, for Satan cannot assume my form.” Ibn Abbās said: “In the form he had during his lifetime.”

This concerns seeing him in a dream. As for wakefulness, anyone who thinks that one of the dead appears in person before people’s eyes before the Day of Resurrection has been misled by his own ignorance. This is where the Christians went astray: they believed that the Messiah, after being crucified—as they suppose—came to the disciples, spoke to them, and gave them instructions. This is mentioned in their Gospels, all of which attest to it. The one who came was a devil who said, “I am the Messiah”; he was not the Messiah himself. It is possible that the disciples were deceived by something like this, just as many Muslim shaykhs have been deceived. However, what the Messiah instructed them to convey before he was raised up is the truth that they were obliged to convey. He was not raised up until he had conveyed the messages of his Lord, so there was no need for him to return after being raised to heaven.

After al-Hallāj was killed, someone would come to his followers saying, “I am al-Hallāj,” and they would see him before their very eyes in al-Hallāj’s form. Likewise, after the death of a shaykh in Egypt called al-Dasūqī, written messages and letters would reach his followers in his name. A truthful man among his followers showed me the letter he had sent. I saw that it was in the handwriting of the jinn—and I have seen the handwriting of the jinn more than once—and it contained statements of the sort made by jinn. That devotee believed that the shaykh was alive and used to say, “He has departed.” Then he died.

Likewise, there was another shaykh in the East who performed extraordinary feats through the jinn. It was said that, after this, he would visit the closest of