toward the air; thereupon he produced an apple and handed it over, saying, “This is from Paradise.”

Someone said to him, “The fruit of Paradise never deteriorates, yet this one has a worm in it.” He replied, “Because it has come forth from the Abode of Permanence into the abode of perishing, a measure of affliction has settled upon it.”

Observe how this poor fellow hurls himself after miracles and supernatural feats. We seek refuge in Allah from abandonment. It is related from ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—that he used to seek refuge from the hypocrite’s show of humility.

Ibn Bākūyah said: Ḥamd ibn al-Hallāj narrated to us: “After that my father arrived in Baghdad, built a house, and summoned the people to a doctrine of which I understood only half, until Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd and a group of scholars confronted him, denounced him, and a dispute broke out between him and al-Shiblī.”

Ibn Bākūyah also said: I heard ʿĪsā ibn Bazūl al-Qazwīnī say that he asked Ibn Khafīf about the meaning of these verses:

Glory to the One whose human nature unveiled
the secret radiance of His piercing divinity;
Then He appeared among His creatures, manifest
in the likeness of one who eats and drinks—
Until His servants beheld Him openly,
as clearly as one eyebrow meets another.

Ibn Khafīf replied, “May Allah curse the one who uttered that.” He was told, “Those lines are by al-Ḥusayn al-Hallāj.” He said, “If that is truly his belief, he is an unbeliever; perhaps, however, the poem has merely been attributed to him (1).”

Al-Sulamī (2) reported: ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Bakr informed us, “I heard Aḥmad ibn Fāris say that he heard al-Hallāj declare: ‘The Name has veiled them, and thus they live; had the realities of divine power been laid bare before them, they would have lost their reason.’”