He went on to say, “I do not care about being locked up; prison and my own house are all one to me. Nor do I care about being killed by the sword. What I fear is the ordeal of the lash.”

One of the other prisoners overheard him and said, “Do not worry, Abū ʿAbd Allāh. It is only two strokes, and after that you will not even feel where the rest land.” At that, it was as though relief washed over him.

He [Ṣāliḥ] said: A trustworthy informant told me, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muṣʿab—who at that time was al-Muʿtaṣim’s chief of police, deputizing for his brother Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm—that he said, “I have never seen anyone who kept entirely clear of the authorities and avoided mixing with kings whose heart was firmer than Aḥmad’s on that day. In his eyes we were no more than flies.”

Another of our companions related to me from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī⦗1⦘—or perhaps he himself related it—that they had sent him to Aḥmad in his prison cell to speak with him about taqiyyah (dissimulation), in hopes that he might give in.

He said, “So I went to him and kept talking, but although I spoke at length he would not answer me. Then he said to me, ‘What is your opinion today about the two prostrations of forgetfulness?’”

They had sent him only because of the closeness that had existed between him and Aḥmad in the days when they both attended al-Shāfiʿī’s lessons. At that time Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was one of those who lived austerely and wore wool, and he had been the most knowledgeable of al-Shāfiʿī’s disciples in hadith—before he privately adopted his blameworthy views.

After the occasion I have mentioned—when he narrated to me at the very beginning of al-Wāthiq’s caliphate—Abū ʿAbd Allāh did not relate any further traditions until he died, apart from a few narrations that took place during the reign of al-Mutawakkil.