have made it a Quran in Arabic” (Q 43:3). “Can anything that is made be anything but created?”

I replied, “Yet Allah—exalted be He—also says: ‘So He made them like chewed-up straw’ (Q 105:5). Did He create them?”

He fell silent.

When we reached the place known as Bāb al-Bustān I was taken out, a mount was brought, and I was set upon it while the fetters were still on my legs. No one was holding me, and more than once I nearly pitched forward onto my face because of the weight of the chains.

I was brought to the residence of al-Muʿtaṣim, led into a chamber, then into a room whose door was locked on me in the middle of the night, with no lamp.

I wished to perform wuduʾ (ablution). Stretching out my hand, I found a vessel filled with water and a basin beside it, so I performed wuduʾ and prayed.

The next morning I took my waistband, tightened it around the chains to bear their weight, and folded up my trousers.

The messenger of al-Muʿtaṣim came and said, “Answer the summons.”

He took me by the hand and brought me in to him, the waistband still in my hand supporting the irons. Al-Muʿtaṣim was seated, Aḥmad ibn Abī Dāwūd was present, and he had assembled a great number of his followers.

Al-Muʿtaṣim said to me, “Come nearer, come nearer.”

He kept drawing me close until I was right in front of him; then he said, “Sit.”

I sat, the shackles weighing heavily upon me. After a short while I said, “Do you permit me to speak?”

He said, “Speak.”

I said, “To what (1) did Allah and His Messenger call?”

He paused for a brief moment (2) and then said, “To the testimony that there is no god but Allah.”

I said, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.”

Then I said, “Your forefather Ibn ʿAbbās relates that when the delegation of ʿAbd al-Qays came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ they asked him about faith, and he said, ‘Do you know what faith is?’ They replied, ‘Allah and …”