H 376 - Husain Ibn Ibrahim narrated to us from Abul Abbas Ahmad Ibn Ali Ibn Nuh, from Abu Nasr Hibatullah Ibn Muhammad Katib Ibn binte Kulthum binte Abi Ja’far Amari, saying, When Allah desired to unveil the affair of Hallaj and manifest his humiliation and to disgrace him, he thought that Abu Sahl Ibn Ismail Ibn Ali Naubakhti was a person that could be deceived by his hoax and taken by his fraud. So he sent after him. Due to his sheer ignorance, he assumed that Abu Sahl is like the other weaklings in the matter of faith and reckoned that he could be drawn and tricked through his lunacies, and that by commanding Abu Sahl’s loyalty, he will be able to draw yet more followers on the virtue of Abu Sahl’s position in the view of people and his respectability in knowledge and literature. Hallaj sent a message to him, “I am the representative of the Master of the Age .” Through such a message he would first draw the ignorant people and then proceed to other claims. He stated, “I have been ordered to correspond with you and avail you with the help you desire, so your soul may find strength and you may not have doubts in the creed.” Abu Sahl wrote back, “I will ask you a rather minor thing in comparison to the signs and proofs that have been manifested on your hands. I am a man who is fond of women and love to have playful talks with them. I have a number of concubines, but I cannot copulate with all of them. Age and grey hair has created a distance between me and them. I need to dye my hair and beard every Friday, which is a severely laborious work, in order to conceal it from them, lest my condition will be revealed to them and my proximity from them will change to distance and my union into separation. I want you to remove this need of mine of dyeing and suffice me its labor and make my beard black. I will obey you and come to you and believe in you. I will be a preacher of your faith, considering my ingenuity in this matter and your help in that regard.” When Hallaj got this message, he realized that his call to him had been a blunder. He did not reply and did not send him any messenger. On the other hand, Abu Sahl made Hallaj the subject of his talks and jests. He would make jokes of him before everyone. He spread this incident to every young and old, and this led to the revelation of Hallaj’s blasphemous enterprise and the disassociation of the community from him.