, outstanding in the principles of jurisprudence, possessed of prodigious intelligence and fluent speech; he never entered a debate without getting the better of his opponent.

Fakhr al-Mārdīnī (1) said, “How sharp-witted and eloquent this young man is! Yet I fear for him because of his headlong recklessness and carefree abandon.”

He went on: “After that he debated the jurists of Aleppo, and none of them could match him. Al-Ẓāhir summoned him, convened an assembly for him, and his superiority became manifest; al-Ẓāhir therefore drew him close and singled him out for favor. This provoked an outcry: they drew up official records charging him with unbelief and sent them to the sultan, warning that he might corrupt the faith of the sultan’s son. The sultan then wrote to his son—in a letter penned by al-Fāḍil (2)—ordering him to execute the man without fail. When death was inevitable, he chose to die by starvation, and so it happened late in 586 AH (3) in the Citadel of Aleppo. He lived thirty-six years.

Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah said: Ibrāhīm ibn Ṣadaqah the physician related to me:

“We left with him through Bāb al-Faraj and began speaking about sīmiyāʾ (talismanic magic). He remarked, ‘How delightful these places are!’ We then looked toward the east and saw lofty, gleaming white pavilions, large and ornamented, and in their arches women radiant as full moons together with places of entertainment. We were astonished and dumbfounded; we remained for a while, after which everything returned to the condition we were accustomed to. Yet from the moment I saw that vision I kept feeling as though in a subtle drowse, and my perception was not like the state I normally recognize in myself.”

A non-Arab narrated to me: “We were with al-Suhrawardī at al-Qābūn (4) and said, ‘Our master, we would like (5) a sheep’s head.’ So he gave us—"