In this day and age it is necessary to take new initiatives in Persian stylistics

A step in this direction is the present study analyzes the epistles of Imam Mohammad Ghazzali from the standpoint of critical stylistics. In this regard, the stylistics features of the epistles have been analyzed in terms of their situational context and the functioning of elements in the interpersonal relationship of addresser-addressee. In this analysis the epistles, as the corpus of the study, are analyzed in four layers. At the lexical layer, structural and procedural codes, deictics, synonyms and antonyms, repeated or duplicate words have been analyzed. At the semantic layer, meaning has been studied from a pragmatic viewpoint through analysis of speech acts, direct/indirect speech, politeness strategies and face-saving moves. At the syntactic layer, modality and grammatical voice have been analyzed. At the rhetorical level, allegories, metaphors and coherence have been dealt with. Moreover, stylistic features of the epistles have been analyzed employing discursive concepts such as power and authority, ideology, dominance. The results indicate that epistle writing is a control mechanism and instrument for Ghazzali, and that his ascetical discourse intensifies his authority. Furthermore, the results also indicate that the stylistic features such as high frequency of religious codes, high frequency of persuasive and directive speech acts, strong consistency, authoritative and polemic styles are influenced by his asceticism and concern for the Hereafter.