I said, “Ibn Shādhān is a suspect narrator. Yes, we have heard reports about the sheer number of lice, but as for any claim that the lice were enormous—nothing of that sort ever took place; had it truly occurred, the story would have spread among the people.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Muḥassin al-Tanūkhī (1) relates: My father told us, “Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar the judge recounted: ‘My maternal uncle took me with him to al-Ḥallāj. Al-Ḥallāj said to my uncle, “I have resolved to leave Basra.” My uncle asked, “Why?” He replied, “Its people have turned me into a public spectacle. A man once brought me some dirhams and said, ‘Distribute these among the poor.’ No one else was present, so I placed them beneath a rush mat (2). The next morning a group of paupers gathered around me; I lifted the mat and handed those dirhams to them. They denounced me, claiming that I strike the ground with my hand and it turns into silver coins.” He went on listing similar stories, whereupon my uncle stood up and said, “This man is a charlatan (3).”’”

Ibn al-Nadīm said: I read, in the handwriting of ʿUbayd Allah ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Ṭāhir, that al-Ḥallāj was a conjurer and an impostor who practiced sleight of hand. He claimed every branch of knowledge yet possessed none of it. He dabbled in alchemy and was daring—indeed brazen—toward rulers, committing grave offenses and seeking to overthrow regimes. To his close followers he claimed divinity and espoused ḥulūl (the indwelling of the Divine). With kings he displayed Shiʿite sympathies, while to the common folk he paraded Sufi doctrines; and in the midst of all this he alleged that the Godhead had settled within him—exalted and sanctified is Allah above what he says.

Ibn Bākūyah said: “I heard Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Tūbah say: I heard ʿAlī ibn….”