When Jest Becomes Serious: al-Tawḥīdī’s Contribution

The work of Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023) deserves thorough examination not only for its contributions to the adab tradition and its reflection of the cultural and intellectual developments of the Būyid period in the fourth/tenth century but also for the insights it provides into the subject of jest (hazl) in premodern Islamic thought. His adab works, such as al-Baṣā’ir wa-l-ḏaḫā’ir (Insights and Treasures) and al-Imtā‘ wa-l-mu’ānasa (Enjoyment and Conviviality), are often analyzed by critics within the tradition of al-ǧidd wa-l-hazl (earnestness and jest) established by al-Ǧāḥiẓ (d. 255/868-869), who advocated for the purposeful erasure of boundaries between jest and earnest as a means of instruction that avoids tedium. Less attention has been paid to how al-Tawḥīdī employs al-ǧidd wa-l-hazl in his writings that fall outside traditional adab classifications. In this paper, I aim to explore al-Tawḥīdī’s perspective on jest by examining key examples from Maṯālib al-wazīrayn (The Faults of the Two Viziers) and al-Hawāmil wa-l-šawāmil (Wandering Questions and Gathered Answers), shedding light on both what the author wrote about jest and how he used al-ǧidd wa-l-hazl as a sophisticated rhetorical and intellectual device. By focusing on this underexplored perspective, the study offers fresh insights into the jestful yet profoundly serious dimension of al-Tawḥīdī’s oeuvre.