we would certainly adopt your religion. One day they happened to pass by and saw him riding a sabuʿ (predatory beast) with a snake in his hand; when he noticed them, he dismounted and walked on.

Al-Samʿānī said: I heard ʿAbd al-Wāḥid in Karaj relate: “I heard the unbelievers say, ‘The lions and leopards are like Abū al-Ḥusayn’s domesticated herds.’ ”

Al-Ḍiyāʾ remarked: We have heard other reports of a lion walking beside him. It is also said that he once made a sweetmeat from watermelon rinds and ladled out a confection finer than any other.

Al-Muḥsin ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Shaykh told me—my father related: “My father used to prepare for us a sweet from watermelon rinds, whipping it with his own hand. After he died we tried to make it, but it would not come together, and my mother said, ‘What is missing is the ladle.’ ”

My uncle Abū ʿUmar told me: “Abū al-Ḥusayn used to visit us; he would slice the watermelon and cook it. Once he borrowed a knife from me and it cut him, so he said, ‘Your knife is positively foolish.’ ”

A woman reported that Abū al-Ḥusayn entered a baker’s oven and came out again.

Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, the imam of Mardā (1), narrated to us; Abū Yūsuf Ḥasan narrated: “I was with Abū al-Ḥusayn the ascetic when he said to some people, ‘Give me some of your fire.’ They filled a shard of earthenware with live coals and he said, ‘Pour it into my cloak.’ They poured it into his cloak; he took it and went on his way.”

It is also said that he sprinkled water on a crippled woman and she walked.

I heard my uncle, Muwaffaq al-Dīn, say: “It is related that a thief tried to steal Abū al-Ḥusayn’s donkey; his hand became rigid, and when he moved away from him it recovered.”