The letter from the excellent, trustworthy and faithful shaykh has arrived. Its words disclose his learning and virtues, and its contents attest to the soundness of his understanding. May God prolong his life in the condition he now enjoys, and perpetuate his ascent in the degrees of distinction.
I read the whole letter. I found in his readiness to answer and the cleverness of his replies evidence of his inner hostility to the people of truth as well as his penetrating intelligence. I praised God for the condition in which He placed me, as regards possessions, family and children, after I had entrusted their preservation and care to this man. Yet I discovered that his heart contained rancor previously hidden from sight, which has now become plain and notorious after remaining concealed.
Glory be to God! I reproach you in private for the shameful act you have approved, rebuking you consistently for the magnitude of what you have committed. Yet you address me as incapable, foolish, and with other inventions suited to you. You have not borne the responsibility entrusted to you with patience, nor honored the trust bestowed upon you.
By God, among the greatest and strangest calamities is to see men of presumed seniority and understanding attack the skillful and eloquent for the sake of a garment —in pursuit of a shirt—. What you and those like you thought to possess has flown away; another took it by force or theft.
Heedless man! Do you imagine that, before a presence that rejects injustice and absurdity and seeks truthfulness in speech, you can claim that when you emigrated you left part of your property with me, trusted me with your family and children, and that I then wronged them and committed disgusting acts against them? What is this but an accusation devised by you?
Glory be to God! Are these the signs of noble ancestry and virtuous manners of which you boast in your genealogies and lineage, as you say in your letter, you poor wretch? What excuse will you have when the tongues of truthful men examine you before the pure Presence? When you unjustly call me a wrongdoer, you yourself are the wrongdoer; when you call me a traitor, you are the treacherous one.
I reproached you as one brother reproaches another, because of the ugly conduct you committed. I rebuked you out of concern for the reports circulating about your actions in your own town and its surroundings. Instead of answering, you moved the discussion to something I had not raised in my letter, and returned me a reply that was no reply at all, seeking to confuse your error and adorn the falsehood you have embraced. So I say in verse:
How have you undone the bond of friendship, Sahl, And corrupted fidelity, you treacherous one? You have proclaimed your obstinacy without an injury, And furnished evil grounds for suspicion.
You rushed ahead with ugly words,
The language of betrayal plain to see;
You wished to make war against the foremost of the Arabs,
Against one whose sword-edge cuts through armored bodies.
Who can face a blazing meteor's fire,
Its lightning so bright it blinds the eyes?
You acted ignorantly toward a learned, dignified man,
And raged; I scarcely doubt your madness.
Was breaking the covenant not enough for you,
That you must also use foolish and contemptuous speech?
You claim that I raised you as an infant;
With your own hands, you contemptible man, you contemptible man!
Do you not know that knowledge came through me, Influencing creation when it was still clay? I truly am a summoner to the Merciful, With the illumination of unveiling and the religion of unity.
Why then did you deny my right, my friend,
When friendship had long been pledged between us?
We both ascend toward the honor of high things,
And are honored to serve their cause.
The changes of time have tempted you,
And you forgot my affection in your infatuation.
If you persist in malice and wrongdoing,
I shall seek help from God, the All-Protecting.
In the age of recompense we shall meet again:
Its hidden hour you neither know nor can foretell.
Be wary and afraid of what will come;
Your soul will find no lasting dwelling there.
Concerning the word he says I uttered against him: even if that word is literally true, I did not use it in making a claim to religious authority or in seeking fame among the Nuṣayrīs. He seems to have imitated their acts and accusations in making this charge against me.
For his own benefit he tried to set snares and demanded that I condemn the very man who is his Caller and mine, who nourished and raised him, in whose household he grew up and from whose home he departed. He neither respected that man's sanctity nor regarded the ties that bound them. If this is how you behave toward your own benefactor, how will you treat someone who has none of these claims upon you? For this reason I reprove you for what you have spread, and for your failure concerning the family and children entrusted to your care.
The account is supported by the widespread reports of the people of your town and brethren, and by the testimony of a great many associates and neighbors. Yet you lavish praise on yourself while directing blame and insult at me. You have broken faith with God and His Guardian without grievance or injury, merely to indulge in ornamented, rhyming prose, as if you could compete with the masters of composition and embellishment. How far such skill is from a mind with so little knowledge! Words are sound only when they correspond to meanings. Riffraff and vulgar people, whom you take as friends and followers, approve what people of discernment reject and what reason cannot accept; through deficient understanding, they excuse your fabrications and lies.
I shall show you some of the poverty of your argument when you attacked my father and paternal uncle. You elaborated accusations against them and tried to ascribe to me the disagreements you alleged between them and the pure Imams. God, Lord of the worlds, will call you to account for this. By God, they lived with honor and died lamented, known for concealment of faults, chastity, religion, justice and trustworthiness. They and their ancestors were preachers, judges and jurists in their city, recognized for their place in the school they followed and for transmitting its teaching. Their reckoning belongs to God Most High, for whom no sin is too great to judge, even if unbelief is its furthest limit.
Had you possessed even a trace of learning or discretion, you would have recognized what rebounds upon you when you attack a man's parents: the same reasoning permits an attack upon the noble prophets and a rejection of the mighty Book of God. Silence would have suited your condition better and relieved your mind. His saying demolishes your falsehood: "Every soul is held in pledge for what it has earned" (Qurʾān 74:38); and "A father will avail his child nothing, nor a child his father" (31:33). Thus the Book itself answers you.
Your argument is also an insult to the pure prophets. In the account of Abraham, the Friend of the Merciful, he admonishes his father for the worship of idols: "My father, do not worship Satan; Satan is disobedient to the Merciful" (19:44). As for the Master of the messengers and Imams, consider Abū Lahab, his uncle, and what the tradition says concerning his family. Nor did God disgrace the pure prophets on account of members of their households who apostatized and rejected their obedience. How then can you hold me responsible for your invention about my father and uncle? God is far above injustice and oppression.
Two things moved you, man of little learning, to this: first, you opened a door through which Jews and Christians might attack the religion of Islam and cast aspersions upon the noble prophets; second, your weak judgment and gross incomprehension prevented you from seeing the faults in your argument. Either offense could suffice to bring punishment upon you. One of these offenses could warrant the cutting out of your tongue, the tearing down of your limbs, and the striking off of your head. Your heart has been darkened and Satan has mastered your thought. You openly exposed what you concealed and brought forth accusations for which you will answer helplessly before the Judge on the Day of Judgment.
And I say of you in verse:
You have revealed what was concealed within you,
And disclosed a sin for which no excuse can be made.
You have broken the bond of friendship, betraying your pledge,
And confronted supreme majesty with your injustice.
You addressed him foolishly, declaring him deficient,
Although he is master of his forbearance and the gifts of his wisdom.
You said—your ignorant words themselves bear witness—
That the full moon stands at the utmost of its fullness.
"Our first matter and our original form":
What has your foolishness made of this claim?
Do you know, blind man, the wretchedness
Of the last age and its final resurrection?
Who is the master of the cycles and ages alone,
And who is his speaking caller, known by name?
Who is the Second Preceder and the Follower with him,
Who makes the true word clear after its concealment?
Who is Khiḍr among the righteous, who never dies?
How did Jesus ascend to heaven in his body?
Where is the Ancient of all time, and how is He one,
Though described as governing upon the throne?
How does the subtle soul receive its recompense,
And by what knowledge can its existence be known?
You have no wise answer to a single question,
Nor a decisive proof that settles its meaning.
I know that the calumny of those who preceded you
Will be exposed by the arguments of truth.
You and they alike are companions in falsehood,
Servants of the cycles of concealment and their stars.
How can you dispute a man of exalted dignity,
When your own claim is marked by corruption?
You disparage him with the denials of unbelief,
And have lost what you might have attained.
His soul possesses knowledge of resurrection,
While you understand neither its proof nor its reality.
You have made yourself a victim of your ignorance,
And the downfall of the unjust comes suddenly.
Completed through the favor of the Guardian of the Hereafter. Thus ends the rebuke of Sahl. Praise belongs to our Lord alone, and thanks to the guiding Imam, His servant.