In this insight, the literary device of framing is used to shed light on the systematic structure of al-Ḥarīrī's Maqāmāt (hereafter, Ḥarīriyya). The work has been criticised by modern scholars for being fragmented, short-breathed, and episodic. In contrast, I argue that all fifty episodes of the Ḥarīriyya are part of a symmetric, well-devised structure, which places language at the centre of three cyclic frames: 1. the author's introduction and afterword, in which al-Ḥarīrī dwells on the advantages of ambiguity and concealing one's intentions, 2. the first and last encounter of the two characters, which summarise the trajectory from ignorance to knowledge (or recognition), 3. the liminal theme of safar or travelling, which emphasises the game of hide-and-seek led by the trickster and the narrator in different cities. The three frames share the central paradox of the Maqāmāt: concealment versus clarity; or more concretely, language as a tool for both expressing and obscuring one's attention.