with a number of his companions. The narrator said: We went—he and I—to a certain spot he mentioned inside the Dār al-ʿAdl. When we sat down, the Shaykh lay on his back; a stone kept there to weight the mat was at hand, so he took it, set it beneath his head, reclined for a short while, and then sat up. Someone said to him, “Master, the people have really multiplied their attacks on you!”

He replied, “They are nothing but flies,” raised his hand to his mouth, and blew into it.

Then he stood up, and we rose with him (1) until we went outside. A horse was brought; he mounted it and drew the end of his turban beneath his chin (2). I have never seen anyone whose heart was bolder (3) or whose resolve was firmer.

When the complaints and reproaches against him grew numerous (4) and the talk about him became widespread (5), an official decree was issued banishing him to the Syrian lands.

He set out on the night before Thursday, the eighteenth (6) of the month, heading toward Syria; but on that very Thursday he was brought back and imprisoned in the Ḥākim prison in the Deylam quarter on the night before Friday, the nineteenth (7) of Shawwal.

He said: ⦗96⦘ When the Shaykh entered the prison he found the inmates occupied with various kinds of