that it be presented to Ibn ʿAṭāʾ. When it was shown to him he said, “This creed is sound; whoever does not hold it is without any creed.”

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ was then summoned to the vizier. He entered, seated himself at the head of the gathering, and that enraged the vizier. The document was produced and the vizier asked, “Do you approve of this?”

“Yes,” he replied. “What concern is it of yours? Busy yourself with the confiscations and injustices for which you were appointed; why are you talking about these masters?”

The vizier barked, “His jaws!”
So they struck his jaws, and Abū al-ʿAbbās said, “O Allah, You have empowered this man over me as a punishment for my having come in to him.”

The vizier ordered, “His khuff (leather sock), boy!”
The servant pulled it off.

He added, “His head!”
They went on beating his head until blood streamed from his nostrils.

Then he said, “Prison!”
Someone remarked, “Minister, the common people will be thrown into confusion.”
So he was taken back to his house.

Abū Isḥāq al-Barmakī related, from his father, from his grandfather: “I was in the presence of Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Bashshār, and with him was Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Isfahānī. He reminded him of the story of al-Hallāj and how, after al-Hallāj had been executed, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ wrote a letter to al-Hallāj’s son to console him for his father, saying, ‘May Allah have mercy on your father and transplant his soul into the finest of bodies.’

“This shows that he believed in transmigration. The letter reached Ḥāmid’s hands, so he summoned Abū al-ʿAbbās Ibn ʿAṭāʾ and asked, ‘Is this your handwriting?’

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Then your admission makes it even worse.’

He answered, ‘Would a shaykh lie?!’

Ḥāmid ordered that he be slapped, and he was slapped. Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Bashshār said, ‘I hope Allah admits Ḥāmid ibn al-ʿAbbās into Paradise for that slap.’

Al-Sulamī said (1): Most of the masters refuted al-Hallāj and expelled him, refusing to grant him any standing in Sufism; the only ones who accepted him were Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, Ibn Khafīf, and al-Nasrābādī.

I say: It has already been mentioned that when Ibn Khafīf was shown something of al-Hallāj’s words, he disavowed them.