The Book of Living
The Book of Living
Al-Jāḥiẓ wrote The Book of Living in response to these apocalyptic expectations and social concerns. The enterprise began as an attempt to fulfil a moral imperative — the need to thank God for His creation by producing a comprehensive inventory of it. The production of such an inventory involved the proper application of the special gift which God had given to man: the reasoning intellect. Al-Jāḥiẓ sought to codify his inventory in the form of a totalising book. Yet the process was paradoxical: in order to write it, al-Jā?i? had somehow to become the ideal writer. Al-Jā?i? was also required to fashion an audience of ideal readers able to read and respond to such a book. He produced possibly the longest, and probably the most complex, book written in Arabic at the time.
Keywords: Books and society, Ideal writers and readers, Forms of dissemination of knowledge, History of the early Arabic book
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