al-Muḥāj bi-Ḥāl al-Hallāj.

The matter reached such a pitch that some people went so far as to say, “He is a god, and he can even bring the dead back to life.”

al-Ṣūlī said: The first man to move against al-Hallaj was the commander Abū l-Ḥusayn ʿAli ibn Aḥmad al-Rāsibī. In 301 AH he had al-Hallaj and one of his servants brought into Baghdad on two camels, parading them publicly, and he sent with them a letter that read: “Conclusive evidence has reached me that al-Hallaj claims divinity and espouses the doctrine of indwelling.” Al-Hallaj was then kept in prison for a time.

al-Ṣūlī also said: It is reported that at the beginning of his career he used to rally people under the slogan “al-Riḍā from the Family of Muhammad.” He would show the uninformed certain feats of conjuring, and when he felt confident of a person’s loyalty he would invite him to believe that he himself was divine.

It is likewise said that the vizier Ḥāmid found in his writings the claim that if a person fasts continuously for three days and then breaks his fast on the fourth day with a few chicory leaves, that exempts him from the fast of Ramadan; that if he performs two cycles of prayer during a single night, from its beginning until dawn, that frees him from all prayer thereafter; and that if he gives such-and-such in alms, that releases him from the obligation of zakah.

Ibn Ḥawqal related: Al-Hallaj emerged from Fars, adopting the guise of an ascetic and a Sufi. He continued to rise from one rank to the next until he claimed that whoever disciplines his body through obedience, fills his heart with devotional works, endures privations, and refrains from desires ascends the degrees of refinement until his nature is purged of human qualities; once purified, the spirit of God that had been breathed into Jesus settles in him, whereupon he becomes one who is obeyed—he says to a thing, “Be,” and it is.

Al-Hallaj put this doctrine into practice and summoned people to follow him, winning over a number of amirs, viziers, the kings of al-Jazirah and al-Jibal, as well as many commoners. It is even said that when his hand was severed, the blood spelled out on the ground the words, “Allah, Allah.”

I say: This report is not sound; it could easily have been something he himself contrived by flexing his wrist.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAli al-Sūrī, the ḥadith master, said: I heard Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn