then I made my way to Fayd, where I remained until I recovered; I performed the pilgrimage, and afterwards I travelled on to Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) and entered Syria. I lay down beside a dyer’s shop, and a man afflicted with dysentery spent the night with me in the mosque; he kept going out and coming back in again. At dawn the people began shouting, “The dyer’s shop has been broken into and robbed!” They entered the mosque and found us. The sick man said, “I know nothing, except that this one kept going in and out all night, whereas I left only once to relieve myself.” So they dragged me away, beat me, and demanded, “Speak!” I resolved to submit in silence, which only angered them further. They hauled me to the dyer’s shop, and there in the ashes was the footprint of the thief. “Put your foot in it,” they said. It was exactly the size of my foot, which increased their fury.
The amir arrived; a cauldron was set up with oil boiling in it, and a knife and the man assigned to amputate were brought forward. I collected myself and found my soul at peace. I said to myself, “If they intend to cut off my hand, I will only ask them to spare the right so that I may still write with it.” The amir continued to threaten and rage at me. I looked at him and recognised him: he had once been my father’s slave. He spoke to me in Arabic and I answered him in Persian. Staring at me, he said, “Abu’l-Husayn?”—that was the kunyah by which I was known in my childhood. I smiled, whereupon he began striking his own head and face, and the people turned their attention to him. Just then a commotion arose: the thieves had been caught. I left, the crowd following behind, my clothes smeared with blood, famished after several days without food. An old, destitute woman saw me and said, “Come in.” I entered, unseen by the people, and washed my face and hands. Before long the amir came looking for me; he entered with a group.
He drew a knife from his belt and swore by Allah, “If anyone seizes him, I will kill myself.” He struck his own head and face a hundred times until I restrained him. Then he apologised, begging me to accept something, but I refused and slipped away that very day. I told one of the shaykhs what had happened, and he said, “This is the punishment for keeping to yourself; you should not have been alone.”
After that, whenever I entered a town where there were poor folk, I always sought them out first.
Ibn Bākawayh said: I heard Ibn Khafīf—when Qāsim al-Iṣṭakhrī asked him about