Logical Forms of Imam Ali's Arguments for proofing his Succession according to Nahj al-Balagha

According to cognitive linguistics, metaphor is not merely a linguistic category but is related to human thought, through which one can understand the type and the way in which the thinker speaks. Therefore, this article by analyzing the concept of sin (one of the most abstract concepts of religious texts) aims to explain the way of thinking of Imam Ali (AS). Certainly analyzing the way of thinking leads to a deeper understanding of the concept of sin that affects not only the behavioral domain of sin but also the behavior and interaction of the audience with sin. This paper analyzes the words of Imam Ali (AS) through a descriptive-analytical method based on the conceptual metaphor approach of cognitive linguistics. It seeks to answer the question that how the concept of sin has been portrayed in Imam Ali's view and which cognitive models have been used for conceptualizing the sin? What features of the destination domain are highlighted by the source domain in the arrangement and matching systems of these cognitive models? The results indicate that the concept of sin in Imam Ali's words is visualized at three levels of existential, structural and kinetic with metaphors such as sin is human, sin is animal, sin is a disease, sin is a plant, sin is load and sin is low. Also, the kinetic level had lower frequency than the other levels.