“the Chambir of My Thought” - Self and Conduct in an Early Islamic Ethical Treatise - Khan

The Chambir of My Thought: Self and Conduct in an Early Islamic Ethical TreatiseAuthor(s): Ruqayya Yasmine KhanSource: History of Religions, Vol. 49, No. 1 (August 2009), pp. 27-47Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/605901 .Accessed: 22/04/2015 18:29

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Ruqayya Yasmine Khan

TH E C H A M B I R O FM Y THOUGH T : S E L F A N D C O N DUC T I N A N E A R LY I S LA M IC E TH IC A L T R E ATI S E

2009 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.0018-2710/2009/4901-0002$10.00

introduction

1

Elliot R. Wolfson has observed that religions almost universally exem-plify something of the phenomenon of secrecy even though the precisecontours of the phenomenon will vary from one society to the other.

2

The phenomenon of secrecy is exceedingly important in the religion ofIslam and yet it has not merited the examination that it deserves. Indeed,there exists a powerful psychology, phenomenology, ethics, and aestheticsof the secret in classical Islamic civilization. The secret is an importantelement in Qur

a

nic eschatology, Shiite theology and practice, Arabic loveliterature, and Islamic mysticism. Various scholars have penned articleson the signicance of secrecy in one or another discourse; for example,

1

A. C. Spearing, in his study of medieval European narratives, uses the phrase thechambir of my thought in the context of a discussion of private, inner life: the thoughts andfeelings, perhaps betrayed only eetingly and ambiguously by glances or lowered eyes,blushing or turning pale, that are otherwise the most secret realm of allthe chambir of mythought as a late-medieval poet puts it. Spearing goes on to note: There must be some con-nection, though its precise nature is hard to specify, between these two kinds of privacytheexistence of objectively private space and the cultivation of a subjective realm of individualbeing. What is clear is that the inner life begins to assume greater interest and importance insecular narratives from the twelfth century on (A. C. Spearing,

The Medieval Poet as Voyeur:Looking and Listening in Medieval Love Narratives

[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1993], 21).

2

Elliot Wolfson, ed.,

Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Re-ligions

(New York: Seven Bridges, 1999), 12.


The Chambir of My Thought

28

Annemarie Schimmel and William Chittick have written about secrecy inIslamic mysticism, Etan Kohlberg has dealt with secrecy in Shiism, andJean-Claude Vadet has addressed the topic with regard to Arabic lovepoetry.

In this article, I seek to examine the psychological signicance of thesecret in what broadly may be termed Islamic ethics, and I pursue thisthrough a discussion and analysis of a ninth-century Arabic work entitled

Kitab Kitman al-Sirr wa-Hifz al-Lisan

(Book of concealing the secret andholding the tongue; henceforth referred to as simply

Kitman

) by the em-inent early Abbasid belletrist writer and Mutazil

i

theologian known asal-Jahiz (c. 776868 CE).

3

Kitman

is the locus classicus on human secretsand secrecy in classical Arabic literature.

4

A sixty-page treatise,

Kitman

partakes in a trajectory within classical Arabic belles lettres that concernsitself with examining manners, morals, and character. References are alsomade in this article to several other works by al-Jahiz that address thesubject of human secrecy and discretion, among them

Kitab al-Bayanwa-l-Tabyin

(Book of eloquence and exposition) and

Tafdil al-Nutq alaal-Samt

(Virtues of speech over silence).

5

Kitman

examines the topic of the secrets of an individual self ratherthan the subject of secrets of a group or collective practices of secrecy.What is noteworthy about the discussion of the secret in

Kitman

is thatfar more importance is assigned to the psychological state of keepingsecrets than to the nature of the content of the secretin other words, theissue of a human inclination toward secrecy is more important than theissue of what the secret is. This is so because, according to our ninth-century author, human beings have a psychological propensity to keep/

3

Abi Uthman Amr b. Bahr b. Mahbub al-Kinani al-Basri, known as al-Jahiz. The mostcomprehensive Western studies of al-Jahiz remain those by the French scholar Charles Pel-lat. See Pellat, Al-Jahiz, in

Abbasid Belles-Lettres

, ed. Julia Ashtiany and A. F. L. Beeston(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 7895. More recent comprehensive studiesof al-Jahiz are those authored by James Montgomery, including Al-Jahizs

Kitab al-Bayanwa-l-Tabyin

, in

Writing and Representation in Medieval Islam: Muslim Horizons

, ed. JuliaBray (New York: Routledge, 2006), and al-Jahiz, in

Dictionary of Literary Biography

,vol. 311:

Arabic Literary Culture, 500925

, ed. Michael Cooperson and Shawkat M.Toorawa (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), 23142.

4

I have closely consulted the Arabic text of the treatise; however, all the translations ofexcerpts from al-Jahizs

Kitman

are (with occasional and minor modications on my part forgreater accuracy) from

Nine Essays of al-Jahiz

, trans. William Hutchins (New York: P. Lang,1989). See al-Jahiz,

Kitab Kitman al-sirr wa Hifz al-Lisan

, in

Majmu Rasail al-Jahiz

, ed.P. Kraus and M. T. al-Hajiri (Cairo: Lajnat al-Talif wa-al-Tarjamat wa-al-Nashr, 1943), andKeeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, in Hutchins,

Nine Essays of al-Jahiz

, 1332.

5

See al-Jahiz,

Kitab al-Bayan wa-l-Tabyin

(Book of eloquence and exposition), vol. 1, ed.A. Muhammad Harun (Cairo: Matabat Lajnat al-Talif wa al-Tarjama wa al-Nashr, 1948),and

Tafdil al-Nutq ala al-Samt

(Virtues of speech over silence) in

Majmuat al-Rasail: Ithnaasharah risala

, ed. Muhammad al-Sasi al-Maghribi (Cairo: Matbaat al-Taqaddum, 1906).


History of Religions

29

reveal secrets, and he demonstrates how this propensity is intimatelyconnected with processes of consolidating self and identity. Indeed, forboth our classical writer al-Jahiz and modern scholar Wolfson, secrecy andrevelation are essential to the very constitution of human subjectivity.Wolfson observes that

the centrality of the secret in the phenomenology of religious experience shouldcome as no surprise given the importance of secrecy in the human condition.Of the various traits that distinguish humans from other sentient beings, dis-simulation is certainly one of the most obvious examples. Indeed, to dissimulateis basic to the human way of being: we are who we are primarily because weare not who we profess to be. The masks by which our lives are constructed aremultiple, and it is precisely through the obscurity of these masks that we arerendered transparent. In this regard, the sphere of religion is not distinct. On thecontrary, the repeated emphasis on the category of the mystery in the religiousdomain is an extension of the more general emphasis on concealment that is soessential to our disclosure in the realm of intersubjectivity.

6

self and secrecy in the broader islamic context

Secrecy is vital to Qur

a

nic concepts of human selfhood and subjectivity.The Qur

a

n sets forth two main ideas in this regard: that self (

nafs

) andsubjectivity are constituted through acts of concealment and revelation,and that this self which reveals and conceals is an embodied self. In theQur

a

n, God is the knower of all that is hidden and concealed (

al-khab

i

r

,the all-aware,

7

al-ba

i

r

, the all-seeing, and

al-shah

i

d

, the all-attesting).

8

Hence, God is the knower par excellence of all human secrets. Thisrecognition that one is always watched, observed, heard, and known byGod implies individual moral and ethical accountability. Fazlur Rahmanconveys this belowthat it is not just cognition (i.e., that one is knownby God), but that there is divine judgment involved: Gods presence isnot merely cognitive, for His condition entails other consequencesmostimportantly, judgment upon cumulative human activity. This is the mean-ing of the frequent Qur

a

nic reminders that God is ever wakeful, watching,witnessing, and, so far as societies are concerned, He is sitting in a watchtower (89:14) and no atom in the heavens or the earth ever escapes His

6

Wolfson,

Rending the Veil

, 2.

7

Derivations from the verbal root,

kh-b-r

, to discern, be aware, are often found in con-junction with or in place of the aforementioned verbal derivation of to know. See Hanna E.Kassis, The Divine Name, sec. 1, 5253, and The Remaining Vocabulary of the Qur

a

n,sect. 2, 67879, in her

A Concordance of the Quran

(Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1983).

8

The Ninety-Nine Divine Names or Attributes of God, known in Arabic as

al-asm

a

al-

h

usn

a

, the Beautiful Names of God. Consult Qur

a

n 17:110: Say: Call on God or on theMercifulwhatever names you call him, his are the most beautiful names.


The Chambir of My Thought

30

notice (10:61; 34:3).

9

These ideas regarding human secrecy and revela-tion also have a bearing on Qur

a

nic eschatology. The Qur

a

n empha-sizes the secret and hidden nature of eschatological events; these are Godssecrets. But another theme concerns the secrets of all creation, especiallyhuman secrets, and it emphasizes how during the eschatological dramaall such secrets will be revealed, even bodily revealed, and yielded toGod. Up until the hour and Day of Judgment, secrecy reigns, but once itdawns, the Day of Judgment is the day of Revelation par excellence.Rahman has pointed out that, according to the Qur

a

n, on the Day of LastJudgment, all the interior of man will become transparent.

10

In 86:89,the Qur

a

n proclaims: Surely, [God] is able to return him [to life] / Onthe day that secrets will be tested.

Islamic mysticism or Susm magnies these links between secrecy andnotions regarding individual accountability and moral character. In Susm,the cultivation of an ideal moral and ethical self that exercises modes ofself-censorship is of the utmost importance. Furthermore, it privilegesthe interior self as being determinative of the external self s expressionand conduct. This sheds light on why the psychospiritual development ofthe inner or interior self (

al-b

a

in

) is rendered critical.

11

This process ofrenement of the self is often conceptualized in terms of secrecy and trans-parency, secrecy and revelation: for example, removing the veils of theself

12

or polishing the mirror (i.e., the mental, spiritual and mysticalstates) of the self. Not surprisingly, the Sus drew upon the Qur

a

nicsymbolism of the secret in the articulation of their metaphysical doctrinesand psychological theories.13

9 Fuzlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Quran (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1994),3738.

10 Ibid., 116.11 This stress upon al-bain in the psychology of Susm is especially evident in the thought

and output of the early mystic al-Muhasibi (who would have been a contemporary of al-Jahiz).He discusses how the actions of the members [or limbs] (amal al-jawarih), the outwardconduct, are under the ultimate control of the heart, which may direct them towards evil orgood. See Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teachingof Harith B. Asad al-Muhasibi, A.D. 781A.D. 857 (New York: AMS, 1973), 87. But then healso draws attention to the actions of the heart (amal al-qulub), including the motives andsources of the outward actions, the cognitive, emotional and volitional processes, the exer-cise of the virtues and vices, the reception of the psychological states (ah wal) and the attain-ment of the mystic stations (maqamat) (ibid).

12 William C. Chittick, The Paradox of the Veil in Susm, in Wolfson, Rending the Veil,6569. The self is considered to be veiled in this life. Chittick analyzes the rich symbolismof the veil in Islamic mysticism.

13 As S. Kamada observes, because the words sirr and khaf i (akhfa) in the Quran seemto refer to something secret or to hidden aspects of human consciousness, Sus have incor-porated them in their theories of the inner subtleties (lataif ), a type of religious psychologythat analyzes the structure of human inward consciousness (Encyclopedia of the Quran,vol. 4, s.v. secrets). Shigeru Kamada, the author of this entry, states that many Sus andmystic philosophers locate sirr at the deepest dimension in the human consciousness, wherethey realize enlightenment with a divine encounter (57273).


History of Religions 31

Indeed, diverse Arabo-Islamic discourses (ethics, paedia, scripture)identify secrecy as a marker of the self. One could argue that Quranicconstructions of the self have strong implications for understanding rep-resentations of self and subjectivity in early Islamic ethics and Arabiclove literature. Early Arabic love literature also emphasizes the role andfunction of the secret in its representations of the self and self-other rela-tions. The very rhetorical qualities of this poetry are signicantly enhancedby the paradoxes associated with notions of self, body, and sexuality. It isprecisely to this enhancement that the critic Andras Hamori alludes when,in discussing the Arabic love poetry of the courtly al-Abbas b. al-Ahnaf,he observes: The secret no doubt has social realities behind it, but it isalso an element in the rhetoric of paradox in love poetry; providing forcontrast between inside and outside, feeling and behavior.14

It is my contention that this idea or concept of the secret15 essentiallyfunctions as a powerful vehicle with which and through which to studyand analyze conceptions of the premodern self, subjectivity, conscious-ness, and interpersonal relations. A discussion and analysis of the secretin Kitman, therefore, offers us an important and exciting window into pre-modern notions regarding the inner workings of the human personality.Moreover, the elucidation of premodern notions of self and identity inclassical Arabo-Islamic discourses possibly has relevance for understand-ing current, important concepts of self and other, interpersonal relations,and private and public in modern Arab/Islamic cultures.

My examination of the idea or concept of the secret has been inuencedby theories and approaches from modern scholars of sociology, religion,and psychoanalysis, including Elliot Wolfson (to whom I have alreadyreferred), Georg Simmel, Sissela Bok, and Sigmund Freud. Throughout myresearch and writing of this article, the shuttling back and forth betweenthe early Arabic and modern Western contexts has been and continues tobe a dialogic process, sometimes inspired and mandated by the exigenciesof my primary texts, and at other times, instigated by insights and claimsmade by Western critics studying the subject of secrecyinsights andclaims that resonate richly with the content of my own material.

14 Andras Hamori, Love Poetry (Ghazal), in Ashtiany and Beeston, Abbasid Belles-Lettres, 21314.

15 The phrase concept of the secret is borrowed from the psychoanalyst Alfred Gross,who employed it in an article titled The Secret (trans. George Devereux, Gisela Ebert, andJoseph Noshpitz, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 2 [1951]: 3744). In it, Gross differenti-ates the function of a secret from its content: By contrast, the secret, once surrendered, islost only insofar as its content is concerned. The vessel which contained it endures, ready tobe lled with new content. We see then that in the study of the concept of the secret, onemust differentiate between content and function; the hidden content of a secret is somethingdifferent from the psychological state of possessing a secret (38).


The Chambir of My Thought32

al-jahiz: his life and milieuThe author of Kitman, al-Jahiz, was born in 776 CE in Basra; his familyappears to have had African blood, especially on his fathers side. Hisfather died soon after his birth and, with the help of his mother, he attendedQuranic schooling in Basra; he had no access to any kind of formal train-ing beyond this. He frequented the mosque as well as study and debatecircles, and he had the chance to hobnob with afuent and educated circles(with whom he read voraciously, especially translations of Greek andPersian Pahlavi texts). In Basra of the eighth century, there were livelydaily discussions among intellectuals over matters such as What schoolof theology was best and why? and Could faith and reason be harmo-nized? A rationalist school of theology called Mutazilism held sway inthe Islamic world at this time. Although the reigning Abbasid caliphssupported this school, it still was meeting with strong resistance in otherparts of the Islamic world.

Charles Pellat notes that al-Jahiz had two elds of activity: theology/politics and belles lettres or adab.16 Al-Jahiz earned a living through hiswriting, and a number of his early writings were designed to legitimatethe Abbasid caliphate or to justify important government measures.17 Itseems that al-Jahiz acted as an adviser to and apologist for the govern-ment, and he received handsome gratuities from the Abbasid ofcials forbooks dedicated to them. He was not an intimate of the caliphs, but hemaintained close ties with the vizier and some relatives of the caliphs.18

He was also known to have close contacts with some of the leadingMutazili gures of the city. Already around the age of forty, he wasbeing rewarded well by the Caliph al-Mamun. Around 816 CE, hesettled in Baghdad, where he stayed for a long time, but he eventuallyretired to Basra and died there circa 868 CE.

As for his output, al-Jahizs range of subjects was remarkable. Over200 authentic works are attributed to him, but only two dozen have sur-vived intact. His major works are considered to be Kitab al-Hayawan(Book of animals), Kitab al-Bayan wa-l-Tabyin or (Book of eloquence andexposition), and Kitab al-Bukhala (Book of misers)all of these havebeen preserved intact.

Before delving into Kitman, it is vital to address several elements inthis Baghdadi context, including the Shubiyya controversy and Abbasidcourt culture, which profoundly inuenced his views on language andexpression. These views, in turn, had an impact on his ideas regarding

16 Pellat, Al-Jahiz, 83.17 Ibid., 80.18 Ibid.

One Line Short



secrecy and revelation in Kitman.19 Al-Jahizs views of language (moreprecisely, the Arabic language) were powerfully shaped by the Shubiyyadebate that pitted Arabs against those with non-Arab (mainly Persian)backgrounds in the jockeying for power and privilege in the early AbbasidEmpire. As Wen-Chin Ouyang points out, the complex processes ofassimilation and acculturation were relevant to these power struggles:Having lived in Baghdad for the latter half of his life, [al-Jahiz] was intouch with the thorny issues generated by the assimilation processes ofArab and non-Arab elements into Arabic-Islamic society, and the negotia-tions in the emerging Arabic-Islamic culture involving whether to assimi-late or reject Greek, Persian, pre-Islamic Arabic and other inuences.20

Al-Jahiz fashioned his religious beliefs regarding the relation of theArabic language to the Quran in the context of this Shuubi controversy.Indeed, two of his major worksnamely Kitab al-Hayawan and Kitabal-Bayan wa-l-Tabyin21were in part written in response to the Shuubiattack on the literary and cultural heritage of the Arabs.22 In effect, hechose to defend the Arab position. According to al-Jahiz, the Arabic lan-guage was unequalled in its linguistic richness and wealth, and its potentialfor rhetorical eloquence was unmatched by any other language.23 Becauseof the eloquence of Arabic and the beauty of its expression, God sent Hisbest prophet amongst the Arabs, made his language Arabic and even re-vealed an Arabic Quran.24

No doubt al-Jahizs views of the Arabic language and expressionarising from the Shuubi controversy only served to enhance his belief inthe power of the spoken Arabic word. As Ouyang observes regarding al-Jahizs position: Defending Arabs and their language by ascribing bayan[eloquence] to them involves far-reaching consequences, for bayan is theliterary quality attributed to the Quran, denoting its inimitability.25 Foral-Jahiz, among these consequences was the development of a distinctly

19 It is somewhat difcult to assess how his Mutazilite afliation and background in-formed his ideas regarding secrecy in Kitman. Sufce it to note that the Mutazilite views ofthe created Quran and that the Quran contained metaphorical language (the Mutazilitesmaintained that scriptural phrases such as the throne of God or the face of God were notto be literally interpreted) would have exerted an inuence on his ideas; certainly the latterview suggests that he would have readily accepted the tropological qualities of language.

20 Wen-Chin Ouyang, Literary Criticism in Medieval Arabic-Islamic Culture (Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 1023.

21 The third major work of his is Kitab al-Bukhala.22 Ouyang, Literary Criticism, 103.23 Jamal El Attar, Al-Jahizs View of Arabic in Relation to the Quran, in Democracy in

the Middle East: Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the British Society of MiddleEastern Studies, July 810, 1992, University of St. Andrews, Scotland (Exeter: BRISMES,1992), 26.

24 El-Attar quoting (and translating) al-Jahiz, 7.25 Ouyang, Literary Criticism, 103.



theological cast to his theories and conceptions of speech, expression,rhetoric, and signication. Embedded in al-Jahizs views is the recognitionthat while human Arabic speech can never mimic Gods Arabic speech(which is uniquely perfect and inimitable), it can and must be imbuedwith a religiously sanctied aura26 that demands its users approximatethe superiority in eloquence and communication found in the Quran.

al-jahiz: his psychology and ethicsIt would be misleading, however, to assume that al-Jahizs theory of bayandemonstrates a narrowly theologically based dimension in his views onArabic language and expression. In fact, in conjunction with his interestin signication and communication, al-Jahiz shows a deep engagementwith psychology and ethics. He persistently draws attention to the role andfunction of the unconscious, consciousness, and interpersonal communi-cation. A topic consistently addressed by al-Jahiz in his writings is humanpublic self-presentation, and certainly his interest in the subject of bayan(eloquence) as analyzed in the Kitab al-Bayan wa-l-Tabyin (Book of elo-quence and exposition) reects this. The art of bayan, as envisioned by al-Jahiz, aims at an aesthetics of the selfs public presentation that combinespsychospiritual elements with an elite-based elegance of expression.

In his Kitab al-Bayan wa-l-Tabyin, al-Jahiz quotes a number of sayingsthat foreground the interconnections of spirituality, elite high culture, andenlightenment with bayan as the use of the spoken word. These sayingsare found in chapters entitled Bab al-Balagha and Bab al-Bayan:27

The intellect is the scout of the soul, knowledge is the scout of the intellect andexplication [al-bayan] is the interpreter of knowledge.

They said: The life of chivalry is truth, the life of the spirit is chastity, the lifeof forbearance is knowledge and the life of knowledge is eloquence [al-bayan].

A logician said: The goal of a human being is an eloquently, expressive life.

For al-Jahiz, the clarity of ones eloquence and expression ultimatelyis connected with character and soula connection in which is discernedan aspect of the more ethical conception of concealment of the secret,or kitman al-sirr. We shall see that one of the primary meanings of kitman

26 Montgomery, al-Jahiz, 238. As spelled out by Montgomery: A central feature of thebayan is the reciprocity of its function: communication is given by God to man in the formof the Arabic Quran (indeed God refers to the Quran as the Bayan on three occasions), andman must show appropriate gratitude to God by proper use of this gift (ibid).

27 Translations are mine. All sayings from al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Bayan wa-l-Tabyin.



al-sirr, as formulated by al-Jahiz, is the use of disciplined, right or properspeech. From the aforementioned sayings, it is evident that he adds thequality of renement to this idea of right, and proper speechan aspectthat sheds more light on the meanings of bayan as eloquence. We nowshift our focus to the treatise Kitman, in which al-Jahiz lays out an ana-lytical conception of the workings of human secrecy and revelation.

context and audience of kitmanKitman is a fairly structured and coherent piece. An almost modern tonecharacterizes the manner in which al-Jahiz frames his inquiries and ana-lyzes issues. For although the topic of secrecy was not a new one duringhis time (it appears to be a standard topic in early Arabo-Islamic encyclo-pedias and dictionaries), his treatment of it is distinguished by a probing,investigative approach. Al-Jahiz did not merely transmit existing ideasand traditions regarding the concept of the secretthe stamp of his ownindividual genius is present throughout the treatise. Kitman is both descrip-tive and prescriptive; al-Jahiz not only describes and analyzes secrecyin the treatise, he also offers counsel and guidelines on how to practicediscretion.

While it is likely that part of the audience intended for the treatise wasthose scholars contributing to discussions of the superiority of the Arabiclanguage, including those following the Shuubiyya controversy anddebate, al-Jahizs views of speech and expression were also shaped bythe milieu of ninth-century Abbasid court culture. Kitmans immediateaudience was the Abbasid court, especially its court functionaries. Thesecourt functionaries included its secretaries, scribes, chamberlains, andviziers.28 Discretion, as understood within Abbasid courtly culture,undoubtedly colors his discussion of secrets and secrecy in Kitman. Thisis not surprising given that, as Pellat has pointed out, he acted as anadvisor and apologist for the [Abbasid] government.29 Issues of discre-tion, tact, and diplomacy loomed large in the daily tasks and dealingsof royal court ofcials such as the viziers, as they did for the court secre-taries, or kuttab, who composed and wrote the court correspondence.

But it would be a mistake to reduce this treatise to merely a discourseon ethics in the court. Al-Jahizs analysis of the secret and secrecy hadto have an appeal to a general audience. Al-Jahiz is keenly interested inissues of conduct, morality, and ethics. In Kitman and as we have seen

28 Therefore, to some extent, this treatise on secrecy and discretion likely elicited the sameaudience as his possibly apocryphal Kitab al-Hijab on the ofce of the chamberlain (hajib)and his now lost work Kitab Akhlaq al-Wuzara (Book on the morals of viziers), a manual ofconduct for viziers.

29 Ibid., 80.



in his well-known work Kitab al-Bayan (Book of eloquence), he viewsthe clarity of individual eloquence and expression as ultimately a func-tion of character and moral self-worth. Hence, one would think that thestrain of his belles lettres (adab) trajectory that dealt with, in Pellatswords, the study of manners and morals, analyzing character and emo-tion and building up pictures of entire social groups characterized bysome particular moral or psychological feature, generated a wide reader-ship.30 A number of al-Jahizs writings are devoted to analyses of humantraits and emotions (e.g., on arrogance, enmity, and anger), examinationsof conduct (e.g., on keeping promises), and portrayals of character types(e.g., misers). His treatise Kitman falls squarely in this strain of adab tra-jectorya trajectory that joins a larger one within classical Arabic belleslettres as a whole. Pellat remarks that he was dubbed the teacher of reasonand polite learning, or muallim al-aql wa-l-adab, by some early writersand that for al-Jahiz, adab was indeed a process of building up a newculture in which reection, doubt, observation, and even experiment wereinvolved.31

It should also be pointed out that his treatise on secrecy is broadly rep-resentative of the prevailing ideas regarding the subject in diverse genresof classical Arabic literature. In other words, Kitman encapsulates already-circulating ideas and elements specic to the concept of the secretideas circulating in various kinds of writings and not just those aimed fora court audience. And while I have used the word encapsulates, al-Jahizdid not, as just mentioned, simplistically convey existing material regard-ing the concept of the secret but rather innovatively probed its meaningsand functions.

the secret (sirr): precious internal propertyWe begin with a seemingly obvious assumption that al-Jahiz makes: theassumption that the human self keeps secrets. Al-Jahiz is not explicitlyconcerned with dening what a secret is. Yet an initial comment by himregarding where secrets may be found sheds light on how he denes them:The heart is a treasury [which guards] thoughts and secrets. It gathers [itscontents] from the good and bad of the senses and from what cravingsand desires generate as well as what wisdom and knowledge produce.32

According to the lexica, the Arabic word for heart, qalb, also meanssoul, mind and intellect.33 The richness of this words semantics isreected in the heterogeneity of the hearts contents alluded to in the

30 Ibid., 94.31 Ibid.32 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 39, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 14.33 Ibn Manzur al-Ifriqi al-Misri, Lisan al-Arab, 15 vols. (Beirut: Dar Sadir/Dar Bayrut,

1956), s.v. q-l-b.



aforementioned denition. Evidently, al-Jahiz here is tapping into a long-standing use of the word in other Islamic discourses, including theQuranic and mystical discourses. Certainly, in the Quran, we nd theword qalb (heart)as well as its pluralemployed as metaphors forhidden human recesses:34 And God knows all that is in your hearts[qulubikum] and God is all-knowing and most forbearing (33:51). More-over, the very word for self, nafs (plural anfus), can be employedinterchangeably with the word qalb in the Quran.35 Islamic mysticismpowerfully developed the idea that the locus of the self or nafs wasthe qalb (heart) and that embedded within the qalb was the sirr (secret).This is conveyed by the following passage, which quotes the notedFrench scholar of Islam, Louis Massignon, on the subject: The seat ofthought and awareness of self lay not in the brain but in the heart, abodily organ . . . a morsel of esh . . . situated in the hollow of the breastwhose beats both gave life and indicated the presence of life. There inthe heart lies the secret and hidden (sirr) home of the conscience, whosesecrets (nadjwa) will be revealed on Judgment Day.36 As we shall seeshortly, al-Jahizs employment of the word qalb to indicate selfhood issignicant and apt, given his emphasis upon the idea of ownership of thesecret.

This aforementioned denition of secrecy is intrapsychic, and it positssecrets as a form of precious internal property. Hence, it is also signi-cant that the word khizana or treasury is used to describe the heart: it isa treasure chest, that is, a storehouse that guards contents, and furthermorethis treasury is itself guarded within the cavity of the bodys breast or therib cage. The use of this word to describe the heart has strong implica-tions for understanding the point that it is not so much the nature of thesecrets content, but that it is possessed and guarded that matters. Thoughthe heart may contain negative content (e.g., al-Jahiz mentions the goodand bad of the senses),37 the psychological value of this content is highbecause it is guarded and owned by the self. Georg Simmel sheds lighton the link between ownership and valuation in this denition of secrets:In the rst place, the strongly emphasized exclusion of all outsiders makesfor a correspondingly strong feeling of possession. For many individuals,property does not fully gain its signicance with mere ownership, butonly with the consciousness that others must do without it. . . . Moreover

34 Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in the Koran: Semantics of the Koranic Weltanschauung(Tokyo: Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1964) also has pointed out thatqalb, as used in the Quran, should be understood as an inward psychological and mentalcapacity.

35 Consult Quran 2:235, 5:52, 5:117, 11:31, and 33:37.36 Encyclopedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 4 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), s.v. kalb.37 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 39.



since the others are excluded from the possessionparticularly when itis very valuablethe converse suggests itself psychologically, namely,that what is denied to many must have special value.38

Ownership is central to this denition of the secret as precious innerproperty. Not just al-Jahizs employment of the words qalb and khizana,but also his use of terms such as master/owner of the secret (aibal-sirr) or possessor of secret (malik li-sirrihi) corroborate this ideaof ownership of the secret.39 A certain value inheres in the possession ofthis internal property (irrespective of the nature of its contents). In otherwords, the selfs containment and guarding of this possession are processesthat impart a sense of selfhood. Keeping the secret therefore augmentsthe core self, and, by contrast, the loss of the secret depletes this core self.It is no coincidence that some of the vocabulary employed by al-Jahiz todescribe concealment and revelation is borrowed from the language ofvaluation and economics. For example, the verb istawdaa, which meansto entrust or deposit a trust with someone, to give something valuable tosomeone for safekeeping, is used by al-Jahiz to describe the disclosureof a secret to a trusted condant.40

Al-Jahiz implies that the contents of the heart are abstract and latent:thoughts and secrets. Just how heterogeneous this inner psychologicalproperty is can be glimpsed through his observation concerning thegathering or sifting function of the heart: secrets are culled by the heartfrom what it sifts through of the senses, desires, and faculties of the in-tellect; in other words, secrets are culled from sensations, feelings andaffects, impulses, thoughts, impressions, ideas, dreams, and memories.41

No distinctions are made between unconscious forms of secrecy (e.g.,memories, repressed content, forgotten material, and dreams) and con-scious forms (e.g., a secret one deliberately keeps) in this denition. In-deed, it could be said that while, for modern theorists, the differencebetween unconscious and conscious secrets is deemed important, for ourclassical theorist, a distinction of equivalent importance is that betweenones own secrets and others secrets.

the secret (sirr): an interpersonal definitionToward the end of his work, al-Jahiz conveys a second denition of sirr(the secret). Concerns with morality (ikhlaq) as well as ethics and virtues( fud 5ul ) predominate in this denition. All talk (adith), except whatis pointless, is talk about people (dhikr al-nas), idle gossip, coarse and

38 Georg Simmel, The Secret and Secret Society, in The Sociology of Georg Simmel, ed.Kurt H. Wolff (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950), 332.

39 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 4344.40 Ibid., 44.41 Ibid., 39.

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unseemly talk, delirium and raving, backbiting, slander and reproach. Oneof the sages said to his son, My son, man is nothing but talk, so if youcan, be good talk. Every secret on earth is nothing but a report (khabar)about a person or something concealed from a person.42 Secrets are linkedwith interpersonal modes of communication (primarily speech-related). Inthis denition, secrecys connections with discourse, gossip, and slanderon the one hand, and with defamation of character on the other hand, arerendered prominent. That a secret is dened as a report assumes it alreadyhas been told and publicized to someone and simultaneously concealedfrom someone. Secrets consist of information (about a persons character)that is put into circulation in the public sphere (i.e., it is traded, shared,withheld, etc.). Al-Jahiz maintains that people love to talk about and pub-licize things; fondness for the giving and seeking of information is anaspect of human nature (maabbat al-ikhbar wal-istikhbar).43 Accordingto him, this give-and-take between people degenerates frequently intonegative talk about individuals: it turns into gossip, chitchat, slander,hearsay, faultnding, backbiting, and so forth. Such negative talk hingesupon the premise of an injured third party; as implied by al-Jahiz, at itsmost basic, gossip or slander or chitchat about others is a shared secretbetween two persons that is concealed from a third.

Of signicance is al-Jahizs use of the Arabic term khabar (report) todene a secret. This oft-discussed termand it is a formal term especiallyimportant in Arabic literary and historical discourseshas a wide rangeof meanings and functions: rst and foremost, it is something disclosed andrendered public; second, it often is something reported (i.e., it is a formof hearsay); third, its mode of transmission may be oral and/or written. Asfar as content is concerned, it may consist of a news item, biographical/historical content, or anecdotal/informational tidbit. Al-Jahizs use of thisArabic term to dene a secret sheds light on how the idea of secrecy haslinks with the genre of biography (a genre for which the term khabar iscrucial). As commented upon by Michael Cooperson in his study entitledClassical Arabic Biography, when secrets are reported (i.e., scandals)in a biographical account, an air of accuracy accrues to the account: Byreporting secrets, biography assumes an air of veracity . . . [and there-fore] . . . commands interest, and exudes authority because it offers (orpurports to offer) insights into character and disposition that were miss-ing from annalistic history.44

42 Again, I have closely consulted the Arabic text of the treatise throughout this article.However, all the translations of excerpts from al-Jahizs Kitman are (with occasional andminor modications on my part for greater accuracy) from Hutchins, Nine Essays of al-Jahiz.See al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 52, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 25.

43 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 40.44 Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age

of al-Mamun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 23.



Yet another passage in Kitman presents a third denition of secrecythat highlights the contentual signicance of a secret. In it, al-Jahiz brieyraises the issue of group secrets or collective practices of secrecy asopposed to those of the individual self. He offers a tentative typologypartly based on the identity and social status of the owners and purveyorsof the secret: he refers to religious secrets (sirr al-adiyan), royal politicalsecrets (sirr al-muluk), and interpersonal secrets between kin and friends.For example, religious secrets should be guarded against the victory ofpassion over the soul and against the hatred of people for each otheroccasioned by difference and opposition, alliance and enmity. Royalsecrets about deceptions aimed at kings enemies, concealed desires andveiled plans [are at risk] as are the secrets of the high and mighty. . . .Then there are the enmities of brothers. Enmity which follows affectionis stronger because of the friends knowledge of his secrets and count ofhis vices.45 In a somewhat similar typology set forth by Sissela Bok inher work on secrecy, it is stated that several . . . strands have joined withthis . . . [dening trait of intentional concealment, or hiding] . . . to formour concept of secrecy. Although they are not always present in everysecret or every practice of secrecy, the concepts of sacredness, intimacy,privacy, silence, prohibition, furtiveness, and deception inuence the waywe think about secrecy.46 These conceptswhich may overlap, inter-twine, and even conictoffer a range of the kinds of content a secretmay hold.

In addition, al-Jahiz implies that context is important in dening secrecy.Secrets may be found in an elegant report, a distinguished sermon, inwhat is mysterious and unknown, and in the infamous and motley.47 Thisobservation concerns modes of revelation as much as modes of conceal-ment: secrets can be concealed/revealed in and through writing (e.g.,scrolls), spoken public words and signs, as well as codes.

concealment of the secret (kitma@n al-sirr)Having discussed the denitions of sirr, or the secret, we now turn to theprocess of keeping or concealing the secret (kitman al-sirr). Paradoxi-cally, it is through a consideration of how al-Jahiz denes revelation ofthe secret that we arrive at a better understanding of what it means toconceal a secret. In al-Jahizs view, revelation primarily occurs throughthe spoken word. While he does bring up other aspects of the total beingof a person that can reveal secrets (e.g., body gestures, shifts in mood,and excesses in expression such as excessive laughter and hilarity), he

45 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 51, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 24.46 Sissela Bok, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (New York: Pan-

theon, 1983), 6.47 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 51, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 24.

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treats them briey. Overwhelmingly, speech is the mode of revelation onwhich he focuses, and, as pointed out earlier, this emphasis must to someextent be shaped by his deep interest in and examinations of theories ofsignication, rhetoric, and poetics in his other writings. Furthermore, thecomplexity of the relation this emphasis on the spoken word must havehad to the religious context at hand (i.e., a nascent Islam), in which Arabicspeech is the divine revelation par excellence, deserves separate inquiry.We will rst address what he has to say regarding speech as a mode ofrevelation and then take up the issue of nonverbal modes of revelation.

speech, silence, and modes of revelation

Al-Jahiz is ambivalent about the value and importance of humanspeech. On the one hand, he proclaims that all evils of the world beganwith a word [kalima] which slipped out and brought protracted war.48

On the other hand, he deems speech to be one of Gods great gifts andsubstantial blessings but a gift that has been misused by human beings.49

A godly way to use speech would be to use it in his remembranceand service.50 And in another work entitled Tafdil al-Nutq ala al-Samt(Virtues of speech over silence), he declares: You cannot convey grati-tude to God, you cannot show it except through speech.51 Divine speechor the verses of the Quran also summon human beings to use their speechin this manner; for instance, the Quranic verse 93:11 proclaims: And[of ] the bounty of thy Lord, speak.

Al-Jahiz does not argue that speech, because it can reveal secrets, istherefore harmful. Again, in Virtues of Speech over Silence, he lauds theefcacy of the spoken word, remarking that only through the tongue canyou express your needs and declare your aims, and moreover, you candescribe silence with words, while you cannot do the converse.52 Further-more, he notes that were silence more preferable . . . the superiority . . .[of ] human beings over other [creatures] would not be recognized.53

Hence, according to al-Jahiz, silence is not superior to speech. But, if notso much in Kitman, elsewhere he does recognize the merits of silence incertain interpersonal contexts. In fact, al-Jahiz demonstrates great interestin how one should optimally and discreetly present oneself in a publiccontext, and he indicates that the meanings of silence and its relation tosecrecy can be an integral part of relations between self and other. Con-sider his comments on the use of silence in the following interpersonal

48 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 59, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 31.49 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 39, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 15.50 Ibid.51 al-Jahiz, Tafdil al-Nutq ala al-Samt, 136.52 Ibid.53 Ibid.



context: Or it may chance that people are talking casually on some topicabout which you know as much or more than they, all vying with oneanother to display their knowledge. If then you join in the context, youbecome merely one of them. If however you keep silent, they will pressyou to speak; you will appear to be doing them a favour by giving youropinion, and they will listen more attentively to you than to any of theothers.54 Al-Jahiz suggests that interpersonal uses of silence (here it beingthe withholding of information or knowledge) can allow one a sense ofauthority. These observations on the presentation of the self hint at therelation between secrecy and power.55 As Bok has pointed out, to realizethat one has the power to remain silent is linked to the understanding thatone can exert some control over eventsthat one need not be entirelytransparent, entirely predictable,56 or, as al-Jahiz above describes it, oneneed not be indistinguishable from the rest of humanity.

However, keeping a secret is not just a matter of being silent beforeothers or of suspending speech in a given context. Rather, keeping thesecret is a function of a continuous process of mental sifting and discrimi-nation, and this process yields selective speechselective in all the mani-fold ways: selective in what is said, how it is said, how much is said, towhom it is said, when it is said, and why it is said. These processes ofsifting, self-censorship, and discrimination are vital to how concealmentand revelation of the secret are dened in Kitman. Indeed, a self that exer-cises discrimination and reserve with regard to the entirety of the speak-ing experience is practicing concealment of the secret, or kitman al-sirr.Again, Boks perceptive assertion that at the heart of secrecy lies dis-crimination of some form, since its essence is sifting, setting apart, drawinglines resonates powerfully with this conceptualization of kitman al-sirr.57

Furthermore, according to al-Jahiz, concealing the secret is a form ofdiscretion that involves speaking only at the right occasion (wad al-qawl ). This seemingly simple observation is critical. At the very least, itmeans that one must choose the right words for whatever occasion of

54 Charles Pellat, The Life and Works of Jahiz (Berkeley: University of California Press,1969), 203.

55 Simmel too has discussed how pretending to keep secret something about oneselfbefore others can have an adorning quality. He also sheds light on how interpersonal uses ofsecrecy can be deployed as a public relations gimmick when he maintains that for theaverage man, all superior persons and all superior achievements have something myste-rious. . . . From secrecy, which shades all that is profound and signicant, grows the typicalerror according to which everything mysterious is something important and essential(Simmel, The Secret and Secret Society, 333).

56 Bok, Secrets, 38. Elsewhere, Bok remarks: To be able to hold back some informationabout oneself or to channel it and thus inuence how one is seen by others gives power. . . .To have no capacity for secrecy is to be out of control over how others see one; it leaves oneopen to coercion (ibid., 19).

57 Ibid., 11.



which one is a part. Or it may mean that one must choose the right occasionfor whatever words one, at a given time, is moved or inclined to utter.More injurious than the impact of wrongful speech on others is its impacton the self. Speech cumulatively molds and shapes character. Characterand speech are intimately related to each other. As al-Jahiz relates in theaforementioned interpersonal denition of secret (sirr): One of the sagessaid to his son, My son, man is nothing but talk, so if you can, be goodtalk. As he would have it, ethical Islam is based as much on orthodicta(right speech) as it is on orthopraxy or orthodoxy. The very title of Kitmanlinks secrecy with the spoken word, and al-Jahiz begins and ends his workwith this link. His opening foray into the subject is: The two matters forwhich we chide you are: speaking at the wrong occasion and forfeiting asecret by broadcasting it.58 The expression wad al-qawl fi ghayr maudiliterally can be translated as: placing speech inappropriately. Improperand inappropriate placing of speech, that is to say, speaking the wrongwords at a given occasion, is equivalent to forfeiting or revealing the secret.Behind this equivalence is a conception of the ethical and moral self asbeing constituted through modes of primarily verbal self-containment anddisciplinemodes that entail processes central to maintaining secrecy,that is, the processes of sifting and discrimination. Al-Jahiz concludes hiswork by declaring: From this and the similar things we have previouslymentioned in the Book we need only remember to preserve the secret andweigh the utterance.59

Kitman al-sirr, or concealment of the secret, therefore consists ofspeaking purposefully and with discrimination. A number of expressionsal-Jahiz employs are suggestive of an economic valuation of speech inwhich, again, ideas of ownership and possession play an important role.Speech is a precious property of the self (as is the secret; recall his asser-tion that secrets are guarded by the treasury of the heart). Speaking isa form of expending the self. There is speech that is well spent, andthere is speech that is misspent; if the latter, one may be a spendthrift ora miser in ones misuse of speech. Speech that is to the point is speechthat is well conserved and well guarded (read: the secret well kept). Con-versely, speech uttered without prior reection and discrimination isspeech misused and wasted (read: the secret revealed). Al-Jahiz compareswhat he deems the nonbenecial use of speech with the two sins of theowner of a treasure. In the case of the rst sin, the owner was necessarilyguilty of withholding it even if he did not expend it sinfully.60 And inthe second sin, the owner was guilty of spending [the wealth] in vain

58 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 38, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 14.59 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 60, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 31.60 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 39, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 15.



and depraved ways which would . . . make him guilty of dissipation.61

The link between spending wealth and expending words again surfaces in asaying of the prophet, or Hadith, quoted by al-Jahiz: raima allah abdanfaqa al-fad 5l min malihi wa-amsaka al-fad 5l min qawlihi,62 translated asGod is compassionate to a person who expends the excess of his wealthand withholds the excess of his talk.

bodily modes of revelation

It is during his brief elaboration of the Arabic word ilm (self-control)that al-Jahiz enumerates some nonverbal aspects of the self that canconceal and/or reveal the secret. According to him, the meanings of ilminclude the idea of a constant regulation and discipline of ones wholebeing and character. Unfortunately, al-Jahiz merely retails these aspectsof the self that can conceal and/or reveal and does not comment on them.Some involve excesses and imbalances in human affects and psycho-logical states; others involve excesses and imbalances in conduct andbodily gestures. To practice concealment of the secret and ilm, the fol-lowing aspects of the self have to be managed correctly: subduing anexcess of pleasure, conquering the desires. In addition, the followingmust be suppressed: evil merriment and hilarity, impatience, restlessness,hasty praise and blame, evil character and greed, the wicked seizure of anopportunity, excessive desire for something sought, the intensity of long-ing and delicacy, multiplicity of complaints and regrets, quick shifts frompleasure to exasperation and exasperation to pleasure, and useless or point-less movements of the tongue and body.63 The reference to the body inhis nal phrase useless or pointless movements of the tongue and bodyushers in an examination of corporeal modes of revelation several passageslater: Even if the most level-headed, forbearing person subdued histongue, protected his secret and decreased his words, he [still] would notbe able to control the glance of his eyes, the appearance of his face, changeof his [complexions] color, his smile or frown when he remembers orthinks of the secret. It appears on his face and in his expression whenpresent in his memory or when there occurs to him something comparableor when there arrives someone who has a stake in it unless he has [achievedthe capacity for] strong dissimulation and exceptional restraint.64

Initially, al-Jahiz draws our attention to one pivotal way he denes con-cealment of the secret (i.e., a discriminating and disciplined use of speech,of which paucity of words is an important element), and then he goes on

61 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 39, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 15.62 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 54.63 Ibid., 40; al-Jahiz, Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 19.64 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 44, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 19.



to present us with the role of body language in the secrets revelation.This passage surfaces in the context of a discussion of disclosure of otherpeoples secrets rather than ones own secrets. A recurrent theme foundin the treatise, indeed in Arabic accounts on secrecy in general, is thatother peoples secrets are much more difcult to keep than ones own,and inadvertent error and weakness play a greater role in the disclosureof the former. Yet in both types of situations, whether one is concealingones own or other peoples secrets, even the most level-headed and for-bearing person who disciplines his tongue and preserves his secret isunable to check and control unconscious body language: physical gestures,signs, movements, and symptoms will give his secret away. Indeed, asFreud proclaims, all secrets become available precisely through bodilysymptoms: He that has eyes to see and ears to hear can convince himselfthat no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with hisnger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. And thus the task ofmaking conscious the most hidden recesses of the mind is one which isquite possible to accomplish.65 Freud asserts that the unconscious secretsof a patient can be made conscious or brought to consciousness through theintuition and understanding of bodily signs and symptoms. And indeed,in al-Jahizs passage too, the boundaries between unconscious and con-scious forms of secrecy are blurred. Only if one has long practiced strongdissimulation and exceptional restraint66 will one be able to preserve thesecret fully, and by this al-Jahiz does not simply mean a verbal reserve,but rather a complete and total self/body-reserve.

It follows therefore that kitman al-sirr is a complete self/tongue/bodyform of discretion and reserve. Furthermore, a psychological integrityof the core self is assimilated to the idea of physical bodily integrityan assimilation that recurs in other Arabic writings in which the conceptof the secret is prominent. Al-Jahiz advises one to rely on suspicion-mindedness, that is, to rely on a mixture of vigilance and caution inones relations with others: Be awake to these circumstances and use sus-pect thinking with all of mankind. Indeed it is related on the authority ofthe prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) that he said: Pru-dence is suspicion.67 This advice surfaces in the context of a discussionof slipups, dropping of inadvertent hints and clues, and second-guessingon the part of mainly the secret holder but also the decoder/spy. Al-Jahizcautions against this kind of second-guessing and instead promotes a

65 Sigmund Freud, Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria [1905], vol. 7 of TheStandard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey (London:Hogarth Press, Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953), 7778.

66 Hutchins, Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 19.67 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 45, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 19.



hermeneutic of suspicion or watchful vigilance and preparedness (sual-z 5ann). Prudence, according to the prophets dictum, is just this form ofpreparedness.

conclusionAt one point, al-Jahiz remarks: How worthy is one whose words arecountable and from whom no statement escapes unaccompanied by a readyguard [raqib].68 Al-Jahizs notion of concealing the secret (kitman al-sirr) in Kitman ultimately embraces a watchguard within or a discrimi-nating, ethical self that constantly sifts through its own thoughts and po-tential utterances, its own intentions and actions. Secrecy and revelationconstitute a marker of this watchguard within, and the emphasis is onself-censorship and moral vigilance in thought, speech, and expression.69

Al-Jahizs Kitman also sets forth the embodied quality of the selfanembodied self that functions as cipher, as outer signiers attest to innertruths. Hence, another aspect of this watchguard within is the idea thatthe body is implicated in the secrets disclosure. This acute awareness of,and interest in, the embodied self that reveals is, in part, a legacy ofQuranic conceptions of the self. In my book Self and Secrecy in EarlyIslam, I discuss a Quranic ideology of truth and deception70 andexamine how this ideology is inscribed in its conceptions of the self.This Quranic construction of the embodied self has strong implicationsfor understanding representations of self and subjectivity in early Islamic

68 al-Jahiz, Kitab Kitman al-Sirr, 54, and Keeping Secrets and Holding the Tongue, 27.69 Admittedly, al-Jahiz rather infrequently relies upon the Quran in fashioning his ideas

regarding secrecy (references to Quranic verses are made six times throughout the sixty-page treatise Kitman), but as we shall see, the very rst citation of a Quranic verse (89:5)in his work is an important element in his conceptualization of concealing the secret (kitmanal-sirr).

70 Ruqayya Yasmine Khan, Self and Secrecy in Early Islam (Columbia: University of SouthCarolina Press, 2008). I borrow this concept (including the phrase) from F. V. Greifenhagen,Garments of Disclosure and Deception: The Joseph Story in Islamic and Jewish Scriptureand the Politics of Intertextuality (masters thesis, Duke University, 1992), 1314. Greifen-hagen compares the Joseph stories in the Quran and Bible, and in so doing he discusses howthe Biblical and Quranic accounts thus inscribe differing ideologies of truth and deception.In the Quranic account, events unfold under the lucid light of both Gods guidance of theevents and of the exposition or telling of them. What is hidden is revealed (12:102). He alsopoints out that this is in contrast to, for example, the Bible, where deception paradoxicallysometimes works in the service of truth and actually is a means of Gods works. Joseph, ofthe many colored-coat, is known in the Quran for his shirt rather than his coat. In chapter12 [Surat Yusuf], it is Josephs shirt that ultimately tells the story of how his life is enmeshedin a tangled web of secrecy, deception, and love. Greifenhagen asserts that in this Quranicaccount, Josephs shirt functions to signify the disclosure of truth. . . . Garments do notdeceive but disclose. Given the context of accusations leveled against the prophet (of hisbeing a fabricator and forger), Greifenhagen asserts that a homology is created between thedisclosing quality and reliability of Josephs story, of Gods plan and his prophets mes-sages (1314).



ethics and Arabic love literature. In other words, the Quran bequeathedto these ethical and literary discourses a powerful belief in how humanintentionality and consciousness can be subverted through the body.

While the religious view deeply informs al-Jahizs composition ofKitman, his analysis and discussion of secrecy are not framed in termsof religious concepts. According to al-Jahiz, concealing/revealing thesecret (kitman al-sirr) is conceived more in terms of a process, more interms of an interpersonal mode of ethics. Given his courtly audiences, al-Jahizs emphasis on both moral vigilance and discretion in expression isset within the context of the here and now; he conceives of the practice ofkitman al-sirr, like the art of bayan, to be a goal to be strived for by anyonebelonging to early Arabo-Islamic culture and societywhether a caliph,jurist, or teacher.

Al-Jahiz almost promotes the notion that (in the context of the inter-personal relation) there cannot be a self without secrets. But just as therecannot be a self without secrets, neither can there be a self and subjectivitywithout the revelation of secrets. For al-Jahiz, it is the management of thisconsciousness, the self-censorship inherent in the process and work ofconcealing the secret (kitman al-sirr), that is vital. Revelation inevitablyoccurs, yet how well is it contained? This is the supreme challenge to theethical and moral self that exercises kitman al-sirr. Arguing that throughmodes of self-discipline and containment (involving verbal and bodilyforms of reserve), the self practices concealment of the secret, al-Jahizrenders this practice most meaningful within the earthly contexta contextinvolving interpersonal relations, self-presentation, and ethical conduct.

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