This chapter will focus on of some of the precepts of balāġa (communicative eloquence), especially those of bayān (clarity of expression) that are particularly important to epistolography and the structure of letter-writing. It is beyond the scope of this present study to analyse exhaustively the way in which the vast array of tropes and literary devices available to the secretary are used in the epistolary genre. However, I have identified a small number of devices that seemed to draw the attention of the most prominent literary critics, such as Ibn al-Aṯīr and al-Askarī, and which reflected some of the unique structural and stylistic requirements of letter-writing. These devices will form the basis of the discussion in this chapter.

Before evaluating these precepts I would like to comment on the rather complex issue of why in this work I have decided not to translate balāġa as ‘rhetoric’, as it has often been translated by scholars of the Arabic language and literary tradition. The focus on meaning in the Arabic tradition, and the etymological sense of ‘to reach the objective’ in the verb balaġa/yabluġu led me to select a different translation for balāġa.