Vessels of Wisdom: HEART/MIND AS CONTAINER Metaphors in Nahj al-Balāgha

Abstract

This article offers a protocol-documented, Conceptual Metaphor Theory account of how the compiled literary corpus of Nahj al-Balāgha, the orations, letters, and sayings attributed to Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (peace upon him) and assembled by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī, conceptualizes the heart/mind complex through the CONTAINER image schema. Twenty-seven analytical records, drawn from 19 independent loci, were assembled from the complete Arabic matn through diacritic-normalized co-occurrence retrieval and contextual screening, verified verbatim, and classified under an MIP-adapted identification gate. They can be subdivided into seven sub-models (vessel, store, dwelling, pressure-vessel, gated chamber, lamp-chamber, and capacity/placement) that together provide a moral anatomy in container physics. Two theoretical proposals are made: doctrinal load-bearing, where a doctrinal distinction is borne entirely by image-schematic structure, and figure-ground reversibility, proposed as a philological test of schema vitality. The study supplies cognitive stylistics with an audited classical Arabic case and a verified database designed to outlive its interpretations.