if what he says is not true.

Najāḥ likewise declared, “…and may Allah kill him in the narrowest cell.”

Ītākh said the same: “…and may Allah drown him.”

Al-Wāthiq added: “…and may Allah burn his body in fire if what he says—that the Qur’an is created—is not true.”

That is why I laughed: not one of them uttered an imprecation that day without seeing it fulfilled against him.

As for Ibn Abī Duʿād, Allah struck him with paralysis. Ibn al-Zayyāt—I myself had him seated inside an iron oven and pinned his body to it with nails. Isḥāq, in his illness, perspired a fetid sweat until even his closest friends and relatives fled from him. Najāḥ—I had a cell built over him, one cubit by two cubits, until he died in it. Ītākh—I wrote to Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm when he returned from the Ḥajj; he chained him and drowned him.

Al-Wāthiq, however, was given to intercourse. He said, “Mikhāʾīl, find me a drug that will rouse sexual potency.”

Mikhāʾīl replied, “Commander of the Faithful, spare your body; a man wears himself out when he forces himself to copulate.”

Al-Wāthiq insisted, “I must have it,” while a slave-girl lay between his thighs. Mikhāʾīl said, “Who could refrain from a beauty like this?” and prescribed:

“Take one pound of meat from a wild beast, boil it seven times in well-aged wine vinegar. When you sit down to drink, take from it the weight of three dirhams, and you will attain your desire.”

A few days later he ordered, “Bring me some of that beast’s meat at once.” A predator was brought, slaughtered, and he consumed it.

His stomach was seized, so the physicians were summoned. They agreed that there was no remedy except to heat a large oven with olive-wood until it was full of live coals, rake them out, pack the interior with damp clay, and seat him inside for three hours. If he asked for water, he was not to be given any. Then he was to be taken out—he would feel excruciating pain—and not returned to the oven for two hours, so that the fluid would drain away through the urinary passages. Should he be given water or returned to the oven sooner, he would perish.

Accordingly the oven was stoked, the embers removed and piled on the outside, and the cavity stuffed with the damp clay. Al-Wāthiq was stripped and seated within. He cried, “You are burning me! Give me water!” but was refused. His entire body blistered, swelling into bubbles like melons. When he was nearly roasted, he was lifted out and seated by the physicians. The moment he inhaled the air, the pain intensified and he began to scream