Nahj al-Balaghah, as one of the foundational Islamic texts, employs literary, metaphorical, and rhetorical language to convey ethical, social, and epistemological concepts. One of the significant domains in this text is the representation of women and their position through conceptual metaphors. Drawing on Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (1980), this study investigates the metaphorical language of Nahj al-Balaghah in describing women. The research follows a qualitative approach and is based on metaphorical content analysis; that is, well-known statements in Nahj al-Balaghah related to women are collected and analyzed according to source and target domains, types of metaphors, and conceptual mappings.
The analysis reveals that metaphors of women in Nahj al-Balaghah are mainly ontological and structural, and women are represented in this text as multidimensional and realistic beings: on the one hand, as valuable and delicate entities in need of protection (such as the metaphors of “flower” and “trust”), and on the other hand, as sources of trial, challenge, or threat (such as the metaphors of “scorpion” and “evil”). This dual representation indicates that while Nahj al-Balaghah emphasizes the dignity and status of women, it also stresses the necessity of vigilance, ethical management of relationships, and the responsibility of men in interacting with women. Therefore, the metaphorical language of Nahj al-Balaghah is not merely aesthetic, but functions as a cognitive and moral tool for education and social guidance.