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The approach of this study is contrasted with earlier scholarship which has tended to assume that al Jāḥiẓ’s epistolary frames of his essays and monographs are either acknowledgments of real patrons or mere convention, as in many literary prefaces found in the Arabic and neighbouring traditions. Even in those cases where the addressees do appear to be real correspondents or patrons, al-Jāḥiẓ could exploit the varying types of relationships he enjoyed with these persons to craft introductions appropriate to his purposes with regard to the readership of each text. With their divergent structures and tones, the epistolary frames in al-Jāḥiẓ exhibit a more elaborate literary technique than the conventionalized prefaces we find in Greek, Syriac and later Arabic writings, in which the addressee tends merely to ask the very questions the writer intends to answer. The dynamics of the author’s voice in relation to the ‘addressee’ and the ‘reader’ are related to narrative theory as well as to Bakhtin’s concept of ‘double-voiced discourse and discussed in the light of two key passages from al-Jāḥiẓ’s own writings.

The epistle as a representation of Arabic literary genres has a long history. Historical and literary sources abound with samples of letters believed to have been exchanged during the early Islamic period, which provide a glimpse into the early political and social activity in Islamic society and into the early Arabic prose style. Written contracts and epistles existed in the advent of Islam, and the commandment to register debts with a scribe is found in the Qur'an. Epistolography, the art or science of letter-writing, is believed to have developed quickly into the most important form of writing in Islamic society. This chapter examines the background of letter-writing in the Islamic Middle period, particularly during the 5th to 9th/11th to 15th centuries. While it is assumed that many of the characteristics of letter-writing in pre-modern Islamic society are indicative of the cultural, historical and intellectual trends, as well as the unique literary style, of Arabic letter-writing, Chapter 1 also examines to what extent letter-writing in Western culture has influenced Arabic epistolary writing. It also discusses insā, which serves as key to the artistic prose style that dominated Arabic literature for several centuries, as well as some of the principles of insā, which have been carried out through the modern period.

William Bentley, a pioneering Unitarian minister and successor to Ezra Stiles as national diarist, produced voluminous records of daily life in the early Republic. As shown for the first time in Chapter 2, however, Bentley also succeeded Stiles in his personal appeal to Islamic precedents. Studying Middle Eastern languages while preaching at Salem’s East Church, Bentley reached eastward in transatlantic exchanges as well, trading Arabic letters and literary treasures with Yemeni merchants. Recounting a forgotten and foundational chapter in American–Middle Eastern relations, the author uncovers Bentley’s private cache of Arabic correspondence, as well his lost library of Muslim manuscripts, including the Qur’ān—an incomparable archive of Arabic and Persian sources in the early United States, collected by Bentley until just days before his December 1819 death.

The rhetorical patterns illustrated in the book’s chapters are briefly recapitulated and related to the various ways the occasion of writing is potentially a zone of conflict between author and reader. It also treats the differences between the ‘epistolary monographs’ discussed in this book and other Arabic texts, including letters of al-Jāḥiẓ’s that portray a personal relationship rather than a set of preconceptions with regard to a specific topic.