Reading for Stylistic Convention in the Autobiography of al-Suyūṭī

Another example of the close reading of literary conventions can be found in a recent analysis of the representation of the author's emotions in the autobiography of al-Suyūṭī.^[24] In this case, insight is derived not from a broad-based comparison with other texts but rather close attention to the details of a single author's style. At several critical points in the author's life, where a modern reader might expect a description of the author's innermost emotions, al-Suyūṭī tells us what he did, rather than how he felt, deploying a rhetoric of action rather than of emotion. In one incident that demonstrates this narrative mode, the author prepares to deliver his first public lecture. We are given information about which teachers are to be present, his mentor's approval, setting the date of the lecture, the open invitation sent out to the public, and even the author's preparatory notes for the lecture itself. Rather than describe his nervousness, however, al-Suyūṭī reports: “I went to the tomb of the Imām al-Shāfi‘ī—May God be pleased with him!—and requested him to intercede for me for God's help.”^[25] This account of his actions, though devoid of explicit references to emotions, would have conveyed much to his contemporary readers about his state of mind before this dramatic moment in his life.

Another device used several times in the same text is the author's description of the emotions of those around him rather than his own. In a poignant scene describing his father's final illness, he notes that a female relative sent for a holy man to come and pray for the father's recovery—testament to the state of fear prevailing in the household—and that the other members of his family were in despair. When he notes his father's death, when he himself was but five years and seven months old, he concludes the passage laconically, “And thus I grew up an orphan.”^[26] This last image occurs immediately after a reference to the Qur’ān and would have resonated strongly with contemporary readers. The Prophet himself was raised an orphan, and the Qur’ān contains several frequently cited passages relating to the treatment of orphans. Indeed, the chapter of the Qur’ān from which al-Suyūṭī drew the title of his work (Speaking of God's Bounty) contains two such passages, including “So as for the orphan, wrong him not!” (Q 93:6).^[27] When it comes to the portrayal of his own emotions, al-Suyūṭī as autobiographer consistently prefers to report his actions rather than describe his mental state.

Two different sets of insights emerge from the examples above: (1) by studying premodern Arabic autobiographies as a series of linked texts, we have noted a commonly recurring motif, that of childhood failure or embarrassment, which seems to occur only in autobiographical writings and with a regularity that invites further analysis; and (2) a close examination of those moments that appear to be emotionally charged in a single text reveals how one autobiographer succeeds in communicating his emotional state without departing from the event-based mode of his account. Applying a similar strategy to the corpus of texts assembled here, and seeking out motifs and devices that seem within the context of this tradition to indicate some form or representation of inner emotion or private experience—though they may not coincide precisely with modern western ideas of that realm of human experience—points to two recurring features as particularly deserving of further analysis: the narration of dreams and the use of poetry.