al-Raḥmān, Ibn Dhakwān, and Ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī as well. He put them through an interrogation that was not particularly severe; they all responded except Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī. The governor then tried to coax him and kept saying, “Are not the heavens a created thing? Is not the earth a created thing?”

Aḥmad still refused to yield, so he was jailed in the Dār al-Ḥijārah prison. After some time he gave the required answer and was released.

Aḥmad al-Sulamī states in his book “The Trials of the Sufis”: “People testified against Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī, alleging that he preferred the awliyāʾ (God’s friends) over the prophets, and they produced written affidavits. He therefore fled from Damascus to Mecca, remained in the sanctuary, and did not return until the ruler wrote to him asking him to come back—so he returned.”

I say: If this story is sound, then it is one of their fabrications against Aḥmad; he knew Allah too well to make such a claim.

Al-Sulamī also passed on a dubious tale from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, and Ibn Bakawayh transmitted it from Abū Bakr al-Ghāzī; both of them had heard it from Abū Bakr al-Shabbāk. I heard Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥusayn say:

“There was a covenant between Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī and Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī that Aḥmad would not oppose him in anything. One day Aḥmad came to him while he was addressing his gathering and said, ‘The oven has been set ablaze; what do you command?’

Abū Sulaymān gave him no reply. Aḥmad repeated the question two or three times, whereupon Abū Sulaymān—apparently annoyed—said, ‘Go and sit in it.’

Abū Sulaymān then became distracted for a while. Remembering, he said, ‘Look for Aḥmad—he is in the oven, because he is bound by the pact not to counter my word.’ They looked and found him sitting inside the oven, without a single hair of his head having been singed.”