I mourn to you sciences upon which the clouds of revelation once poured down oceans of wisdom.
I mourn to you the Tongue of Truth that perished long ago, its remembrance now like a figment lost in nothingness.
I mourn to you an eloquence before which the sayings of every articulate, well-spoken man would steal away in secrecy.
I mourn to you the subtle indications of intellects together—nothing of them remains but a faded trace of ruins.
I mourn—by your very right—the dreams of a company whose mounts once set forth from the depths of suppressed sorrow.
All have passed away, leaving neither sight nor trace—vanished like ʿĀd, like the disappearance of the first people of Iram.
They left behind a folk who grope at their garments, blinder than lambs—nay, blinder than cattle. (1)

Then he fell silent. His servant, Aḥmad ibn Fātik, said to him, “Give me an admonition.”
He replied, “It is your own self: if you do not busy it, it will busy you.”

Thereafter he was taken out; his hands and feet were severed after he had been flogged five hundred lashes, and then he was crucified. I heard him, while he was upon the trunk, engaged in intimate supplication, saying, “This morning I find myself in the Abode of Desirable Gifts, gazing upon wonders.”

Thus this sequence shows that he was crucified before his head was struck off, and perhaps that was done during part of the day.

He said: Then I saw al-Shiblī step forward beneath the trunk and cry out at the top of his voice, “Did we not forbid you concerning the worlds?”
He then said to him, “What is Sufism?”
He answered, “The least of its rungs is what you now behold.”
He said, “And what is its highest?”
He replied, “You have no path to it, yet tomorrow you will see what unfolds; in the unseen lies that which you have witnessed and that which has been hidden from you.”

When evening came, permission arrived from the caliph that his head be struck off. They said, “Night has fallen; it will be postponed until morning.”
At daybreak he was taken down and brought forward to have his neck struck. I heard him cry out at the top of his voice, “Sufficient is the One in His singularity for the One.” Then he recited: “Those who do not believe in it seek to hasten it, while those who do believe are apprehensive of it” (al-Shūrā 42:18).