In the long history of Arabic rhetoric, the thirteenth century is often regarded as the most important turning point. We no longer find the creativity of al-Sakkaki (d. 1226) whose Miftah al-'Ulum served as a model for many stereotyped commentaries. It goes without saying that the thirteenth century Arabic poetics is the outcome of the formative stage, particularly that of various developmental periods in the ninth and tenth centuries. Ibn al-Mu'tazz (d. 908)'s Kitab al-Badi' edited by the efforts of I. Kratchkovsky and his enthusiastic studies concerning the author's work, motivated many scholars to investigate this formative period of Arabic poetics. Although all of these scholars mention al-Jahiz (d. 868) as the first important figure in this early period of Arabic rhetoric, the instability of technical terms and the ambiguousness of their meanings employed by al-Jahiz, have caused scholars to generally avoid thorough investigation of his rhetoric. The purpose of this paper is to analyze al-Jahiz's rhetorical ideas and to reexamine his importance in Arabic poetics. First, al-Jahiz's description of "al-badi'" (the novel new generational style of the early 'Abbasid age) and "al-fasaha" (eloquence) is studied to reveal his rhetorical emphasis. Then, in order to consider al-Jahiz's importance to Arabic rhetoric, this paper follows the two antithetical images of al-Jahiz held by post-Jahizian rhetoricians, as well as that of the reputation of his masterpiece al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin whose theme is mainly concerned with rhetoric.
