a small water-pitcher; he disappeared for about an hour and then returned with a bowl of sweets, which he set before us, saying, “In the name of Allah.” The group began to eat, while I kept thinking to myself, “Now he has brought out the trick that ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān attributed to him.” I took a piece of the sweet, went down into the valley, and made the rounds of the confectioners, showing it to them and asking about it until a cook-woman said to me, “This can only be made in Zabid, and it cannot be transported; I have no idea how it was brought here.” Later a man from Zabid returned to the city and inquired among its bakers: “Has any confectioner lost a bowl with such-and-such a mark?” It turned out that it had been taken from the shop of a certain confectioner, and so I became convinced that the man was being served by unseen helpers.

Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Bannāʾ—according to the report that Ibn Nāṣir transmitted from him with permission—said: “One day al-Hallāj moved his hand and scattered dirhams over those present. Some of them remarked, ‘These are ordinary dirhams; I will believe in you only if you give me a dirham bearing your name and your father’s name.’ He replied, ‘How could that be, when such a coin has never been minted?’ The man retorted, ‘Whoever can produce what is not present can mint what has never been minted.’ This is an isolated anecdote.”

Al-Tanūkhī said: My father told us: Abū al-Qāsim Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad ibn Zanjī the secretary related to us, on the authority of his own father: “I was present at the gathering of the vizier Ḥāmid when he had brought in al-Simmarī—al-Hallāj’s associate—and was questioning him about certain matters concerning al-Hallāj. He said to him, ‘Tell me what you yourself witnessed of him.’ Al-Simmarī replied, ‘If the vizier would excuse me, let him do so.’ But the vizier insisted, whereupon he said, ‘Know that if I tell you, you will accuse me of lying, and I cannot feel safe from punishment.’ The vizier guaranteed him safety, and he said, ‘I was with him in Fars; we set out for Istakhr (1) during the winter, and I felt a craving for…’