In that same year the Commander of the Believers, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, executed al-Ḥārith ibn Saʿīd, the mendacious claimant to prophethood (1). He was also called al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Saʿd (2), a Damascene client of Abū al-Jalās al-ʿAbdarī—others said he was the client of al-Ḥakam ibn Marwān (3). His family came from al-Ḥawlah, but he settled in Damascus, where he devoted himself to worship, asceticism, and self-denial. Later, however, he was duped, turned back on his heels, cast off the signs of Allah, abandoned the party of Allah—the successful—and Satan overtook him so that he became one of the misguided. The Devil kept pushing him from behind until he ruined for him his religion, his worldly life, and his Hereafter, making him wretched and disgraced in all of them. To Allah we belong and to Him we return; Allah is sufficient for us [and there is no power and no might except through Allah].

Abū Bakr ibn Abī Khaythamah said: ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Najdah al-Ḥūṭī (4) related to us, Muḥammad ibn Mubārak narrated to us, and al-Walīd ibn Muslim informed us, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥassān, who said:

Al-Ḥārith the liar was one of the people of Damascus and a client of Abū al-Jalās. He had a father in al-Ḥawlah (5). Satan approached him—he had been a devoted, ascetic worshipper; had he worn a robe of gold, his asceticism and devotion would still have been apparent. Whenever he began to praise Allah, the listeners had never heard anything like his praises, nor anything more eloquent than his words.

He wrote to his father, who was in al-Ḥawlah: “O my father, come to me quickly, for I have witnessed things and I fear that Satan may have appeared to me.” His father only increased him in further error (6), writing back: “My son, apply yourself to what you have been commanded, for Allah the Exalted says, ‘Shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend? 221 They descend upon every sinful liar.’ [al-Shuʿarāʾ: 221-222] You are neither a liar nor a sinner, so proceed with what you have been ordered to do.”

Al-Ḥārith would come to the people in the mosque one by one, discuss his claim with them, and extract from each a solemn pledge and covenant: if he saw what pleased him he went forward, otherwise he kept silent about it.

He used to show them astonishing feats. He would approach a slab of marble in the mosque, tap it with his hand, and it would glorify Allah—uttering a clear tasbīḥ until those present cried out in amazement.

I (the author) say: I heard our shaykh, the scholar Abū al-ʿAbbās Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), say: “He used to strike this red slab that is in the screened enclosure (maqṣūrah) and it would glorify. He was a heretic.”

Ibn Abī Khaythamah, in his version, adds: Al-Ḥārith would give them the fruits of winter in summer, and the fruits of summer in—