Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 32 (2024): 22-50

Abstract
The execution of al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922) and Ghulām Khalīl’s (d. 275/888) inquisition (miḥna) against the Sufis 
have loomed large in the historiography of Sufism. These events are often depicted as instances of anti-Sufi 
prosecution that fundamentally reshaped Sufism, causing later Sufis to align it more closely with “normative” 
Islam. While modern scholarship has recently challenged the influence and impact attributed to al-Ḥallāj's fate, 
this article expands this critical perspective to Ghulām Khalīl’s miḥna, details of which are provided across 
numerous sources. For the first time, these narratives will be critically examined highlighting problematic 
aspects that call into question its historicity. More importantly, however, this article looks to the way in which 
Sufis themselves engaged with and presented this miḥna in texts from the third/ninth century onward. Rather 
than being something to be answered for or contended with, Sufis offered these narratives as examples of 
tribulation (balāʾ) and connected them to a wide array of Sufi concepts, including altruism (īthār), forbearance 
(ṣabr), gratitude (shukr), and contentment with God (riḍā), among other interpretive frames. This article revisits 
a core element of the historiography of early Sufism and sheds light on the place of tribulation in the “universe 
of meaning” of early Sufis.

Introduction

In the third/ninth century, the story goes, Ghulām Khalīl (d. 275/888), a Basran 
renunciant (zāhid) and preacher (wāʿiẓ), instigated an inquisition (miḥna) against the 
Sufis of Baghdad that would significantly alter the trajectory of Sufism’s development.1 

1.  Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995), 1:383–85; Gerhard 
Böwering, “Early Sufism between Persecution and Heresy,” in Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries 
of Controversies and Polemics, ed. I. J. F. de Jong and Bernd Radtke, 45–67 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 54–56; Alexander 
D. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 61–62, 83, 93; Christopher Melchert, “The 
Ḥanābila and the Early Sufis,” Arabica 48, no. 3 (2001): 352–67, at 360–62; Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Sufism: The 
Formative Period (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 11–13; Christopher Melchert, “Origins and Early 
Sufism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Sufism, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon, 3–23 (Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 2014), 3–4; Māhir Zuhayr Jarrār and Sebastian Günther, Doctrinal Instruction in Early Islam: The Book of 

From Trial (Miḥna) to Tribulation (Balāʾ): 
A New Look at Ghulām Khalīl’s (d. 275/888) 

Inquisition against the Sufis

Antonio Musto

New York University

© 2024 Antonio Musto. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 
License, which allows users to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and 
only so long as attribution is given to the original authors and source.



23  •  Antonio Musto

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According to one narrative, seventy-odd Sufis were summoned because of their heretical 
beliefs. Some absconded, others concealed their Sufi activities under the guise of a jurist, 
and those who were left met their fate at the inquisition. A summary judgment was made, 
and the Sufis who had been assembled were sentenced to execution. One of the condemned, 
Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī (d. 295/907), rushed forward to be the first to be killed. This act of 
altruism (īthār), in which al-Nūrī offered his own life so that his companions could live just 
a moment longer, gave the executioner pause. He brought the matter to his superiors, and 
al-Nūrī was taken to the chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt) for questioning on matters of faith and 
creed. Al-Nūrī’s answers were so exemplary that the judge praised him and released all 
those who had been convicted.

This composite narrative of what would come to be known as the Inquisition of Ghulām 
Khalīl (miḥnat Ghulām Khalīl) draws on various anecdotes all transmitted by Sufi figures 
in the fourth/tenth century and preserved in later texts. To understand why a Basran 
renunciant would instigate a trial against early Sufis, one must look to Sufism’s emergence 
from a broad and nebulous “ascetic” or “renunciant” milieu that characterized much of 
Islamic piety in the first two centuries after the Prophet Muḥammad’s death.2 This new 
expression of Islamic religiosity coalesced in Baghdad and would become known as Sufism 
(taṣawwuf), but this process was not without problems. As modern scholars have argued, 
Sufis faced significant persecution, first with Ghulām Khalīl and then with the trial and 
execution of al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922). They argue that these events 
so affected Sufis of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries that they fundamentally 
altered Sufism’s formation, prompting it to align with the prevailing “orthodoxy” for fear of 
further reprisal.3 Although this argument has predominated in scholarship on Sufi studies, 

the Explanation of the Sunna by Ghulām Khalīl (d. 275/888) (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 25–26; Lloyd Ridgeon, Awhad 
al-Dīn Kirmānī and the Controversy of the Sufi Gaze (London: Routledge, 2017), 9–10.

2.  Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 
29–41; Christopher Melchert, “The Transition from Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the Ninth Century 
C.E.,” Studia Islamica, no. 83 (1996): 51–70, passim; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, 8–10; Karamustafa, Sufism, 1–2; 
Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-Maʾmūn (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2008), xiii, 156; Lloyd Ridgeon, “The Origins of Sufism,” in Routledge Handbook on 
Sufism, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon, 3–17 (London: Routledge, 2020), 9–12; Christopher Melchert, Before Sufism: Early 
Islamic Renunciant Piety (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 178–84; Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of 
Islamic Mysticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 10–13. Here Knysh provides an update to 
his prior formulation by calling Sufism an ascetical-mystical stream, deciding to not create a distinction. At the 
same time, however, Knysh seems to distinguish those ascetic-mystics who preceded Sufism, whom he calls 
proto-Sufis, from those who came after; see 39n68. Some scholars have called this transition into question. 
See Gavin N. Picken, “Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī and Spiritual Purification: Between Asceticism and Mysticism,” 
in Ridgeon, Routledge Handbook on Sufism, 17–31, at 19–21; Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Chichester: 
Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 19–23; Sara Sviri, Perspectives on Early Islamic Mysticism: The World of al-Ḥakīm 
al-Tirmidhī and His Contemporaries (London: Routledge, 2019), 30–32.

3.  Melchert, Before Sufism, 189; Melchert, “Transition from Asceticism to Mysticism,” 62–66; Jarrār and 
Günther, Doctrinal Instruction, 26; Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography, 159–60; Lloyd Ridgeon, “Reading Sufi 
History through Ādāb: The Perspectives of Sufis, Jawānmardān and Qalandars,” in Ethics and Spirituality in 
Islam, ed. Francesco Chiabotti et al., 379–402 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 386; Harith Ramli, “Opposition to Sufis in the 
Formative Period,” in Ridgeon, Routledge Handbook on Sufism, 120–31, at 120–5.



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Ahmet Karamustafa and others have argued that not all Sufis were burdened by the legacy 
of al-Ḥallāj, calling into question the role his execution had in altering the trajectory and 
historical development of Sufism. This article extends this discussion to the Inquisition of 
Ghulām Khalīl, which has been understood as an example of “ascetic” (zāhid) opposition to 
the newly emerged “mystical” or Sufi movement.4

Despite the important role of this inquisition in Sufi historiography, modern scholars 
have not critically examined the various narratives of Ghulām Khalīl’s miḥna and their 
modes of transmission. In fact, scholars have been wont to combine heterogeneous details 
found across the various narratives and to collapse them into one without reconciling 
differences or contradictions.5 The following historical-critical analysis of the extant 
narratives of the miḥna draws attention to significant issues that make corroborating 
the information found in these narratives difficult, raising doubts about the details of 
the miḥna. More importantly, if this miḥna did cause Sufis of the fourth/tenth and fifth/
eleventh centuries to shape Sufism into a more palatable form, it would be evident in their 
engagement with the miḥna in their writing. But later Sufis did not, in fact, view this miḥna 
as something to answer for or contend with and instead offered it generally as an example 
of a tribulation (balāʾ) and al-Nūrī’s actions specifically as an instance of altruism. In these 
texts, balāʾ is presented within the rubrics of forbearance (ṣabr), gratitude (shukr), and 
contentment with God (riḍā), among other interpretive frames. The goal of this article is 
not solely to engage with the question of the historicity of the miḥna and its role in Sufi 
historiography. It also redirects attention toward the importance of the miḥna as a window 
into the place of balāʾ in the “universe of meaning” of Sufis in the fourth/tenth century and 
beyond.6

The Narratives and Their Content

There are six full narratives of the miḥna through different chains of transmission 
(isnāds), and these are presented in Table 1 as Narratives A–H. Of these, one consists of a 
general description of Ghulām Khalīl’s animosity toward Sufis (Narrative E) and another 

4.  Melchert, Before Sufism, 187–88; Josef van Ess, Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of 
the Hijra: A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam, trans. John O’Kane (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 4:318–19; Cyrus 
Ali Zargar, Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism (La Vergne: 
Oneworld, 2017), 200–202; Josef van Ess, “Sufism and Its Opponents,” in de Jong and Radtke, Islamic Mysticism 
Contested, 22–44, at 25–26.

5.  Gerhard Böwering, for example, combines elements from one narrative in al-Sarrāj’s Lumaʿ, which does 
not mention an inquisition or a judge, with a different narrative reporting that the chief judge presided over an 
inquisition. Böwering then provides additional information about the number of supposed Sufis on trial, which 
comes from a third narrative. Böwering, “Early Sufism,” 54–55. The same approach can be seen in Carl Ernst’s 
reconstruction of the inquisition, in which he combines elements from two different narratives. First, he takes 
al-Nūrī’s statement “I love (aʿshiqu) God and He loves me (yaʿshiqunī)” from al-Sarrāj’s Lumaʿ. Then he, like 
Böwering, uses a different narrative that mentions the chief judge. Ernst does, however, acknowledge variations 
among the different narratives. Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany: State University of New York 
Press, 1985), 97–101.

6.  The phrase “universe of meaning” is taken from Knysh’s illuminating study. Knysh, Sufism, 121, 136, 144, 
etc.



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mentions only the tribulation of Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī and no miḥna (Narrative B); these 
are included in the list with an asterisk. The narratives are listed chronologically according 
to the death date of the author in whose work they appear. Details on the transmission of 
the narratives and their translations are included in the appendix to this article along with 
attestations of the narratives in later texts. As is evident from the dates of the authors, there 
is no mention of Ghulām Khalīl’s miḥna in any extant source prior to Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj’s (d. 
378/988) Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, written nearly a century after the purported events they describe.

Table 1. Narratives of the miḥna of Ghulām Khalīl

Narrative Earliest attestation Author

A Kitāb al-Lumaʿ7 Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988)

B* Kitāb al-Lumaʿ8 Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj

C Al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda9 Al-Muḥassin b. al-Tanūkhī (d. 384/994)

D Al-Mustajād min faʿalāt al-ajwād10 Al-Muḥassin b. al-Tanūkhī

E* Qūt al-qulūb11 Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996)

F Tahdhīb al-asrār12 Abū Saʿd al-Khargūshī (d. ca. 407/1016)

G Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ13 Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1038)

H Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ14 Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī

There are no other reports of or references to the miḥna prior to the mid- to late fourth/
tenth century or in later sources, Sufi or otherwise. All the narratives presented here are 
transmitted through individuals who were known as pivotal transmitters of Sufi material. 
On the one hand, one would expect such a significant event—the charging of seventy-plus 
figures with heresy (zandaqa) or unbelief (kufr)—would have attracted the attention of 
historians such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), who was likely living in Baghdad at the time of 
the miḥna and wrote disapprovingly about al-Ḥallāj.15 On the other hand, it is logical for 

7.  Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd and Ṭāḥā Surūr (Baghdad: al-Maktaba 
al-Muthannā, 1960), 498.

8.  Al-Sarrāj, al-Lumaʿ, 492.
9.  Al-Tanūkhī, al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda, ed. ʿAbbūd al-Shāljī (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1978), 2:156–57.
10.  Al-Tanūkhī, al-Mustajād min faʿalāt al-ajwād, ed. Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī (Damascus: Maṭbūʿāt al-Majmaʿ 

al-ʿIlmī al-ʿArabī bi-Dimashq, 1946), 43.
11.  Abū Ṭālib Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb fī muʿāmalat al-maḥbūb wa-waṣf ṭarīq al-murīd ilā 

maqām al-tawḥīd, ed. Maḥmūd Ibrāhīm al-Raḍwānī (Cairo: Maktabat Dār al-Turāth, 2001), 1106.
12.  Abū Saʿd al-Khargūshī, Kitāb Tahdhīb al-asrār, ed. Bassām Muḥammad Bārūd (Abu Dhabi: Manshūrāt 

al-Majmaʿ al-Thaqāfī, 1999), 286–87.
13.  Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ (repr. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1996), 10:250.
14.  The earliest full narrative from Ibn al-Aʿrābī does not reach us until al-Dhahabī, but it is attested in Abū 

Nuʿaym’s Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:249. 
15.  Rosenthal says that al-Ṭabarī returned to Baghdad sometime after 256/869–70, seven years before the 



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Sufis or Sufi-adjacent scholars to have been the ones to initially preserve and transmit this 
type of material. Furthermore, the mid- to late third/ninth century was a chaotic time in 
Baghdad, which could have caused the omission of this event in historical texts, although 
Ghulām Khalīl’s miḥna started during a period of relative stability during the long reign of 
the Caliph al-Muʿtamid (r. 256–70/870–92).16 

My analysis of the contents of these narratives will center on Narratives B–H and exclude 
Narrative A on Sumnūn al-Muḥibb (d. ca. 298/910), which mentions animosity between 
Ghulām Khalīl and Sufis but no inquisition or trial. It bears mentioning that there are three 
slightly different version of Sumnūn’s narrative in three later Persian works: al-Hujwīrī’s 
(d. 465/1072–3) Kashf al-maḥjūb, ʿAṭṭār’s (d. 586/1190 or 617/1220–1) Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, 
and Jāmī’s (d. 898/1492) Nafaḥāt al-uns.17 Narratives B–G focus on the troubles of al-Nūrī, 
which is the only element they share, and Narrative C differs radically from the others. 
The antagonists vary in number and identity, with two narratives, C and F, not mentioning 
Ghulām Khalīl at all, and apart from al-Nūrī, the protagonists are also different.

Table 2. Protagonists

Individual A B C D E F G H

Sumnūn X - - - - - - -

al-Nūrī - X X X X X X -

al-Junayd X - - X X X - -

al-Raqqām - - X X - X - -

al-Shaḥḥām - - - X - - - -

Abū Ḥamza - - - - - X - -

al-Kharrāz - - - - X - - -

Unspecified Sufis - - - - - - - X

miḥna. Al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 1, General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood, 
trans. Franz Rosenthal (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 31.

16.  Ernst has argued that the political chaos of the time likely explains the trial itself, its rushed nature, 
and the expedited judgment issued in the case. He points to the fact that four different caliphs reigned within 
the decade between 247/861 and 256/870. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, 101. Melchert has pushed back against this 
explanation in “Transition from Asceticism to Mysticism,” 65–66.

17.  Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, The Tadhkiratu’l-awliya, ed. R. A. Nicholson, vol. 2 (London: Luzac, 1907), 48; ʿAbd 
al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Nafahāt al-uns, ed. Mahdī Tawhīdīpur (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi Saʿdī, 1958), 101; ʿ Alī b. ʿ Uthmān 
al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Valentin Zhukovsky (Leningrad: Maṭbaʿa-yi Dār al-ʿUlūm al-Ittihād Jamāhīr 
Shūravī Susyālistī, 1926), 173. The accounts of Sumnūn included in the Kashf al-maḥjūb and later Persian 
narratives begin with a lover’s quarrel like that found in Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, but they end in miraculous ways. The 
caliph’s tongue becomes tied (zabānash girift), and after having a dream that explains why, he releases Sumnūn 
and is restored to good health. Comparing both the narrative structure and the terms used, it appears highly 
likely that the versions in ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ and Jāmī’s Nafaḥāt al-uns are derived from al-Hujwīrī’s 
account.



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Table 3. Antagonists

Individual A B C D E F G H

Ghulām (al-)Khalīl18 X X - X X - X X

Unspecified caliph (khalīfa) - - - X - X X -

al-Muwaffaq - X - - - - - X

Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq - - - - - - X -

al-Shāh - - X - - - - -

A judge - - - X - X - -

The sultan - X - - - - - X

The caliph’s mother - - - - - - - X

The muḥtasib - - - - - - - X

A closer look at Narrative C from al-Muḥassin al-Tanūkhī’s (d. 384/994) al-Faraj baʿd 
al-shidda is warranted given its significant divergence from the others. First, Ghulām 
Khalīl is not mentioned at all. Instead, the text identifies the main antagonist as “al-Shāh,” 
whom the editor takes to be Muḥammad b. Ghānim Ibn al-Shāh (d. unknown), the head 
of the police force (shurṭa) of eastern Baghdad. However, a manuscript I consulted has 
only “al-Shāh” without “Ibn.”19 The charge is not heresy but unbelief; the protagonist 
who saves the day is al-Raqqām (d. 321/933), not al-Nūrī; and the method of salvation is a 
rhetorical display. A further discrepancy is that the miḥna is reported to have occurred in 
264/877–8.20 Since Ibn al-Shāh was not granted his position until 278/891–2, the chronology 
poses a problem for the editor’s theory.21 All of these details suggest that this narrative may 
describe not the inquisition of Ghulām Khalīl but a different event. However, the narrative 
begins with the phrase “When the miḥna happened” (lammā kānat al-miḥna), indicating 
that the purported narrator, al-Nūrī, is describing not just any miḥna, but the miḥna. This 
phrase also appears at the beginning of Narrative G, transmitted through ʿUmar al-Bannāʾ 
(d. unknown). In addition, the other individual named in Narrative C, al-Raqqām, is also 
mentioned in Narratives D and F, which were widely disseminated and appeared in many 
later works. 

18.  In some instances, his name appears with an “al-” before “Khalīl.” For more on this, see Jarrār and 
Günther, Doctrinal Instruction, 14.

19.  Al-Tanūkhī, al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda, MS Leiden University Library, Or. 61, fol. 88a.
20.  The date of the miḥna appears in al-Nūrī’s entry in al-Dhahabī’s Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ where al-Dhahabī 

quotes ʿUmar al-Bannā’s narrative through Abū Nuʿaym. Interestingly, this date does not appear in the same 
narrative in Abū Nuʿaym’s Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, ed. 
Shuʿayb Arnaʾūṭ et al., 2nd ed. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1982), 14:71.

21.  Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. Muhạmmad Abū al-Fadḷ Ibrāhīm (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1967), 
10:22.



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Even more interesting is the fact that al-Shāh explicitly identifies al-Raqqām as a ṣūfī. 
However, al-Raqqām—that is, Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. ʿImrān al-ʿAbdī al-Baṣrī—was 
a well-known litterateur (adīb) who had no clear connection to the so-called Baghdadi 
Sufis of the third/ninth century.22 Furthermore, the term ṣūfī appears anachronistic in 
this context, since no third/ninth-century sources use ṣūfī to refer to any of the Baghdadi 
figures whom later scholars have identified as Sufis.23 There are, then, two possibilities. The 
first is that the narrative is true. This would require, among other things, a radical retelling 
of the miḥna to omit the involvement of Ghulām Khalīl, and it would mean the existence of 
a ṣūfī identity already in the third/ninth century. The second and more likely possibility is 
that the narrative is fictional but uses historical characters to enhance the literary impact 
of the story in al-Tanūkhī’s work.24 Al-Tanūkhī includes the more traditional account of 
the miḥna in his al-Mustajād (Narrative D), and it is likely that this was the source for his 
narrative retelling. All of this renders Narrative C an interesting window on the role of such 
narratives, fictional or otherwise, and the legacy of al-Nūrī outside explicitly Sufi texts.

The most striking aspect of the characters mentioned in these narratives is the 
heterogeneity of both the protagonists and the antagonists beyond the central figures of 
al-Nūrī and Ghulām Khalīl. After al-Nūrī, we find that al-Junayd (d. 297/910 or 298/911) 
and al-Raqqām appear most often—although Narratives D and F mention al-Junayd only to 
explain that he shielded himself from scrutiny by claiming an affiliation with legal scholars 
and not with Sufis. This makes al-Raqqām the second most frequently mentioned figure in 
the miḥna after al-Nūrī. Abū Ḥamza (d. 269/882–3 or 289/902), al-Shaḥḥām (that is, Abū 
Yaʿqūb Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh, a Muʿtazilī theologian; d. ca. 270/883–4),25 and al-Kharrāz (d. 
277/890) are all mentioned only once, albeit never together in a single narrative. Narrative 
H mentions no Sufi by name, not even al-Nūrī. Furthermore, there are no reports external 
to these narratives that indicate any of these individuals except for al-Nūrī were put on trial 
because of Ghulām Khalīl. It is also unclear why al-Shaḥḥām and al-Raqqām would have 
been brought to trial, as neither of them seems to have had any relationship with al-Nūrī or 
with any other Baghdadi Sufis.

Al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348) reports in his Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ that Ruwaym (d. 303/915–6) 
was also implicated in the “calamity (nūba) of Ghulām Khalīl,”26 and he repeats the report 

22.  He is, incidentally, the author of a work titled Kitāb al-ʿAfw wa-l-iʿtidhār, which is of the same genre as 
the Faraj baʿd al-shidda by al-Tanūkhī. These works contain stories about trials and tribulations that are then 
resolved in sometimes humorous or otherwise interesting ways. Al-Raqqām, Kitāb al-ʿAfw wa-l-iʿtidhār, ed. 
ʿAbd al-Qaddūs Abū Ṣāliḥ, 2nd ed. (Amman: Dār al-Bashīr, 1992).

23.  The one exception is Abū Ḥamza al-Ṣūfī; however, he appears to be an outlier.
24.  For a more detailed analysis of this work as one of literary fiction and its use of historical figures, see 

Daniel Beaumont, “In the Second Degree: Fictional Technique in at‐Tanūkhī’s Al‐Faraj baʿd ash‐Shidda,” Arabic 
and Middle Eastern Literature 1, no. 2 (1998): 125–39. This is also the view of Nouha Khalifa; see Nouha Khalifa, 
Hardship and Deliverance in the Islamic Tradition: Theology and Spirituality in the Works of al-Tanūkhī 
(London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 14.

25.  For more information on al-Shaḥḥām, see Margaretha T. Heemskerk, Suffering in the Muʿtazilite 
Theology: ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Teaching on Pain and Divine Justice (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 18–19.

26.  Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 14:235.



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in al-Dhahabī’s Taʾrīkh. This is a surprising claim, as there are reports that Ruwaym gave 
up taṣawwuf when Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq (d. 282/896) became the chief judge and made Ruwaym 
his chamberlain (wakīl).27 Indeed, Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq is said to have presided over the miḥna of 
Ghulām Khalīl. Even if one were to conclude that Ismāʿīl as chief judge did not preside over 
trials during this inquisition, it is unlikely that Ruwaym would have been implicated in it at 
a time when he had supposedly already forsaken taṣawwuf. Furthermore, Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, 
a close disciple of al-Junayd, narrated an extensive report in which al-Junayd chastised 
Ruwaym for having “hidden his love of the world” (katama ḥubb al-dunyā) during his Sufi 
period before aligning himself with the chief judge and giving up the Sufis’ coarse frock 
in favor of fine silk.28 As for al-Nūrī, al-Dhahabī mentions in his Taʾrīkh al-islām, citing Ibn 
al-Aʿrābī (d. 341/952), that al-Nūrī fled to Kufa after the inquisition. This is confusing, as in 
al-Dhahabī’s Siyar, al-Nūrī is reported to have fled to al-Raqqa.29

There is much more biographical information available regarding the narratives’ 
antagonists. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ghālib b. Khālid b. Mirdās Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Bāhilī 
al-Baṣrī,30 known as Ghulām Khalīl, was a popular preacher (shaykh al-ʿāmma) in Baghdad 
and a ḥadīth transmitter of questionable standards, according to later authorities.31 He 
was originally from Basra, born a client (mawlā) of the Arab tribe Bāhila, and subsequently 
traveled to and resided in Baghdad. Ibn ʿAdī al-Jurjānī (d. 365/975–6), in his al-Kāmil fī 
ḍuʿafāʾ al-rijāl, provides some of the earliest information on Ghulām Khalīl’s ḥadīṭh 
transmissions, including various reports about the veracity of his ḥadīṭh. Ghulām Khalīl was 
identified as someone who stole ḥadīth, altered ḥadīṭh to soften the hearts of the people,32 
and, according to Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 354/965), was unscrupulous and narrated anything that 
came his way.33 Another report claims that the scholar Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275/889) 
deemed only two people liars; one of them was Ghulām Khalīl, and Abū Dāwūd feared that 
he would become the calamity (dajjāl) of Baghdad. Ghulām Khalīl is remembered as leading 
an austere life (yataqashshafu)34 and as being an explicit proponent of enjoining the good 
and forbidding the wrong.35 It is reported that upon his death in 275/888 his coffin was 

27.  Ismāʿīl b. ʿUmar Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya, ed. Shuʿayb Arnaʾūṭ and Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf 
(Doha, Qatar: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya, 2015), 12:14.

28.  Al-Tanūkhī, Nishwār al-muḥāḍara wa-akhbār al-mudhākara, ed. ʿAbbūd al-Shāljī (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 
1995), 3:120.

29.  Al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām wa-dhayluhu, ed. ʿUmar al-Tadmurī, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 
1990), 22:67; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 13:282. The confusion is furthered when, later in the biographical 
entry for al-Nūrī, al-Dhahabī provides a report that begins with “Whoever saw al-Nūrī after his arrival from 
al-Raqqa…”

30.  ʿAbd Allāh Ibn ʿAdī, al-Kāmil fī ḍuʿafāʾ al-rijāl, ed. Māzin b. Muḥammad al-Sarsāwī (Riyadh: Maktabat 
al-Rushd, 2013), 448.

31.  Al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 20:276.
32.  Ibn ʿAdī, al-Kāmil, 448–49.
33.  Muḥammad Ibn Ḥibbān, Kitāb al-Majrūḥīn min al-muḥaddithīn, ed. Ḥamdī ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Salafī 

(Riyadh: Dār al-Ṣumayʿī, 2000), 1:165–66.
34.  Ibid., 165.
35.  Al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 20:276.



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carried to Basra, where the markets closed and men, women, and children all came out to 
pray.36

As for Ghulām Khalīl’s literary production, Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 380/990) mentions several 
works: Kitāb al-Duʿāʾ, Kitāb al-Inqiṭāʿ ilā Allāh, Kitāb al-Ṣalāt, and a Kitāb al-Mawāʿiẓ. None 
of these works survive, but the Ẓāhiriyya Library holds a manuscript of a work entitled Kitāb 
Sharḥ al-sunna with a complete transmission note (riwāya) going back to Ghulām Khalīl, 
although the work’s authorship is disputed.37 Notably, Ibn al-Nadīm lists Ghulām Khalīl 
in a section titled “Another Group of al-Mutaṣawwifa” (ṭāʾifa ukhrā min al-mutaṣawwifa), 
along with Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), Fatḥ al-Mawṣilī (d. 220/835), Abū Ḥamza al-Ṣūfī, and 
al-Junayd, among others.38 This seems like odd company for Ghulām Khalīl, who is known 
“for persecuting Sufis (and little else),” as Melchert put it.39 

One anecdote suggests the inclusion of Ghulām Khalīl among the mutaṣawwifa or as a 
ṣūfī may not be erroneous. Al-Hujwīrī’s narrative of Sumnūn’s tribulations in the Kashf 
al-maḥjūb begins with some background information. Al-Hujwīrī tells the reader that “this 
Ghulām Khalīl was a hypocritical man. Through trickery and guile, he made himself known 
to the caliph and rulers with claims of piety and Sufism (pārsāʾī va ṣūfīgarī).”40 The narrative 
goes on to say that Ghulām Khalīl would malign other shaykhs to the caliph to make him 
forsake them so that only Ghulām Khalīl’s own position remained. Ultimately, however, it is 
unclear how to square this report and Ibn al-Nadīm’s inclusion of Ghulām Khalīl among the 
Sufis.41

The judge who presided over the miḥna in some narratives was Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq, who 
served as the chief judge in Baghdad for twenty-two years according to al-Dhahabī.42 He 
is named in only Narrative G, from Abū Nuʿaym’s al-Iṣfahānī’s (d. 430/1038) Ḥilya, while 
Narrative F from Abū Saʿd al-Khargūshī (d. ca. 407/1016) mentions the “chief judge” without 
a name and Narrative D in al-Tanūkhī’s Mustajād mentions only “the judge” (al-qāḍī). 
Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq was widely remembered as an upright judge and was held in high esteem. 
Of the significant surviving biographical material on Ismāʿīl, three reports are relevant. 
The first describes a banquet attended by both Ismāʿīl and Ghulām Khalīl at which “Ghulām 
Khalīl vilified judges, bore testimony against them, and called them people of hellfire.”43 

36.  Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh madīnat al-salām, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb 
al-Islāmī, 2001), 6:246.

37.  Maher Jarrar, “Ghulām Khalīl,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed. (Leiden: Brill Online), posted October 
1, 2015. For an overview of the various discussions on the authorship of the Kitāb Sharḥ al-sunna, including a 
convincing argument for Ghulām Khalīl as the author, see Jarrār and Günther, Doctrinal Instruction, 28–65.

38.  Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist, ed. Riḍā Tajaddud (Tehran: Maṭbaʿat Dānishgāh, 1971), 237.
39.  Christopher Melchert, “Al-Barbahārī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed. (Leiden: Brill Online), posted 

October 1, 2009.
40.  Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, 182.
41.  It is worth mentioning that al-Khargūshī cites Ghulām Khalīl, like he does any other authority, narrating 

a report about a miracle attributed to Duhaym ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Ibrāhīm (d. 245/859–60). Al-Khargūshī, 
Tahdhīb al-asrār, 370.

42.  Al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 21:125.
43.  Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik, ed. Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Rabat: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-Shuʾūn 

al-Islāmiyya, 1983), 4:283.



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After they left the banquet, Ismāʿīl confronted Ghulām Khalīl about his claims that judges 
would be among those in hellfire and that they were “companions of the sultan.” Ismāʿīl 
then asked him why he had gone to the banquet at all, since “they [the companions of the 
sultan] have kissed your hand and they have kissed mine.”44 Although Ismāʿīl’s comments 
stop short of an explicit condemnation, it seems that Ghulām Khalīl did not think highly of 
Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq and vice versa. A clearer example of their relationship appears in the next 
relevant report, first quoted in Ibn Ḥibbān’s al-Majrūḥīn:

[Ibn Ḥibbān:] I heard Aḥmad b. ʿ Amr b. Jābir in Ramla say, “I was with Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq, the 
judge, when Ghulām al-Khalīl [sic] arrived. While speaking, he said, “Do you remember, 
O qāḍī, when we were in Medina in 224[/838–9] studying [ḥadīth]?” Ismāʿīl turned to us 
and said, “Little by little, he lies—I was not in Medina during that year.”45

It is likely on account of this falsehood that Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq deemed Ghulām Khalīl a liar 
(kadhdhabahu) in the third relevant report.46 The apparent animosity between Ismāʿīl and 
Ghulām Khalīl adds a problematic element to the miḥna narratives, though it does not by 
itself undermine the miḥna’s historicity as a whole.

To reiterate, Narrative C differs radically from all other narratives of the miḥna, 
although the anachronisms it contains suggest that it is a narrative retelling with some 
fabricated information. None of the narratives agree completely on the identities of either 
the Sufis involved (with the exception of al-Nūrī) or the antagonists. Three reports point 
to a problematic relationship between Ghulām Khalīl and Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq, the qāḍī al-quḍāt 
at the time, who is explicitly named in Narrative G and alluded to in Narratives D and F. 
There is circumstantial evidence that Ghulām Khalīl may himself have been identified as a 
ṣūfī or a mutaṣawwif; this evidence includes Ibn al-Nadīm’s listing of Ghulām Khalīl in the 
category of “another group of al-mutaṣawwifa.” The relationships between some of these 
characters—the judge Ismāʿīl and Ghulām Khalīl, but also Ismāʿīl and Ruwaym—are more 
complicated than the narratives themselves admit. Moreover, of the figures implicated in 
the miḥna, it is only al-Nūrī and al-Ruwaym, not others, who are associated with the miḥna 
in later biographical notices.47 Finally, there are no contemporaneous or later sources 
that could corroborate the details of these narratives. It is particularly surprising that 
there are no records of this event in contemporaneous or later historical sources and no 
mention of it by an individual outside of the Sufi tradition, especially since non-Sufis such as 
al-Shaḥḥām, a Muʿtazilī theologian, and al-Raqqām, a well-known litterateur, were among 
the few individuals explicitly implicated in the inquisition. None of these points directly 
undermines the historicity of the event, but they raise enough issues to warrant caution in 
assigning too much weight to the inquisition in the historiography of Sufism.

44.  Ibid.
45.  Ibn Ḥibbān, al-Majrūḥīn, 1:165.
46.  Al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 20:277.
47.  Ibid., 22:67 for al-Nūrī and 23:121 for Ruwaym.



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The Miḥna in Texts from the Fourth/Tenth Century Onward

Although some scholars have questioned the extent to which the legacy of al-Ḥallāj 
influenced later codifiers or synthesizers of Sufism, it is clear that al-Ḥallāj was a 
controversial figure who, because of his association with Sufism, needed to be dealt with 
carefully by medieval Sufi authors.48 If the miḥna of Ghulām Khalīl loomed so large in the 
minds of Sufis that it fundamentally shaped their self-representation, this impact would 
likely be evident in the way in which the miḥna was recounted in Sufi texts. But a close look 
at the appearance and framing of the miḥna in a wide array of Sufi texts from the fourth/
tenth century and beyond paints a different picture. In fact, the miḥna is portrayed in two 
interconnected ways. First, it appears as an example of altruism (īthār), demonstrated by 
al-Nūrī when he selflessly offers up his own life so that his companions may live longer, 
even if for just a moment. This notion of īthār needs to be understood within the framework 
of tribulation (balāʾ), the second lens through which to look at the miḥna narratives. The 
notion of balāʾ is an important element in the Sufis’ universe of meaning. It is used to explain 
various Sufi stations (maqāmāt) and states (aḥwāl), including forbearance, contentment, 
and gratitude. 

In al-Khargūshī’s Kitāb Tahdhīb al-asrār, the story of the miḥna appears as just one of 
many examples in a chapter on altruism.49 Similarly, the story of Ghulām Khalīl and al-Nūrī 
appears in chapters on generosity and liberality (al-sakhāʾ wa-l-jūd) in al-Qushayrī’s (d. 
465/1072) Risāla and al-Ṭurṭūshī’s (d. 520/1126) Sirāj al-mulūk, as an illustration of al-Nūrī’s 
altruism.50 Al-Hujwīrī, in his Kashf al-maḥjūb, lists various subgroups of Sufis. As others have 
argued, it is likely that these categories do not actually reflect self-identified or cohesive 
groups of Sufis but instead represent al-Hujwīrī’s own consolidation of beliefs and practices. 
Among these groups is “al-Nūriyya,” named after al-Nūrī, whose defining characteristic 
is altruism.51 In these sources, the miḥna of Ghulām Khalīl, or rather the story of al-Nūrī 
and his experiences of tribulation, exemplifies the importance of altruism. In fact, even in 
al-Bayhaqī’s (d. 458/1066) Shuʿab al-īmān, a creedal commentary, the report about al-Nūrī 
and his experience of the miḥna appears under the chapter on altruism.52 It is noteworthy 
that nowhere do these authors suggest that al-Nūrī was a uniquely problematic individual 
whose legacy needed to be reformed or redeemed to prevent the persecution of Sufis, nor is 
there any extended commentary on Ghulām Khalīl generally or the miḥna specifically.

48.  Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, 81, 138; Karamustafa, Sufism, 57–59, 75. Al-Kalābadhī, for instance, quotes 
heavily from al-Ḥallāj, although he does not mention the latter’s name. Al-Sulamī includes an entry for al-Ḥallāj 
in his well-known biographical dictionary, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, as do al-Hujwīrī and al-Anṣārī in their respective 
works. Abū Nuʿaym, however, excludes him from the Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ.

49.  Al-Khargūshī, Tahdhīb al-asrār, 286–87.
50.  Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya, ed. Maḥmūd Ibn al-Sharīf (Cairo: Dār al-Shaʿb, 1989), 419; 

al-Ṭurṭūshī, Sirāj al-mulūk, ed. Muḥammad Fatḥī Abū Bakr (Cairo: al-Dār al-Miṣriyya al-Lubnāniyya, 1994), 1:369.
51.  Al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, 237.
52.  Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī, al-Jāmiʿ li-shuʿab al-īmān, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Ḥāmid and 

Mukhtār Aḥmad Nadwī (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 2003), 5:144.



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Charting the link between the miḥna and the idea of tribulation is more difficult, as there 
are only a handful of explicit connections. To understand the importance of balāʾ in Sufi 
authors’ universe of meaning, one must look more broadly at texts from the third/ninth 
century and ask: How did Sufis understand balāʾ in their texts? How, in their view, were 
the trials and tribulations of this world to be dealt with, and what did such trials signify? 
This approach reveals that the miḥna of Ghulām Khalīl would have been understood as an 
instance of balāʾ even by authors who did not draw an explicit connection between the two.

In al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, the first mention of Ghulām Khalīl occurs in a chapter 
dedicated to al-Nūrī in a larger section titled “Explaining Ecstatic Utterances and Phrases 
That Appear Problematic.” In the opening chapters of this section, al-Sarrāj defines 
ecstatic utterances and goes on to explain why some scholars incorrectly find these 
utterances problematic. Next, far from an apologetic presentation of Sufism, al-Sarrāj 
offers a quadripartite typology of knowledge (ʿilm) of the sharīʿa: knowledge transmitted as 
tradition (ilm al-riwāya), knowledge obtained through the exertion of reason (ʿilm al-dirāya), 
knowledge apprehended through the use of analogy and disputation (ʿilm al-qiyās wa-l-
naẓar), and knowledge acquired through contemplation of indications of “supersensory 
reality” (ʿilm al-ḥaqāʾiq).53 He devotes nearly an entire paragraph to describing this fourth 
type as the highest and most noble form of knowledge. Al-Sarrāj explains that should a 
person make an error, only individuals of the same class of knowledge should be able to 
question the one who has erred. This is especially true for those who possess ʿilm al-ḥaqāʾiq, 
for, as al-Sarrāj says, it is the end result of all the other forms of knowledge and therefore 
the purview of a select few.54 Therefore, people who find the ecstatic utterances of a Sufi 
problematic have no right to judge whether the Sufi has erred unless they themselves are 
Sufis. In this light, one can appreciate al-Nūrī’s predicament. Al-Sarrāj thus uses Ghulām 
Khalīl’s harassment of al-Nūrī as an example to highlight the superiority of Sufis over their 
detractors, who cannot understand this highest form of knowledge. 

The most significant aspect of Ghulām Khalīl’s accusations of unbelief in this chapter of 
the Lumaʿ is that they are directed solely against al-Nūrī; there is no mention of a miḥna or 
of any other individuals being challenged.55 This is just one of three instances mentioned 
in this section of the Lumaʿ in which al-Nūrī finds himself in hot water, so to speak.56 The 
overarching portrayal in these anecdotes is of al-Nūrī as a righteous Sufi who is unjustly 
charged. This is most evident near the end of the chapter following a notice about the many 
times al-Junayd was summoned and charged with unbelief and heresy. Al-Sarrāj tells the 
reader that Sufis’ landing in such predicaments is an old phenomenon and that the first to 
endure such a trial (imtaḥana) was ʿĀmir b. ʿAbd al-Qays (d. ca. 50/670) during the time of 
the second caliph ʿUmar. After recounting the story of ʿĀmir, al-Sarrāj quotes the prophetic 

53.  Al-Sarrāj, al-Lumaʿ, 564.
54.  Ibid., 657.
55.  Ibid., 492.
56.  The other two narratives end with the caliph or al-Muwaffaq, who is erroneously identified as the caliph 

(amīr al-muʾminīn), in tears after hearing al-Nūrī speak. The narrative in which Sumnūn al-Muḥibb is implicated 
appears in the same section (kitāb) on ecstatic and problematic utterances in a chapter immediately following 
that of al-Nūrī’s titled “Accounts of Other Shaykhs Who Were Charged with Unbelief (Kufr).” Ibid., 498.



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saying “We are the community of the prophets, those who are the most severely tried…For 
men will be tested (yubtalā) on account of their religion. If they are upright in their religion, 
the trial will be most severe.”57 This connection between al-Nūrī and balāʾ is further evinced 
by an exchange of letters between him and al-Junayd preserved in the Cairo Geniza that 
focuses exclusively on the issue of balāʾ.58

The Trials of the Sufis (Miḥan al-ṣūfiyya) by al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) contains a chapter 
titled “Accounts of the Trials of Sufi Shaykhs” with twenty-two anecdotes of the various 
trials and tribulations endured by Sufis.59 Noticeably missing is any mention of al-Nūrī—
either his trial, instigated by Ghulām Khalīl, or any of the other problems he faced that 
are mentioned in other works.60 However, the section does contain an account of Sumnūn 
al-Muḥibb and Ghulām Khalīl that is nearly identical to that found in al-Sarrāj’s Lumaʿ. 
Much of this section seems to have been taken directly from al-Sarrāj’s work, and included 
in the midst of it all is the same prophetic ḥadīth about the righteous being those most 
often and severely tried.61 The fact that al-Sulamī, writing a generation after al-Sarrāj, 
interprets these miḥan in the same way demonstrates continuity in fourth/tenth-century 
Sufis’ understanding of balāʾ. To better understand how significant the notions of trial and 
tribulation were for Sufis, it is instructive to survey briefly an array of Sufi and Sufi-adjacent 
texts and draw attention to an implicit connection between the inquisition narratives and 
the idea of balāʾ.

Al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) writes that the whole world is a trial,62 and he opens his Kitāb 
al-Tawahhum with “Praise be to God, who creates for us tribulations and trials.”63 In fact, 
al-Muḥāsibī’s oeuvre contains numerous references to balāʾ, tied in some instances to 
the notion of gratitude. In his Ādāb al-nufūs, he instructs the reader to “consider every 
tribulation that has befallen you a blessing, for God has caused someone else to endure a 
trial that is more severe and worse than that which He has caused for you.”64 This stance is 
repeated in Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī’s (d. 386/996) Qūt al-qulūb in the chapter on forbearance, 
where al-Makkī says that ṣabr is the state of tribulations and gratitude is the state of grace, 
but the former is better because it is more burdensome for the lower self (nafs).65 Al-Qushayrī 

57.  Ibid., 501.
58.  MS Cairo Geniza, T-S Ar. 41-1. This correspondence was seemingly well known. It is referenced by 

Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī in his Shawāhid al-taṣawwuf, where he calls al-Junayd’s response strange (ʿajība) and 
mentions that this letter was included among al-Junayd’s epistles (rasāʾil). Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī, Shawāhid 
al-taṣawwuf, MS Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, Majāmīʿ 66, fol. 187b.

59.  Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Masāʾil wa-taʾwīlāt ṣūfiyya, ed. Bilal Orfali and 
Ismāʿīl Ibn Nujayd (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 2010), 55.

60.  Al-Sulamī, Masāʾil wa-taʾwīlāt ṣūfiyya, 55.
61.  Ibid., 56. On the relationship between al-Sulamī’s work and that of al-Sarrāj, see A. J. Arberry, “Did Sulamī 

Plagiarize Sarrāj?,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 69, no. 3 (1937): 461–65.
62.  Al-Muḥāsibī, Ādāb al-nufūs wa-yalīhi Kitāb al-Tawahhum, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭā (Cairo: Dār 

al-Salām, 1991), 70.
63.  Al-Muḥāsibī, Kitāb al-Tawahhum, ed. A. J. Arberry (Cairo: Lajnat al-Taʾlīf wa-l-Tarjama wa-l-Nashr, 1937), 5.
64.  Al-Muḥāsibī, Ādāb al-nufūs, 51.
65.  Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 335, 336–37.



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likewise writes that the truly grateful (shukūr) show gratitude for their trials, whereas the 
merely thankful (shākir) show gratitude only for things given to them.66 Throughout his 
exegesis of the Qurʾān, al-Qushayrī explains that those who truly believe will either have 
their trials be made less burdensome or become freed from them.

In other instances, trials and tribulations are understood through the practice of 
forbearance. According to al-Makkī’s Qūt al-qulūb, God praises only those who show 
forbearance in the face of tribulation and difficulty (shidda).67 Al-Makkī describes how 
crowded the doors to paradise will be for those who wish to enter. The door has two sides, 
and one of these will be dedicated to those who have forbearance, “the people of tribulation 
in the world.”68 Al-Muḥāsibī, in another work, is asked about those who experience the 
most severe trials, and he responds that they are “those with the most knowledge (maʿrifa), 
those who are strongest in certainty, and those who are the most complete in faith.” He 
goes on to quote the ḥadīth about the prophets being those who are most tried.69 In his 
Naṣāʾiḥ, al-Muḥāsibī devotes an entire chapter to being happy with the calamities of the 
world.70 Al-Sarī al-Saqatī, the maternal uncle of al-Junayd, relates that the meaning of ṣabr 
is that one should be the earth that bears the weight of the mountains, humanity, and all 
things atop it, and that this should not be called a trial, but rather a blessing and a gift 
from God.71 In his collection of forty ḥadīth, al-Sulamī includes one in which Muḥammad 
enumerates four qualities that represent the best of the world and the hereafter; one of 
these is a self (nafs) that has forbearance for trials.72 Al-Sulamī’s Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya 
contains numerous sayings attributed to various individuals that connect notions of trial 
and tribulation to forbearance, gratitude, love of God (maḥabba), contentment, and so 
forth.73 Al-Sarrāj quotes Muḥammad b. Sālim’s (d. 297/909) tripartite typology of those who 
have ṣabr—al-mutaṣabbir, al-ṣābir, and al-ṣabbār—and declares that the best of the three is 
the ṣabbār, who never wavers or changes course under trials (balāyā).74

In other instances, trials and tribulations are seen as marks of righteousness. Abū Nuʿaym 
reports in the Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ that among the signs of a true aspirant is being thankful for 

66.  Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya, 313.
67.  Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 326.
68.  Ibid., 328.
69.  Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib wa-l-waraʿ wa-l-shubha wa-bayān mubāḥihā wa-maḥẓūrihā wa-ikhtilāf al-nās fī 

ṭalabihā wa-l-radd ʿalā al-ghāliṭīn fīhi, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭā (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Kutub al-Thaqāfiyya, 
1987), 308.

70.  Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Waṣāyā, al-Naṣāʾiḥ, al-Qaṣd wa-l-rujūʿ ilā Allāh, Bad’ man anāba ilā Allāh, Fahm al-ṣalāt, 
al-Tawahhum, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1986), 10.

71.  Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:120.
72.  Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī, Kitāb al-Arbaʿīn fī al-taṣawwuf (Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif 

al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1981), 6.
73.  Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya wa-yalīhi dhikr al-niswa al-mutaʿabbidāt al-ṣūfiyyāt, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir 

Aḥmad ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al- Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1998); for ṣabr, see 102, 223, 321, and 359; for riḍā, 150 and 195; for 
shukr, 317; and for balāʾ in reference to love of God, 241, 251, 348, and 407.

74.  Al-Sarrāj, al-Lumaʿ, 76.



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trials.75 Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Maghribī (d. ca. 299/911–2) narrates that of the three types of the 
elect (ahl al-khuṣūṣ), the highest degree is held by those who are inundated with tribulations 
but who, thanks to their forbearance and contentment, only grow in their love for God and 
are rewarded with blessings (niʿam) and inner knowledge (bāṭin al-ʿilm).76 Ibn Khafīf (d. 
371/982) advises aspirants to hold fast to God, for God will cast down upon them all manner 
of trials and tribulations, including sickness, preventing the assistance of others, poverty, 
and inhibiting the heart from remembering God. Overcoming these tribulations will allow 
them to join the chosen.77 Surayra al-Sharqiyya (d. unknown) says that “trials and blessings 
are both from the same source, save that the righteous ones (al-ṣādiqūn) emerge as those 
who are steadfast when trials befall them.”78 In the Ḥilya, Abū Nuʿaym includes a saying 
ascribed to al-Junayd: “There are three types of tribulations: for the perplexed, [trials] 
are punitive; for the righteous, they are a rectification of their sins; and for the prophets, 
they are a product of the righteousness of their being selected.”79 A similar saying is also 
attributed to al-Muḥāsibī in the Ḥilya.80 This sentiment is echoed in the aforementioned 
ḥadīth, in which the prophets are said to be those most severely tried.81 

In his exegesis of Q 25:20, al-Tustarī quotes the following ḥadīth: “God protects His 
believing servant from the world just as a sick person is taken care of by their people with 
food and drink. God charges believers through trials just as a parent charges their child to 
do good.”82 In relation to Q 29:1–2, he further recounts a story in which angels see that a 
disbeliever is living an easy life with no trials. God tells the angels to reveal the punishment 
of the disbeliever, at which point the angels realize that the disbeliever has gained no 
real benefit from the good things of the world bestowed upon them. Then the angels see 
a believing servant stricken by worldly trials. God has the recompense of the believer 
revealed, and the angels understand that what has befallen the believer has done them no 
harm but instead constitutes a sign of their faith.83 

Finally, balāʾ is also discussed in connection with the station (maqām) of contentment. 
Al-Muḥāsibī describes the companions of the prophets as exemplary because they are 
content with trials;84 by contrast, the people of the world are tested with wealth and thus 

75.  Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:60.
76.  Ibid., 195.
77.  Ibn Khafīf, Ibn Ḫafīf aš-Šīrāzī und seine Schrift zur Novizenerziehung (Kitāb al-Iqtiṣād): Biographische 

Studien, Edition und Übersetzung, ed. and trans. Florian Sobieroj (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998), 27.
78.  Al-Sulamī, Early Sufi Women: Dhikr an-niswa al-mutaʿabbidāt aṣ-ṣūfiyyāt, ed. and trans. Rkia E. Cornell 

(Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999), 246–7.
79.  Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:271.
80.  Ibid., 91.
81.  Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-Taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf, ed. A. J. Arberry 

(repr. Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1994), 148.
82.  Abū Muḥammad Sahl b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Tustarī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm li-Abī Muḥammad Sahl b. Yūnus 

b. ʿĪsā al-Tustarī, ed. Ṭāhā ʿAbd al-Raʿūf Saʿd and Saʿd Ḥasan Muḥammad ʿAlī (Medina: Dār al-Ḥaram li-l-Turāth, 
2004), 113.

83.  Al-Tustarī, Tafsīr, 120.
84.  Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Waṣāyā, 80.



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become angry when they encounter trials.85 In another report, al-Junayd is asked about 
contentment, and he replies, “You asked about a comfortable life and pleasure...Someone 
knowledgeable said that the most comfortable life is the life of those who are content with 
God, for contentment is the welcoming of trials that befall you with strength, happiness, 
and anticipation for that which has not yet come from God through contemplation and 
consideration.”86 Abū Jaʿfar al-Hamadhānī’s (d. 472/1079) Rawḍat al-murīdīn contains a 
report in which al-Junayd explains that “the true devotee (faqīr) lives in trial, and all his 
trials are knowledge.”87 Abū al-Ḥasan b. al-Ṣāʾigh al-Dīnawarī (d. 331/943) reports that a 
shaykh said, “Burdensome trials and tribulations come to the one who seeks love of God.”88 
Aḥmad b. al-Ḥawārī  (d. 230/845 or 244/860) tells an aspirant to take poverty as wealth and 
trials from God as a cure.89 These quotations represent just a small sampling from texts 
written in Sufism’s formative period, roughly the third/ninth to fifth/eleventh centuries. 
They demonstrate the centrality of the theme of trials and tribulations to Sufi thought in 
this time period. Although the miḥna of Ghulām Khalīl is not often explicitly connected to 
the notion of balāʾ, it would implicitly have been understood within this framework as a 
tribulation of this world.

Conclusion

Given the importance of Ghulām Khalīl’s inquisition in scholarship on Sufism’s history, 
this article has endeavored to apply a historical-critical lens to the extant narratives, 
highlighting discrepancies that make corroborating the exact details of these narratives 
difficult. Determining the historicity of the event is beyond the scope of this article, but 
my analysis shows that there are some problematic aspects to the story. The diversity in 
the narratives’ details and the instability of the narrative itself warrants reconsideration 
of the historiographical weight assigned to Ghulām Khalīl’s miḥna and its prominence 
in the history of early Sufism. Importantly, the inquisition does not appear to have been 
something later Sufis felt they had to answer for or contend with. In this it contrasts with 
the trial and execution of al-Ḥallāj, whose contested legacy can be seen in the varied ways 
in which later Sufis grappled with his representation and thought in their texts. 

Beyond the question of historiography, an examination of these narratives in later Sufi 
texts shows that the miḥna played a twofold role in the Sufi universe of meaning. First, 
the narratives often appeared in chapters on altruism (īthār) with a focus on the self-
sacrificing actions of al-Nūrī. Second, the miḥna was viewed as an instance of divinely 
decreed tribulation. The connection between trials (miḥan) and tribulation (balāʾ) is made 
explicit only in al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, but a survey of early Sufi and Sufi-adjacent texts 
shows that the idea of tribulation was an essential element of Sufi thought and practice—all 

85.  Ibid., 81.
86.  Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:280.
87.  John Alden Williams, “Rawḍat al-Murīdīn of Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Yazdānyār” (PhD diss., Princeton 

University, 1957), 6.
88.  Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 241.
89.  Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:21.



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difficulties are tribulations from God, to be dealt with accordingly. On the one hand, instances 
of balāʾ served as an example of occasions when one should respond with forbearance (ṣabr) 
or contentment (riḍā) with what God has decreed. And on the other hand, divine trials 
such as the miḥna were to be embraced, for those who are the most righteous are those 
who are the most exposed to difficult trials, as shown by the prophetic saying that “the 
prophets are those who are most severely tested.” Finally, it is worth noting that the term 
miḥna likely resonated among early Muslims by evoking the miḥna instituted by Caliph 
al-Maʾmūn (d. 218/833). In this way, the miḥna of the Sufis could represent a similar unjust 
and, ultimately, unsuccessful attempt to persecute the righteous. Broadening the scope of 
research on Ghulām Khalīl’s inquisition beyond its historiographical role thus opens up new 
avenues for understanding the importance of the miḥna narratives for medieval Sufis and 
the role of balāʾ in early Sufi thought.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Everett Rowson, Jeremy Farrell, and Katharine Dwyer for their time 
spent editing and commenting on earlier drafts. Additionally, I am indebted to my friend 
and colleague, Rodrigo Adem, who has served as an invaluable sounding board for this 
project since its inception nearly a decade ago. I extend my gratitude to the two anonymous 
reviewers and to the journal’s editors for their insightful and constructive comments. Lastly, 
I thank the journal's copyeditor for their work and editorial assistance. Any remaining 
errors are my own.

Appendix: Transmissions and Translations

Below is a list of the various narratives of the miḥna as well as two narratives that touch 
on Ghulām Khalīl and his animosity toward Sufis, in general, and al-Nūrī, in particular. 
Many of these narratives are quoted in later sources, and references to those attestations 
can be found in the footnotes. 

The first two narratives, from al-Sarrāj’s (d. 378/988) Kitāb al-Lumaʿ (Narratives A and B), 
do not include any isnād or narrator but simply recount the story. This is characteristic of 
the Lumaʿ as a whole. Al-Sarrāj often directly quotes individuals whom he could not have 
met in person. Narrative A is found in a chapter titled “Accounts of Other Shaykhs Who 
Were Charged with Unbelief (Kufr)” of al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ in a section devoted to 
Sumnūn b. Ḥamza al-Muḥibb (d. 298/910–1).90

Narrative A

Sumnūn was called “Sumnūn the lover (al-muḥibb).” He was described as having a 
beautiful face, as having sayings about love (al-maḥabba), and as being eloquent. I was 

90.  Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 498; al-Sulamī, Masāʾil wa-taʾwīlāt ṣūfiyya, 55; al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, 173; 
ʿAṭṭār, The Tadhkiratu’l-awliya, 2:48; Jāmī, Nafahāt al-uns, 101.



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informed that a woman had taken an interest in him and desired him. When Sumnūn 
learned of this, he expelled her from his teaching sessions (majlis). The woman went to 
al-Junayd and asked, “What would you say about this: a man was my path to God, but 
God left, and the man remained?” Al-Junayd knew what she meant and did not respond 
to her but said, “God is sufficient for us and the best protector.” She then offered herself 
in marriage to Sumnūn, but he refused her.

She knew that Ghulām al-Khalīl disapproved of them [the Sufis]—for he was feuding 
with them—and she sought him out. She said to him, “These are Sufis (hāʾulāʾi ṣūfiyya), 
so-and-so and so-and-so,” and mentioned that they gathered with her every night 
doing illicit things (ḥarām). Ghulām al-Khalīl testified to that and said, “These people 
are heretics (zanādiqa), and their blood is on my hands.” The sultan [sic] commanded 
that they be killed, but God removed that [tribulation] from them, saved them, and set 
them free.

Narrative B

Narrative B appears in the chapter on Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī (d. 295/907) in the Kitāb 
al-Lumaʿ.91 

Al-Nūrī lived in the days of al-Muwaffaq, and Ghulām Khalīl disapproved of him. He 
reported to al-Muwaffaq, who was the amīr al-muʾminīn92 in those days, that there was 
a heretic in Baghdad whose blood was licit. “If the amīr al-muʾminīn kills him, his blood 
will be on my hands (dammuhu ʿalā ʿunuqī).” The caliph summoned [al-Nūrī], who 
was then brought to him. Ghulām Khalīl testified that he had heard al-Nūrī say, “I love 
(aʿshiqu) God and He loves me (yaʿshiqunī).” Al-Nūrī then said, “I heard God say, ‘He 
loves them (yuḥibbuhum) and they love Him (yuḥibbūnahu),’ and ʿ ishq is nothing more 
than maḥabba except that the ʿāshiq is prevented [from fulfilling his desire] and the 
muḥibb enjoys the object of his love.” Then al-Muwaffaq cried because of the softness 
(riqqa) of his words.

Narrative C

Narrative C is found only in al-Tanūkhī’s (d. 384/994) al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda with no later 
attestations and contains a complete isnād that purports to go back to al-Nūrī himself:93

al-Tanūkhī
Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Muẓaffar (d. 388/998)
Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid (d. 345/957)
al-Nūrī

91.  Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 492.
92.  Al-Muwaffaq’s brother al-Muʿtamid was the actual caliph in this time period, but al-Muwaffaq is largely 

considered to have been the de facto ruler.
93.  Al-Tanūkhī, al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda, 2:156–57.



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Although noteworthy on its face, as discussed earlier, this narrative differs completely 
from the others and is almost certainly a fictional account.94

Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Muẓaffar reported to us (akhbaranā) that Abū ʿUmar 
Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid said that al-Nūrī al-Ṣūfī reported to me, saying:

When the miḥna happened, I and a group of Sufis were charged with unbelief (rumītu 
anā wa-jamāʿa min al-ṣūfiyya bi-l-kufr). We were taken and placed in a dungeon for 
several days. Then we were brought out to al-Shāh,95 who was the governor (wālī). He 
wanted our blood to be spilled and strove to make it happen.

He took us out to question us and continuously torture us, bringing us back and forth 
before the execution. We promised one another that we would not speak until the one 
in charge freed us.

Al-Shāh said to al-Raqqām, “Are you the one who said: my saying bismillāh is an 
immense amount of light (lujjatun min nūr)?” Al-Raqqām was silent in accordance 
with his promise.

People of power and standing who sought compassion from al-Shāh on our behalf 
arrived and told him to stop and take more time to investigate what we were accused of.

Al-Shāh then said to al-Raqqām, “You are a ṣūfī. Perhaps you allegorically interpreted 
(taʾawwalta) your statement ‘bismillāh’ as ‘a light’ and your saying ‘al-ḥamdulillāh,’ 
after you were done, as ‘a light.’”

Al-Raqqām screamed a great scream, saying, “You misspoke (laḥanta), O amīr!” Al-Nūrī 
then said, “By God, that made me laugh despite my circumstances at that time.” The 
amīr said to al-Raqqām, “Did you start looking into grammar after [meeting] me until 
you could distinguish the ungrammatical (laḥn) from the [grammatically] correct 
(ṣawāb)?” 

Al-Raqqām then said to [al-Shāh], “Watch yourself, O amīr, for it is in the word laḥn that 
there is an error, for I meant with my statement ‘lahinta,’ meaning ‘You understood’ 
(faṭanta) in the meaning of the Sufis (bi-maʿnā al-ṣūfiyya).”

Al-Shāh then said, “How can there be someone in this world who utters something like 
this and is subjected to [charges of] heresy?” He then released us, and we were freed 
from the [predicament] we were in and from that which made us wary. We were set free 
for the flimsiest and most frivolous of reasons (bi-aḍʿaf al-asbāb wa-aysarihā).

94.  This narrative has not appeared in previous scholarship on Ghulām Khalīl and the inquisition. 
95.  Al-Tanūkhī, al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda, 2:156n3; al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, 10:22.



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Narrative D

Narrative D, from another of al-Tanūkhī’s works, al-Mustajād min faʿalāt al-ajwād, 
is introduced by “the teacher (al-ustādh) Abū ʿAlī”—that is, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. 
al-Muẓaffar (d. 388/998), mentioned in the chain of transmission for Narrative C. This 
narrative is one of the most oft-repeated in later sources.96

The ustādh Abū ʿAlī said: When Ghulām Khalīl slandered the Sufis with heresy to the 
caliph (saʿā Ghulām Khalīl bi-l-ṣūfiyya ilā al-khalīfa bi-l-zandaqa),97 [the caliph] ordered 
that they be killed. Al-Junayd concealed himself under the guise of jurisprudence, for 
he would issue fatwas in accordance with the school of Abū Thawr. As for al-Shaḥḥām, 
al-Raqqām, al-Nūrī,98 and another group [of Sufis], they were seized, and the executioner’s 
mat was unrolled for their execution. Al-Nūrī came forward, and the executioner said 
to him, “Do you know what awaits you?” He said, “Yes.” The executioner responded, 
“What makes you rush forward?” “I prefer that my friends live for another hour,” he 
said.

The executioner was perplexed and relayed news of this to the caliph, who handed 
them over to the judge so the latter could acquaint himself with the situation. The judge 
posed legal questions (masāʾil fiqhiyya) to Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī, and he answered all 
of them. Then [al-Nūrī] started to speak: “God has worshippers (ʿibād) who, when they 
stand, stand for God, and if they speak, speak for God.” He continued to say similar 
things until he caused the judge to cry. The judge sent a message to the caliph, saying, 
“If these people are heretics, there is not a single Muslim on the face of the earth.”

The caliph then ordered for them to be set free, and they were let go.

96.  It appears in al-Tanūkhī, al-Mustajād min faʿalāt al-ajwād, ed. Kurd ʿAlī, 43; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla 
al-Qushayriyya, 419; al-Ṭurṭūshī, Sirāj al-mulūk, 1:369–71; Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī tawārīkh al-aʿyān, 
ed. Muḥammad Barakat, Kāmil al-Kharrāṭ, and Riḥāwī ʿAmmār (Beirut: Dār al-Risāla al-ʿĀlamiyya, 2013), 16:331; 
Ibn al-Mulaqqin, Ṭabaqāt al-awliyāʾ, ed. Nūr al-Dīn Shurayba (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1994), 64; Ibn Ḥijja 
al-Ḥamawī, Thamarāt al-awrāq, ed. Muḥammad Abū al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 2005), 
203–4; Ibn al-Mulaqqin, Ḥadāʾiq al-awliyāʾ, ed. Yūsuf Aḥmad (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2009), 2:387–89. 
The following works contain additional material not found in other versions of this narrative: Muḥammad b. ʿ Alī 
Ibn al-Azraq and ʿAlī Sāmī al-Nashshār, Badāʾiʿ al-silk fī ṭabāʾiʿ al-mulk (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2008), 1:379–80; Ibn 
al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar wa-jāmiʿ al-ghurar, vol. 5, ed. Dorothea Krawulsky (Cairo: Qism al-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya 
bi-l-Maʿhad al-Almānī li-l-Āthār bi-l-Qāhira, 1992), 52. However, Ibn al-Dawādārī erroneously places the event 
in the year 153/770.

97.  The most recent edition, by Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīdī, seems unreliable and has rafaʿa instead of zandaqa, 
in contrast to Kurd ʿAlī’s 1946 edition and the two manuscripts I consulted. Compare al-Tanūkhī, al-Mustajād 
min faʿalāt al-ajwād, ed. Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīdī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2005), 26, with al-Tanūkhī, 
al-Mustajād min faʿalāt al-ajwād, ed. Kurd ʿAlī, 43; al-Tanūkhī, al-Mustajād min faʿalāt al-ajwād, MS University 
Library of Leipzig, Vollers 590, fol. 23b; and al-Tanūkhī, al-Mustajād min faʿalāt al-ajwād, MS al-Maktaba 
al-Azhariyya, no. 7104, fol. 16a. 

98.  Both editions as well as the two manuscripts checked for this article have al-Thawrī instead of al-Nūrī, 
although it is certain that al-Nūrī is meant here.



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Narrative E

Narrative E is from the Qūt al-qulūb of Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996). It does not have 
an isnād and is the shortest of all the narratives.99 It does not refer to a miḥna but does 
mention love of God (maḥabba) and that Ghulām Khalīl took issue with the Sufi position and 
censured the Sufis.100

The theologians (mutakallimūn) who have no [experience] of the station of familiarity 
[with God] (al-uns) deny its existence, just as the one who has not tasted love [of God] 
(al-maḥabba) denies it. This is because [the latter] fancies love [of God] to be like the love 
of created beings (maḥabbat al-makhlūq), imagines this love akin to the characteristics 
of created beings, and considers it to be of the same genus as created things. Such a 
person would say, “We do not know anything except fear [of God].”

Among those who subscribe to this position [of denying the existence of love of God] 
is Aḥmad b. Ghālib, known as Ghulām al-Khalīl. He censured al-Junayd, Abū Saʿīd 
al-Kharrāz, and Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī for their statements about love (kalāmahum fī 
al-maḥabba).

Narrative F

Narrative F comes from al-Khargūshī’s (d. ca. 407/1016) Kitāb Tahdhīb al-asrār101 and 
reaches him from one “Ibn ʿAṭāʾ,” or Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ādamī (d. 309/922), 
who was executed for being a companion of al-Ḥallāj and maintaining similar views. This 
makes Ibn ʿAṭāʾ a witness to the miḥna of Ghulām Khalīl, although no isnāḍ is included in 
this work, nor does the name Ghulām Khalīl appear in the narrative.102 As other scholars 
have noted, a pared-down version of the narrative from al-Khargūshī’s work appears in 
the much later Talbīs Iblīs of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201), which explicitly mentions Ghulām 
Khalīl. There Ibn al-Jawzī offers a full isnād that is absent from any other version of this 
narrative in other texts:103

Abū Bakr b. Ḥabīb al-ʿĀmirī (d. 530/1136) 
Abū Saʿd b. Abī Ṣādiq (d. after 462/1068)
Ibn Bākawayh/Bākūya (d. 428/1037)
ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Bakr al-Warathānī (d. 372/982–3)
Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Dīnawarī (d. 360/971)104

Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAṭāʾ

99.  Al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb, 1106.
100.  Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿ ulūm al-dīn, ed. ʿ Abd al-Raḥīm b. al-Ḥusayn al-ʿIrāqī (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 

1982), 4:340.
101.  Al-Khargūshī, Kitāb Tahdhīb al-asrār, 286–87; Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb Talbīs Iblīs, ed. Aḥmad b. ʿUthmān 

al-Mazyad (Riyadh: Dār al-Waṭan, 2002), 1036; al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, 2:173; al-Bayhaqī, al-Jāmiʿ li-shuʿab 
al-īmān, 5:144; Abū al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Nubāhī, Taʾrīkh quḍāt al-Andalus (Beirut: Dār al-Āfāq al-Jadīda, 
1983), 35.

102.  Not to be confused with Abū ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAṭāʾ al-Rūdhabārī (d. 369/976).
103.  Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs, 1036.
104.  Mostly known as Abū Bakr al-Duqqī. Al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 26:217–18.



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Interestingly, there is an earlier version of this narrative through Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, unmentioned 
in secondary scholarship, in al-Bayhaqī’s (d. 458/1066) al-Jāmiʿ li-shuʿab al-īmān.105 
Al-Bayhaqī’s version is nearly identical to that of al-Khargūshī beyond minor omissions 
and terminological differences. Like the latter, al-Bayhaqī does not mention Ghulām Khalīl 
but does name the Mālikī chief judge (qādī al-quḍāt) of the time, Abū Isḥāq Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq 
al-Azadī (d. 282/896). This version has an isnād that replicates the first three figures in Ibn 
al-Jawzī’s isnād but then goes from al-Warathānī to al-Sulamī:

Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī
ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Bakr [al-Warathānī]
Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Duqqī (i.e., Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Dīnawarī)
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAṭāʾ

Ibn al-ʿAṭāʾ said: Someone slandered (saʿā sāʿin) the Sufis to the caliph, saying, “Here 
we have some heretics who repudiate the sharīʿa (yarfuḍūna al-sharīʿa).” He seized 
Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī, Abū Ḥamza, and al-Raqqām, but al-Junayd concealed himself 
under the guise of jurisprudence—he would issue opinions according to Abū Thawr’s 
positions. They were all brought to the caliph, and he ordered them to be killed.

Abū al-Ḥusayn rushed out to the executioner to be killed. The executioner then said 
to him, “Out of all your companions, you have come first.” Al-Nūrī then said, “In this 
moment, I wanted to give preference to the lives of my companions over my own.”

The executioner and all those present were surprised, and the former wrote to the 
caliph. The matter was forwarded to the chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt). Al-Nūrī went to the 
judge and was asked about the basis for legal obligations (farāʾiḍ), purity (al-ṭahāra), and 
prayer (al-ṣalāt). Al-Nūrī answered the questions and then said, “In addition, God has 
servants who eat through God, dress through God, hear through God, go out through 
God, and come back through God.”

When the judge heard his words, he cried deeply. He went to the caliph and said, “If 
these people are heretics, there is not a single monotheist (muwaḥḥid) on the face of 
the earth.”

Narrative G

Narrative G, which is transmitted through ʿUmar al-Bannāʾ (d. unknown) without an 
isnād, first appears in Abū Nuʿaym’s (d. 430/1038) Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ in the biography for 
al-Nūrī.106 This is the narrative most commonly found in later sources, always quoted 
through ʿUmar al-Bannāʾ.107

105.  Al-Bayhaqī, al-Jāmiʿ li-shuʿab al-īmān, 5:144.
106.  Abū Nuʻaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:250–1.
107.  Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 14:71; al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 22:67; Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs, 

1034; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh madīnat al-salām, 6:335–36; al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik, 4:288.



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In Mecca, I heard ʿUmar al-Bannāʾ al-Baghdādī recount that when the miḥna of Ghulām 
al-Khalīl took place and the Sufis were charged with heresy, the caliph ordered them to 
be seized. Among those whom he seized in a group was al-Nūrī. They were brought into 
the caliph’s presence, and he ordered them to be executed. Al-Nūrī then went quickly 
to the executioner to be killed. 

The executioner said to him, “What has caused you, out of all your companions, to 
hasten to your death?” [Al-Nūrī] said, “In this moment, I prefer their lives over my 
own.” The executioner and those who were present paused the process of killing him, 
and the matter was raised with the caliph.

The caliph then forwarded the issue to the chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt); at that time, 
Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq oversaw the judges. Al-Nūrī went to him and Ismāʿīl asked him about 
points of law (masāʾil) concerning worship (ʿibādāt), purity, and prayer. He answered 
and said to [Ismāʿīl], “In addition, God has servants who hear through God, look through 
God, and go out through God. They respond through God, they eat through God, and 
they dress through God.”

When Ismāʿīl heard his words, he cried for a long time and then went to the caliph. He 
said, “If these people (qawm) are heretics, there is not a single monotheist on earth,” 
and the caliph ordered their release. The sultan [sic] asked him that day, “Of what do 
people eat?” He said, “We do not know the causes through which daily sustenance is 
acquired. We are a people who contemplate (naḥnu qawm mudabbirūn).”

He then said, “The one who has arrived at [God’s] affection (wuddihi) has become 
intimate in his proximity [to God] (anisa bi-qurbihi). The one who has attained affection 
(widād) has been selected by God from among His worshippers.”

Narrative H

Narrative H comes from Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 341/952) and is first alluded to by Abū Nuʿaym 
in his Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ in the biography for al-Nūrī. Abū Nuʿaym writes, “I heard ʿAbd 
al-Munʿim b. Hayyān (d. after 380/990–1) recount on the authority of Abū Saʿīd Ibn al-Aʿrābī 
[the story of al-Nūrī’s] tribulation (miḥnatahu) and his disappearance from his brothers 
(ikhwānihi) during the days of Ghulām Khalīl’s miḥna,” but he provides no details on 
the miḥna itself.108 The earliest complete version of Ibn al-Aʿrābī’s narrative is found in 
al-Dhahabī’s (d. 748/1348) Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ and Taʾrīkh al-islām, although the versions 
in the two works differ slightly.109 It is possible that Ibn al-Aʿrābī had direct knowledge of 

108.  Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10:249.
109.  In his work on al-Dhahabī, Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf explains that the Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ is an 

abridgment (mukhtaṣar) of the Taʾrīkh and argues that the latter was written first. The Siyar has no additional 
biographical entries (tarājim) when compared to the Taʾrīkh, but it does occasionally contain additional reports 
that are not included in the Taʾrīkh. In this instance, it is clear that the version in the Siyar is an abridgment 
of that in Taʾrīkh, in terms of both content and format. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, al-Dhahabī wa-manhajuhu fī 
kitābihi Taʾrīkh al-islām (Cairo: ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1976), 176–77.



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the event despite the gap between the year in which al-Dhahabī says the miḥna took place, 
264/877–8, and his death date of 341/952. What follows is the version in Taʾrīkh al-islām, as 
it is fuller than that included in the Siyar, which paraphrases some of the quotations found 
in the former.110

Abū Saʿīd Ibn al-Aʿrābī said that these abominations (shanāʿāt) were mentioned to him 
[Ghulām Khalīl]—meaning the immersion of the Sufis (khawḍ al-ṣūfiyya) in the intricate 
aspects of states (aḥwāl) that the traditionists (ahl al-athar) condemned.

Ibn al-Aʿrābī said that one of the approaches of the Baghdadi [Sufis] was mentioned to 
[Ghulām Khalīl] along with their position concerning love (maḥabba). He kept receiving 
news about deviance among the people of Basra, who were saying, “We love our Lord, 
and our Lord loves us (naḥnu nuḥibbu rabbanā wa-rabbunā yuḥibbunā). Our fear of 
Him has gone away because of the power of His love.”

He censured this error with an error similar to but even cruder than it, to the point 
that he made love of God (maḥabbat Allāh) a reprehensible innovation (bidʿa). He said, 
“Love is only for created beings (makhlūqīn), and fear is better and more appropriate 
for us.” But it was not as [Ghulām Khalīl] imagined it; rather, love and fear are two of 
the foundations of faith (aṣlān min uṣūl al-īmān)—every believer has them, even if one 
or the other is stronger in some people rather than others.

Ghulām Khalīl continued spreading stories (yaquṣṣu) about [the Sufis] and mentioning 
them in his teaching sessions (majālisihi). He warned against them and goaded the 
sultan and the general population (al-ʿāmma) against them, saying, “There are people 
in Basra who believe in incarnation (ḥulūl); others who engage in licentious behavior 
(ibāḥa); and some who believe in such and such,” in order to insinuate [certain things] 
and to incite [the people].

[This went on] to the point that, Ibn al-Aʿrābī said, it had spread in the mouths of the 
common people that he [Ghulām Khalīl] had mentioned heresy in association with a 
group of people from Baghdad. The sayyida, mother of al-Muwaffaq, had a liking for 
Ghulām Khalīl, and likewise the administration (dawla) and the people [liked him] for 
his renunciation (zuhd) and his physical austerities (taqashshuf).

She ordered the muḥtasib to obey Ghulām Khalīl, so he sought them [the Sufis] and sent 
out helpers to get them and write down their names. There were seventy-odd people; 
some disappeared, others the people let go—the story concerning this is long—and 
some were jailed for a time.

110.  Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 13:282; al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 20:277; Ibn Taymiyya, 
al-Istighātha fī al-radd ʿalā al-Bakrī, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. Dujayn Sahlī (Riyadh: Dār al-Waṭan, 1997), 637.



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