Before examining more closely the background and status of the secretary in pre-modern Islamic society, I should point out that in a previous study I found it necessary to evaluate the social and intellectual position of a particular group of scholars in relation to their peers. In that work I was looking at the relationship between grammar and semantics, and found it especially instructive to look at how the class of grammarians fitted into the intellectual stratum of Islamic society in the pre-modern period. Almost nothing had been written previously on that aspect of the life of a grammarian. The same applies to the secretary. Therefore, in this and the next chapter I have decided to look more closely at the general social position of the secretary, and also at the qualities he needed to fulfil the requirements of his profession.

Some of the requisites underpinning the secretary's profession had in fact been established within a little over a century after the advent of Islam. Such was the importance of ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd al-Kātib's contribution to the history and development of the profession that numerous books and articles have been devoted to him. Some of those works focus on social and historical issues in ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd's letters, such as matters of state, while others concentrate on his epistolary style. This is not the place to offer a detailed analysis of ‘Abd al-Hamīd’s contribution to our knowledge of the early background to the profession of secretary, but it is the point to reflect on a few of the more salient elements of his work.