Fāris al-Baghdādī related: “Al-Ḥallāj’s limbs were severed, yet his complexion did not change.”

Abū Bakr al-ʿAṭūfī said: “Both his hands and his feet were cut off, and he did not utter a word.”

Al-Sulamī reports: “I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shādhān say, ‘I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Kattānī say: Al-Ḥallāj was asked about patience, and he replied, ‘It is for a man’s two hands and two feet to be severed, then for him to be nailed up and crucified on this bridge.’ Everything he described was in fact done to him.”

Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz—an unknown transmitter—said: “I was the person closest to al-Ḥallāj while he was being flogged, and at every lash he kept saying, ‘aḥad, aḥad’ (He is One, He is One).”

Al-Sulamī continues: “I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī say, ‘I heard ʿĪsā al-Qaṣṣār say: The last words spoken by Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr at the moment of his killing were: ‘Sufficiency lies with the One in the One’s being singled out.’ No dervish who heard this sentence failed to be moved and to admire it.”

Al-Sulamī also said: “It is related that he was once seen standing at the Station while the people were busy with their supplications, saying, ‘I declare You far above what Your servants have attributed to You, and I disavow before You the very tawḥīd by which the monotheists have affirmed You.’ ”

I say: This is nothing but blatant heresy, for he has disowned the affirmation of Allah’s oneness upheld by the monotheists—the Companions, the Successors, and the rest of the ummah. Did they affirm Him by anything other than the word of sincerity about which the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Whoever pronounces it from his heart, his property and his blood are inviolable”? (1)