language weeps. In such places, metaphor creates pleasure and impact in a verse. On top of this, Hali warned that if a metaphor is beyond comprehension, the poetic essence is lost.

The summary of Hali’s entire argument is that the original language is one thing, and metaphor is another. One could technically get by without metaphors, but they are useful because they make a dry and dull statement more palatable. The only condition is that one must not step outside the boundaries of reason. But, sir, what if we wish to express an experience that is beyond reason, or one that relates to the biological processes of human existence—what should we do then? Take, for example, Bedil’s oft-quoted hemistich:

*Che qiyamati ke nami rasi ze-kinar-e-ma ba-kinar-e-ma*

[What a calamity it is that you do not reach from my embrace into my embrace.]

Who knows whether this even contains a metaphor or not. Regardless of what it is, is it anywhere close to reason and comprehension? By being beyond comprehension, has this verse merely become a riddle? If Hali had not been so preoccupied with opening an Aligarh within literature, he would have found such elements in his own literary tradition, the contemplation of which could have helped him understand the true essence of metaphor. In any case, the narrow-minded rationalism and extreme caution of critics like him instilled a fear of metaphor in the hearts of the Urdu-speaking world. Walking down this narrow path of imitating the West, a day finally arrived when one of our critics, for instance, declared the following verse to be absurd:

*Gaye woh din keh tha shor-e-anadil sahn-e-gulshan mein*

*Khizaan ka waqt hai baithe hue kawwe urate hain*

[Gone are the days when the songs of nightingales filled the garden's courtyard;

It is the time of autumn now, we sit and shoo away the crows.]

No matter how good a poet Hali himself may have been, and no matter how fine an aesthetic sense he possessed for a specific kind of poetry, this aesthetic blindness originated with him. Furthermore, this is not merely an issue of literature. A person or a community that fears metaphor is, in reality, afraid of the manifestations and forces of life; they are terrified of living. Hali, at the very least, still had the courage to confess:

*Hum ko bahaar mein bhi sir-e-gulistan nah tha*

*Yaani khizaan se pehle dil shadmaan nah tha*

[Even in spring, I had no desire to visit the garden;

Meaning, even before autumn arrived, my heart was not joyous.]

Those who came after him kept running away from life, all while constantly invoking the name of life.

As I mentioned earlier, Hali’s fundamental mistake was treating metaphor as something separate from real language. By the term real language, he likely meant that language inherently exists to express those emotions and thoughts over which our conscious mind has complete control. However, the conscious mind is neither the most fundamental nor the primary component of human existence, nor are its means of expression limited solely to language. A human being is not merely a soul or a mind; first and foremost, they are a biological system. Furthermore, as a medium of expression, language holds a secondary status in our collective and individual evolution, acquired only after passing through several stages of development. A child first expresses their experiences through physical movements, and even when they learn to speak, their experiences are not rational or intellectual, but instinctual. Therefore, in both the collective and individual life of humanity, the first experiences language must grapple with are not the philosophies of the rise and fall of nations, but physical realities and the clash of instincts. Even after becoming a historian, a social reformer, or a philosopher, and even while engaging in the most profound philosophical discourse, a person remains entangled in a struggle with these instinctual forces—whether they are consciously aware of it or not.

Through the intellect, a person tries to escape their instincts. Yet, instinct itself lies hidden in the very ambush of the mind. In short, whatever sentence we utter contains forgotten or repressed experiences, concealing the experience of a lifetime. In other words, every single sentence we speak is a metaphor. There is no such thing as real language distinct from metaphor, because language itself is a metaphor. Since language is born from the attempt to find a connection and correspondence between internal experiences and external objects, or from making external objects stand in for internal experiences, almost every word is essentially a dead metaphor. This is what real language truly is.

Here, you might object that if every word is a metaphor, then discussing metaphor as a separate concept is pointless. Or you might argue that students of literature have no business with metaphors whose meanings can only be deciphered by psychologists. We are only concerned with what we consciously recognize as metaphors—that is, the metaphors individually created by a poet or a prose writer. Fair enough; to distinguish them from ordinary words, let us call them living metaphors. However, both living and dead metaphors are ultimately created through the exact same process and according to the exact same principle. The process that gives birth to a metaphor is identical to the process that gives birth to a dream. A person simultaneously wants to accept their experiences and reject them. The compromise between these two opposing tendencies results in a situation where the experience is not expressed directly—nor can it be. Instead, an external object becomes a substitute for the experience. Whether this process brings a dream or a metaphor into existence, it will encompass our consciousness, our personal unconscious, the collective unconscious, our feelings, emotions, and thoughts, alongside whatever aspects of our surroundings we have absorbed into ourselves.

Therefore, to create a metaphor, a person must possess two kinds of courage: first, the courage to look their unconscious in the eye; and second, the courage to step out of the narrow cell of their ego and establish a connection with their surroundings. The question regarding a metaphor is not whether it falls within the bounds of logic or plausibility. The real test is how well the creator of the metaphor has managed to connect these disparate elements, dissolving them into one another to forge a new and meaningful unity. This is not merely a matter of spicing up a dry and dull subject; in my view, this is the very essence of expression. Here, even the distinction between poetry and prose becomes irrelevant.

After Flaubert and Joyce, literary criticism can no longer treat these two forms as entirely separate. Whether a person is writing poetry or prose, if they truly wish to create, they have no choice but to accept both the internal and external worlds and seamlessly blend the two. The inevitable result of this process is the birth of a metaphor. Metaphor seeps through generations of human experience. It is not a matter of mere intellect. Just as a healthy person—or one striving for health—cannot help but dream, the creation of metaphors is an indispensable function of literature. It is a different matter altogether if a person chooses to reject this process or dam it up, thereby stunting their own creative potential.

Dr. Johnson once remarked about Swift that the rogue never risks a metaphor. While Johnson was referring to a specific prose style, his remark inadvertently captured a profound psychological truth. For some people, metaphor truly represents a tremendous danger. Terrified by the life-giving yet destructive forces of instinct, they construct a narrow, hyper-rational system for themselves, or they barricade themselves within the fortress of the intellect. Because metaphor transcends intellect and logic, the moment a metaphor surfaces in their minds, their entire system of living is thrown into jeopardy. Such individuals can only survive under very specific conditions. The moment those conditions are removed, their lives fall into chaos. Therefore, the fear of metaphor is, in reality, the fear of non-rational experiences. To turn away from metaphor is to turn away from life itself.

As I have stated, metaphor is born from the unhesitating acceptance of both one's internal experiences and the external world. If a person becomes entirely entangled within themselves, or so consumed by self-love that they sever all ties with the external world, they lose the capacity to accept their own experiences. In such a state, let alone creating metaphors, they become incapable of any creative work whatsoever—they might not even be able to earn a basic livelihood.

If a writer uses no metaphors at all, or uses very few, it indicates that they have only been able to accept a tiny fraction of their experiences, and have completely lost the capacity to absorb new ones. In such a state, they might manage to write something, but they will ultimately end up like Hali. Alternatively, to become a great writer, such an individual must possess a personality strong enough to acquire new experiences and, rather than letting them shatter their psychological framework, forcefully compress and integrate them into that very system. Such a person can indeed become a great writer, much like Swift, but their creative faculties never fully blossom. Furthermore, the price they pay to maintain this hyper-rational system is exorbitant—just as Swift himself eventually descended into madness. There is one more thing to keep in mind. Even if a writer of such magnitude consciously avoids metaphors, and we find no obvious metaphors in their writing, their entire poem or story will, in itself, function as one overarching metaphor. The tale of Gulliver that Swift wrote is not just a metaphor; it is a profound myth. It is absolutely impossible for someone to possess Swift’s masterful grip on both the internal and external worlds and yet fail to create a metaphor in one form or another.

In contrast to these scenarios, there is also the possibility that a writer might overload their work with metaphors. This would imply that such an individual is desperate to acquire ever-new experiences but is unable to organize them, and the experiences have spiraled out of their control. Alternatively, if metaphors are being used gratuitously and forcefully, it could indicate a disconnect between the writer's intellect and emotions. Their mind might merely be playing with ideas and objects for amusement, or engaging in a form of intellectual self-indulgence. The final, and most valuable, scenario is when metaphors are used not merely to express experiences, but to discipline and organize them. Ultimately, the presence of metaphors indicates that the writer possesses, to some degree, the capacity to accept their experiences, acquire new ones, and, if necessary, dismantle their old mental framework to construct a new one.

Now, let us consider what is achieved through metaphor. The very first thing is that it revives our forgotten experiences. It provides access to the wellsprings of power within us that lie buried beneath the soil of intellect and reason. More importantly, however, metaphor bridges the divide between emotion and thought, fusing them together. It is the medium through which the conscious and the subconscious, body and mind, individual and society, and humanity and the universe are united. Whether its effect is long-lasting or not, metaphor provides a cure—even if only temporary—for a fragmented personality. If human existence ever appears as a unified whole, it is within the metaphor.

Maulana Rumi has said that when love enters the heart, narcissism flees. The same is true of metaphor. Narcissism and metaphor are antithetical to one another, because metaphor is the act of finding a correspondence between one's personal experience and external objects. The only person who fears metaphor is one who remains stubbornly clinging to themselves and views the awareness and perception of the external universe as an affliction. The very use of metaphor implies that a person has found the courage to step out of the dark cell of self-obsession and move toward the universe. Therefore, I would argue that only someone capable of true love can truly use a metaphor. If you need proof, read Shakespeare's *Romeo and Juliet*.

The moment Romeo falls in love with Juliet, even the most grotesque things in the world become metaphors for love to him. Romeo's love was not some dry, lifeless subject that he was trying to spice up with the help of a couple of metaphors. This was the actual language of that love. Upon falling in love, his self-obsession vanished so completely that he began to embrace the most insignificant of things. A love for the universe and metaphors flooded Romeo's heart and mind simultaneously, because even if we use metaphors without a pre-existing love for the external universe, the very act compels us to love it. The fundamental condition of metaphor is to absorb even the ugly things of the universe into oneself, and to become absorbed in them. Metaphor is the medium through which humanity and the universe dissolve into one another. Through this process, the very essence of things is transformed—as is our own essence—and both humanity and the universe become components of a magnificent unity. Naziri has expressed this exact truth through a metaphor:

Ke jila yafta az khaar-e-mughilaan gashtam

[That I attained my luster from the thorns of the desert acacia]

Obviously, establishing such a profound connection with the universe involves not only joy but also pain and sorrow. The universe coaxes us closer, yet it also terrifies and drives us away. This very amalgamation of joy and sorrow is the soul of metaphor. This sorrow and joy are beyond ordinary comprehension; they transcend intellect. That is why a metaphor only truly becomes a metaphor by being beyond ordinary comprehension—even if Maulana Hali cannot tolerate it.

Aside from love, the second capacity a person must possess for metaphor is humility. That is, they must not consider the principle of their own existence to be the sole principle of life. Metaphor inherently implies that multiple principles of existence are simultaneously at work in the universe, possessing both differences and similarities. And despite their apparent contradictions, they can absorb into one another to form a greater unity. For example, Balzac has compared the constructed buildings of Paris to the steppes of Russia, and the cobblestones of the street to a sea of raging white waves. Both of these comparisons seem incomprehensible and absurd, yet through metaphor, Balzac has juxtaposed two principles of existence. On one side is nature, and on the other, the artificial life of the city. By pointing out the resemblance between these two scenes, Balzac illustrates that while city dwellers have severed their lives from nature, their sheer intensity of life has endowed even artificial things with such power and form that they rival nature itself.

Another meaning derived from this is that no matter how unnatural an environment humans create for themselves, the human soul will interpret it in the terms of nature, ultimately submerging that unnatural environment back into nature. Now, let Maulana Hali explain how all these things could possibly be said in literal language. Before we conclude, let us look at one more example.

Proust has compared hotel tablecloths to altar cloths bathed in the light of the setting sun. According to Hali's principles, this simile is also inappropriate, far-fetched, and beyond comprehension, because a hotel lacks the sanctity of an altar. But Proust is suggesting that for some people, worldly life elevates to the status of a religion—and in a highly innocent manner. Like religion, this too is a principle of life, and therefore worthy of respect. Furthermore, just as religion demands sacrifices, worldly refinement also exacts great sacrifices. Proust's novel is filled with such instances. Thus, this metaphor is comic on one hand, and tragic on the other. Proust has encapsulated his entire novel within this single metaphor. Bringing together such contradictory principles and forces of existence and transforming their very nature is the work of metaphor alone.

So, was I wrong to say that those who shy away from metaphor are, in fact, afraid of the forces of life? Because they lack the courage to absorb the ever-new realities of experience, they feel threatened by anything illogical. And metaphor inevitably drags illogical and incomprehensible experiences along with it. Therefore, metaphor truly is something to be feared.

Well, if an odd writer here or there fears metaphor, let them. But if generations upon generations of writers tremble at the sight of metaphor for a hundred years, what is the resulting outcome? Now, don't make me spell everything out for you.

The people who initiated the movement to imitate the West in our literature during the nineteenth century had never actually read Western literature themselves. Having heard it translated by others, they became acquainted not with the literature itself, but merely with a few ideas. Since they were deeply awed by the conquering nation and looked upon everything they did with envy, these foreign ideas seemed weightier and more profound than their own. Even if it was never explicitly stated, a general consensus formed regarding literature: that literature is simply something that contains very good and useful ideas.

Literary style was considered to have no significance at all, or at most, a secondary one. The best style was determined to be one where the language was simple, the sentences short, and the prose clear, fluent, and uncomplicated. On top of this, it was assumed that these qualities could be cultivated through sheer willpower, practice, sincerity, or a sense of empathy for the nation. The idea, as Froude stated, that a writer's style is their autobiography, could never have even crossed the minds of our reformers. In fact, even if they had been told this, they would not have understood it, nor would it have been acceptable to them. Furthermore, utilitarianism and rationalism were highly popular in those days. Sir Syed and his companions were exerting all their energy to prove that the commandments of Islam were based on reason and were highly practical for worldly life. As for where the inherent irrationality in human nature would go—they did not worry about that in the slightest.

When people reduced the Holy Quran to a Dale Carnegie guidebook, literature, poor thing, was left as a helpless victim to be treated however one pleased. Consequently, a new sharia was imposed on literature, and three specific demands were made of it: (1) Literature must be impactful—that is, it should stir the emotions obviously and immediately. (2) It must be based on reality and confined within the boundaries of reason. (3) It must present useful and practical ideas. When classical Persian and Urdu literature was sifted through the sieve of these principles, it was found severely lacking. What is more, even the poor, simple-hearted Maulana Hali, who himself had said:

*Sakht mushkil hai shewa-e-tasleem*

*Hum bhi aakhir ko jee churane lage*

[The path of submission is incredibly difficult;

Eventually, even I began to shy away from it.]

...even he developed the complaint that a vast portion of our literature is devoid of emotion. If this literature is devoid of emotion, then why? What else is there in place of emotion? Despite this lack of emotion, is this literature actually literature or not? Hali’s generation never pondered these questions. A question that could not arise in the mind of Mr. Macaulay—how could it possibly enter the minds of these poor souls? Within his own limits, Hali composed tremendous poetry. However, his personality was so rigid that he remained completely indifferent to several other kinds of poetry. He certainly believed in emotions, but poor Maulana Hali was so terrified of ecstatic absorption (*jazb*) that he could not muster the courage to give his intellect even the slightest leeway. As an example of dryness, he presented this verse by Shah Naseer:

*Churai chadar-e-mahtab shab maikash ne Jaihoon par*

*Katora subh daurane laga khursheed gardoon par*

[At night, the wine-drinker stole the moonlight's sheet over the river Oxus;

By morning, the sun began to pass the drinking bowl across the sky.]

In his view, this is not a verse but a riddle—as if a riddle cannot possess poetic quality. After all, there is a distinct pleasure in detaching the mind from emotions and playing with objects and ideas purely for the sake of play. But since this provides neither emotional satisfaction nor any material for the welfare and betterment of the nation, the Maulana kept a wide berth from such pleasures. The acute awareness of the nation's decline and the constant anxiety for reform had further stifled him and others like him. Long story short, they could not fathom any other reason for the flaws they perceived in classical poetry and prose; they could only conclude that our literature was overloaded with rhetorical devices, and overflowing with far-fetched similes and metaphors. Therefore, our literature was deemed inferior to Western literature. On the one hand, Hali composed a verse like this:

*Ik umr chahiye keh gawara ho nesh-e-ishq*

*Rakhi hai aaj lazzat-e-zakhm-e-jigar kahan*

[A lifetime is needed to endure the sting of love;

Where can one find the relish of a wounded heart today?]

On the other hand, getting caught up in the cycle of literary criticism, he defined metaphor in such terms that one would be needlessly agitated. According to him, a metaphor has three benefits: (1) Through it, a lengthy matter can be expressed in brief words. (2) A dry and dull subject can be articulated with brilliance. In the expression of certain emotions and ideas, the original language falls short and ordinary language weeps. In such places, metaphor creates pleasure and impact in a verse. On top of this, Hali warned that if a metaphor is beyond comprehension, the poetic essence is lost.

The summary of Hali’s entire argument is that the original language is one thing, and metaphor is another. One could technically get by without metaphors, but they are useful because they make a dry and dull statement more palatable. The only condition is that one must not step outside the boundaries of reason. But, sir, what if we wish to express an experience that is beyond reason, or one that relates to the biological processes of human existence—what should we do then? Take, for example, Bedil’s oft-quoted hemistich:

*Che qiyamati ke nami rasi ze-kinar-e-ma ba-kinar-e-ma*

[What a calamity it is that you do not reach from my embrace into my embrace.]

Who knows whether this even contains a metaphor or not. Regardless of what it is, is it anywhere close to reason and comprehension? By being beyond comprehension, has this verse merely become a riddle? If Hali had not been so preoccupied with opening an Aligarh within literature, he would have found such elements in his own literary tradition, the contemplation of which could have helped him understand the true essence of metaphor. In any case, the narrow-minded rationalism and extreme caution of critics like him instilled a fear of metaphor in the hearts of the Urdu-speaking world. Walking down this narrow path of imitating the West, a day finally arrived when one of our critics, for instance, declared the following verse to be absurd:

*Gaye woh din keh tha shor-e-anadil sahn-e-gulshan mein*

*Khizaan ka waqt hai baithe hue kawwe urate hain*

[Gone are the days when the songs of nightingales filled the garden's courtyard;

It is the time of autumn now, we sit and shoo away the crows.]

No matter how good a poet Hali himself may have been, and no matter how fine an aesthetic sense he possessed for a specific kind of poetry, this aesthetic blindness originated with him. Furthermore, this is not merely an issue of literature. A person or a community that fears metaphor is, in reality, afraid of the manifestations and forces of life; they are terrified of living. Hali, at the very least, still had the courage to confess:

*Hum ko bahaar mein bhi sir-e-gulistan nah tha*

*Yaani khizaan se pehle dil shadmaan nah tha*

[Even in spring, I had no desire to visit the garden;

Meaning, even before autumn arrived, my heart was not joyous.]

Those who came after him kept running away from life, all while constantly invoking the name of life.

As I mentioned earlier, Hali’s fundamental mistake was treating metaphor as something separate from real language. By the term real language, he likely meant that language inherently exists to express those emotions and thoughts over which our conscious mind has complete control. However, the conscious mind is neither the most fundamental nor the primary component of human existence, nor are its means of expression limited solely to language. A human being is not merely a soul or a mind; first and foremost, they are a biological system. Furthermore, as a medium of expression, language holds a secondary status in our collective and individual evolution, acquired only after passing through several stages of development. A child first expresses their experiences through physical movements, and even when they learn to speak, their experiences are not rational or intellectual, but instinctual. Therefore, in both the collective and individual life of humanity, the first experiences language must grapple with are not the philosophies of the rise and fall of nations, but physical realities and the clash of instincts. Even after becoming a historian, a social reformer, or a philosopher, and even while engaging in the most profound philosophical discourse, a person remains entangled in a struggle with these instinctual forces—whether they are consciously aware of it or not.

Through the intellect, a person tries to escape their instincts. Yet, instinct itself lies hidden in the very ambush of the mind. In short, whatever sentence we utter contains forgotten or repressed experiences, concealing the experience of a lifetime. In other words, every single sentence we speak is a metaphor. There is no such thing as real language distinct from metaphor, because language itself is a metaphor. Since language is born from the attempt to find a connection and correspondence between internal experiences and external objects, or from making external objects stand in for internal experiences, almost every word is essentially a dead metaphor. This is what real language truly is.

Here, you might object that if every word is a metaphor, then discussing metaphor as a separate concept is pointless. Or you might argue that students of literature have no business with metaphors whose meanings can only be deciphered by psychologists. We are only concerned with what we consciously recognize as metaphors—that is, the metaphors individually created by a poet or a prose writer. Fair enough; to distinguish them from ordinary words, let us call them living metaphors. However, both living and dead metaphors are ultimately created through the exact same process and according to the exact same principle. The process that gives birth to a metaphor is identical to the process that gives birth to a dream. A person simultaneously wants to accept their experiences and reject them. The compromise between these two opposing tendencies results in a situation where the experience is not expressed directly—nor can it be. Instead, an external object becomes a substitute for the experience. Whether this process brings a dream or a metaphor into existence, it will encompass our consciousness, our personal unconscious, the collective unconscious, our feelings, emotions, and thoughts, alongside whatever aspects of our surroundings we have absorbed into ourselves.

Therefore, to create a metaphor, a person must possess two kinds of courage: first, the courage to look their unconscious in the eye; and second, the courage to step out of the narrow cell of their ego and establish a connection with their surroundings. The question regarding a metaphor is not whether it falls within the bounds of logic or plausibility. The real test is how well the creator of the metaphor has managed to connect these disparate elements, dissolving them into one another to forge a new and meaningful unity. This is not merely a matter of spicing up a dry and dull subject; in my view, this is the very essence of expression. Here, even the distinction between poetry and prose becomes irrelevant.

After Flaubert and Joyce, literary criticism can no longer treat these two forms as entirely separate. Whether a person is writing poetry or prose, if they truly wish to create, they have no choice but to accept both the internal and external worlds and seamlessly blend the two. The inevitable result of this process is the birth of a metaphor. Metaphor seeps through generations of human experience. It is not a matter of mere intellect. Just as a healthy person—or one striving for health—cannot help but dream, the creation of metaphors is an indispensable function of literature. It is a different matter altogether if a person chooses to reject this process or dam it up, thereby stunting their own creative potential.

Dr. Johnson once remarked about Swift that the rogue never risks a metaphor. While Johnson was referring to a specific prose style, his remark inadvertently captured a profound psychological truth. For some people, metaphor truly represents a tremendous danger. Terrified by the life-giving yet destructive forces of instinct, they construct a narrow, hyper-rational system for themselves, or they barricade themselves within the fortress of the intellect. Because metaphor transcends intellect and logic, the moment a metaphor surfaces in their minds, their entire system of living is thrown into jeopardy. Such individuals can only survive under very specific conditions. The moment those conditions are removed, their lives fall into chaos. Therefore, the fear of metaphor is, in reality, the fear of non-rational experiences. To turn away from metaphor is to turn away from life itself.

As I have stated, metaphor is born from the unhesitating acceptance of both one's internal experiences and the external world. If a person becomes entirely entangled within themselves, or so consumed by self-love that they sever all ties with the external world, they lose the capacity to accept their own experiences. In such a state, let alone creating metaphors, they become incapable of any creative work whatsoever—they might not even be able to earn a basic livelihood.

If a writer uses no metaphors at all, or uses very few, it indicates that they have only been able to accept a tiny fraction of their experiences, and have completely lost the capacity to absorb new ones. In such a state, they might manage to write something, but they will ultimately end up like Hali. Alternatively, to become a great writer, such an individual must possess a personality strong enough to acquire new experiences and, rather than letting them shatter their psychological framework, forcefully compress and integrate them into that very system. Such a person can indeed become a great writer, much like Swift, but their creative faculties never fully blossom. Furthermore, the price they pay to maintain this hyper-rational system is exorbitant—just as Swift himself eventually descended into madness. There is one more thing to keep in mind. Even if a writer of such magnitude consciously avoids metaphors, and we find no obvious metaphors in their writing, their entire poem or story will, in itself, function as one overarching metaphor. The tale of Gulliver that Swift wrote is not just a metaphor; it is a profound myth. It is absolutely impossible for someone to possess Swift’s masterful grip on both the internal and external worlds and yet fail to create a metaphor in one form or another.

In contrast to these scenarios, there is also the possibility that a writer might overload their work with metaphors. This would imply that such an individual is desperate to acquire ever-new experiences but is unable to organize them, and the experiences have spiraled out of their control. Alternatively, if metaphors are being used gratuitously and forcefully, it could indicate a disconnect between the writer's intellect and emotions. Their mind might merely be playing with ideas and objects for amusement, or engaging in a form of intellectual self-indulgence. The final, and most valuable, scenario is when metaphors are used not merely to express experiences, but to discipline and organize them. Ultimately, the presence of metaphors indicates that the writer possesses, to some degree, the capacity to accept their experiences, acquire new ones, and, if necessary, dismantle their old mental framework to construct a new one.

Now, let us consider what is achieved through metaphor. The very first thing is that it revives our forgotten experiences. It provides access to the wellsprings of power within us that lie buried beneath the soil of intellect and reason. More importantly, however, metaphor bridges the divide between emotion and thought, fusing them together. It is the medium through which the conscious and the subconscious, body and mind, individual and society, and humanity and the universe are united. Whether its effect is long-lasting or not, metaphor provides a cure—even if only temporary—for a fragmented personality. If human existence ever appears as a unified whole, it is within the metaphor.

Maulana Rumi has said that when love enters the heart, narcissism flees. The same is true of metaphor. Narcissism and metaphor are antithetical to one another, because metaphor is the act of finding a correspondence between one's personal experience and external objects. The only person who fears metaphor is one who remains stubbornly clinging to themselves and views the awareness and perception of the external universe as an affliction. The very use of metaphor implies that a person has found the courage to step out of the dark cell of self-obsession and move toward the universe. Therefore, I would argue that only someone capable of true love can truly use a metaphor. If you need proof, read Shakespeare's *Romeo and Juliet*.

The moment Romeo falls in love with Juliet, even the most grotesque things in the world become metaphors for love to him. Romeo's love was not some dry, lifeless subject that he was trying to spice up with the help of a couple of metaphors. This was the actual language of that love. Upon falling in love, his self-obsession vanished so completely that he began to embrace the most insignificant of things. A love for the universe and metaphors flooded Romeo's heart and mind simultaneously, because even if we use metaphors without a pre-existing love for the external universe, the very act compels us to love it. The fundamental condition of metaphor is to absorb even the ugly things of the universe into oneself, and to become absorbed in them. Metaphor is the medium through which humanity and the universe dissolve into one another. Through this process, the very essence of things is transformed—as is our own essence—and both humanity and the universe become components of a magnificent unity. Naziri has expressed this exact truth through a metaphor:

Ke jila yafta az khaar-e-mughilaan gashtam

[That I attained my luster from the thorns of the desert acacia]

Obviously, establishing such a profound connection with the universe involves not only joy but also pain and sorrow. The universe coaxes us closer, yet it also terrifies and drives us away. This very amalgamation of joy and sorrow is the soul of metaphor. This sorrow and joy are beyond ordinary comprehension; they transcend intellect. That is why a metaphor only truly becomes a metaphor by being beyond ordinary comprehension—even if Maulana Hali cannot tolerate it.

Aside from love, the second capacity a person must possess for metaphor is humility. That is, they must not consider the principle of their own existence to be the sole principle of life. Metaphor inherently implies that multiple principles of existence are simultaneously at work in the universe, possessing both differences and similarities. And despite their apparent contradictions, they can absorb into one another to form a greater unity. For example, Balzac has compared the constructed buildings of Paris to the steppes of Russia, and the cobblestones of the street to a sea of raging white waves. Both of these comparisons seem incomprehensible and absurd, yet through metaphor, Balzac has juxtaposed two principles of existence. On one side is nature, and on the other, the artificial life of the city. By pointing out the resemblance between these two scenes, Balzac illustrates that while city dwellers have severed their lives from nature, their sheer intensity of life has endowed even artificial things with such power and form that they rival nature itself.

Another meaning derived from this is that no matter how unnatural an environment humans create for themselves, the human soul will interpret it in the terms of nature, ultimately submerging that unnatural environment back into nature. Now, let Maulana Hali explain how all these things could possibly be said in literal language. Before we conclude, let us look at one more example.

Proust has compared hotel tablecloths to altar cloths bathed in the light of the setting sun. According to Hali's principles, this simile is also inappropriate, far-fetched, and beyond comprehension, because a hotel lacks the sanctity of an altar. But Proust is suggesting that for some people, worldly life elevates to the status of a religion—and in a highly innocent manner. Like religion, this too is a principle of life, and therefore worthy of respect. Furthermore, just as religion demands sacrifices, worldly refinement also exacts great sacrifices. Proust's novel is filled with such instances. Thus, this metaphor is comic on one hand, and tragic on the other. Proust has encapsulated his entire novel within this single metaphor. Bringing together such contradictory principles and forces of existence and transforming their very nature is the work of metaphor alone.

So, was I wrong to say that those who shy away from metaphor are, in fact, afraid of the forces of life? Because they lack the courage to absorb the ever-new realities of experience, they feel threatened by anything illogical. And metaphor inevitably drags illogical and incomprehensible experiences along with it. Therefore, metaphor truly is something to be feared.

Well, if an odd writer here or there fears metaphor, let them. But if generations upon generations of writers tremble at the sight of metaphor for a hundred years, what is the resulting outcome? Now, don't make me spell everything out for you.