In most of the texts we saw in the preceding chapter, the addressees are portrayed as troubled, puzzled or simply misled by a rival sect or camp of opinion whose views al- Jāḥiẓ sets out to refute. We now turn to a group of writings in which he enters into an often heated argument with the addressee himself. In many such texts, which tend not to deal – at least not directly – with the more sensitive issues of doctrine or political authority, al- Jāḥiẓ's own tone is so inappropriately harsh and his language so fraught with ironies that we are bound to suspect he is really parodying himself. As obvious as this parody becomes, it hardly overwhelms the substance of the author's attack on the addressee and the errant opinions he represents. At the same time, certain points in the addressee's favour become apparent through the ironies or hypocrisies that show through al- Jāḥiẓ's self-parodying persona. Al- Jāḥiẓ, the arguing persona, and the addressee, as each is presented in the text, sometimes embody opposing views often inclining toward extremes, and the closest the reader can come to ascertaining the author's actual intentions is to assess the validity of the arguments involved on either side and arrive at a sensible position between them. The reader's desire not to be hoodwinked by parody and thus miss what the author is attempting to say to his savviest readers becomes the motivation for active engagement with the text and critical reading. The contradictions, hypocrisies and flaws that mark the positions parodied in the persons of the Jāḥiẓ-persona and the addressee become signposts leading the reader on the path of a partially hidden dialectic which the reader must travel for himself.

I am thus arguing that behind al-Jāḥiẓ's famous penchant for portraying both sides of an issue – criticised by contemporaries such as Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) and admired by modern scholars such as A. F. L. Beeston and Abdelfattah Kilito – was a definite goal of persuasion.