Friendship as Metaphor and the Twofold Governance of the Soul in Avicenna: A Reading of the Risālat al-Ṭayr

Based on a descriptive-analytical approach grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, this study elucidates the epistemological function of the “friendship” metaphor within Avicenna’s framework for the twofold governance of the soul, as presented in his Risālat al-Ṭayr (Epistle of the Bird). It aims to investigate how concrete experiences function to conceptualize the soul’s abstract relationships with its own faculties. The findings indicate that the treatise’s conceptual structure is predicated on the macro-metaphor "OBSERVATION IS A JOURNEY" under which the sub-metaphor"THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE THEORETICAL FACULTY WITH THE INTERNAL PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES IS COMPANIONSHIP "plays a central role.This companionship is delineated as a dynamic and ascendant process. At the initial stage, the friendship metaphor is not yet applicable due to the unilateral soul-body relationship. Subsequently, at the intermediate stage, the bond between the theoretical faculty and the internal perceptive faculties is first forged as a utility-based companionship (rifqah maʿāribiyyah). Following the awakening of the will and the threefold spiritual disciplines, and in response to the divine call—“a caller from God gathers them”—this bond evolves into an epistemic companionship. Ultimately, on the basis of this “covenant of faith,” the unity and empathy among the faculties are elevated, ascending to the rank of a pure, virtue-based friendship, or khullah mumāḥiḍah (sincere amity). The culmination of this process is the perfect alignment of all the soul’s faculties on the path towards immateriality, absence from the self, and the attainment of the vision of the Truth (al-Ḥaqq). Consequently, the companionship metaphor provides the cognitive framework that models the relationship between the rational faculty and the internal perceptive faculties through two ascending stages of friendship: the utility-based (maʿāribiyyah) and the pure (mumāḥiḍah).