The deputy governor started showing signs of restlessness and squatted on the floor in the expectation that his companion would make some kind of gesture. However the jurist put on a big show of being calm and intelligent.
"I've not come here to listen to your rituals, Abd al-Haqq," he told me. "You're accused of things that, if I confirm them now, will earn you just punishment."
"Who has given you the authority to examine me? Under what regulation are you deputized to do this?"
"God and the authorities here, not to mention the general injunction to command what is right and put an end to what is abhorrent."
"The authorities here have strayed from the correct path. They have fallen out with one another so that in our poor tortured land of Spain they have totally failed. Their only concern and means of exerting power now consist of harassing and terrifying the servants of God through insults and tyranny. The very fact that you submit to their will is an act of rebellion against God our Creator, thereby rendering yourself unqualified to make judgments concerning His holy law."
This provoked a new set of shouts of support, albeit weak and intermittent, from the prisoners, echoing throughout their cells. Once again the deputy governor lost his temper. The look he gave his companion seemed to represent permission to start hitting me. From time to time, Bilal lying in his corner would utter sighs and groans of protest; he may have been intending to make it clear that he was well aware of how tense this situation was and that he was fully prepared to respond to whatever bad things might happen to me.
"I'm being patient with you, Ibn Sab'in," the jurist replied in a tone full of menace and phony sorrow, "because I want you to repent. I'm prepared to wait till you recant your grievous sin. That sin lies in the following outrageous statement: `When Muhammad son of Amina declared that there would be no prophet after him, he was issuing a broad-scaled interdiction.' Do you now wish to crave God's refuge from such drivel?"
"Listen, you so-called designee," I replied. "You seem eager to cite my words from a series of falsifiers and calumniators. What I actually said does not talk in terms of `interdiction,' but rather of `surmise'."
"Here's another example of your heretical statements, or is it also an example of false attribution: `Peace be upon both denier and believer, scholar and pseudoscholar, errant and misled'?"
"Here you are again," I replied, giving him a pitiful, derisory smile, "examining me on a matter that would need a great deal of time to explain to you. In any case it's much too complex for a mind like yours to comprehend. It is true that I said precisely that at the conclusion of my `Essay on the Poor,' but what you have done is to remove it completely from its context and rip it away from its lofty humanistic frame of reference. Is there, I wonder, any use in pointing you in the right direction by citing a verse from the Sura of the Cattle [6]: `Your Lord has ascribed mercy unto Himself'; and from the Sura of the Cow [2]: `God singles out whomever he wishes for His mercy, and God is the possessor of enormous bounty.' So seek for yourself a share of God's wide mercy. Peace be upon you, even though you obviously number among those deviant would-be scholars who are in the most grievous error."
That disconcerted the jurist and made him furious. "Calm down!" he shouted. "Let me make it clear that you're not going to get out of this prison until you repent of your calumnies and false claims. Your followers continue to spread your words of incitement, all of them aimed at breaching customs and annulling religious injunctions on matters such as usury, theft, polygamy, and wife-beating whenever the woman is recalcitrant and refuses her husband's demands. And there's lots more…"
"You keep on citing my statements in distorted and falsified forms. Do you really expect me to tell you what I really said when both time and place are completely inappropriate? I won't engage in such a thing unless it is in front of a whole group of people and with witnesses present, by which I mean people of integrity-and that doesn't include you. I've nothing more to say to either you or your superior."
I was surprised and astonished when the deputy governor kicked me viciously in my side. I sprang to my feet, ignoring the pain. "So, you uncouth boor," I yelled at him, "now it's kicking, is it?" I aimed a good punch at his face, and he lost his balance and fell to the ground in a faint. The jurist ran away, begging for mercy, and the prison guard came rushing over to help the deputy governor. However, Bilal pounced on him, threw him to the ground as well, and grabbed his keys. He locked the door and buttressed it with as much furniture and trappings as he could find inside the cell. I sat down on the rug to recover my breath and watched as my servant directed threatening remarks at the two men spread-eagled on the floor. He had his foot firmly implanted on the prison guard's chest. Opening the deputy governor's mouth and pulling his tongue out, he spat into it several times; he also yelled loudly into their ears. He kept pacing nervously around the cell, counting with his fingers and banging his forehead as he assessed the situation. For my part, I tried to guess what was going on inside his head and came to the conclusion-but then God knows best-that he was listening to two conflicting voices: one of them kept urging him to take action, saying something like, "Listen, you! This deputy governor is one of those petty tyrants who would cut out your tongue without a second thought and do you harm. So kill him and have revenge"; the second voice kept telling him not to give in to such ideas in case they involved his master in things that would not turn out well.
There was a knock on the door and a demand that it be opened immediately. Bilal refused and started making a big fuss; then he rushed over to the door to make sure it was locked and leaned his entire weight on it. Efforts to break it down from the outside failed completely. I could hear them making a din outside and arguing over what to do next. But then a sudden silence fell, the kind that augurs ill and precedes the arrival of a big storm. The deputy governor and guard started whimpering, and Bilal screamed at them both to shut up. I got the impression that the guards outside were getting ready to break the door down or else inject smoke into the cell. I could only imagine how they would then set upon both Bilal and myself, giving us a severe beating. After a heroic resistance Bilal would be left on the floor in a pool of blood, while I would be punched and kicked before being led away blindfolded to some secret dungeon…
These musings were suddenly interrupted when I heard the voice of the governor himself, Ibn Khalas, who was begging me to open the door so he could make sure I was safe and apologize for the way the idiotic and boorish deputy governor had behaved. I said nothing for a while as I thought about it all, but a voice outside swore a solemn binding oath that he would indeed keep the promise he had made. I told him that this promise had to include Bilal and all my imprisoned followers. "Pinnacle of the Faith," Ibn Khalas assured me, "I hereby swear by God that that will be done; indeed now, before you leave this place."
What else could I do but believe what the governor had said and accept his word? I gestured to Bilal to open the door and go ahead of me. He obeyed my instructions and moved cautiously outside. Ibn Khalas appeared in the doorway, looking both fit and determined. He came over to me and embraced me, apologizing and sympathizing as he did so. He told the deputy governor, who was still splayed out on the floor, that he was immediately stripped of his post and would remain in prison exactly where he was. Ibn Khalas then instructed me to follow him, ordering the prison guard to leave with him and lock the door behind him. I walked along that dismal corridor accompanied by his aides and noticed on the way that every cell was empty and there was no sign of the people who had been imprisoned there. My entire face was beaming with joy. At the entrance to the governor's mansion my rescuer urged me to go home so I could clean myself up and get some rest. He fixed the following day after supper as the time for us to meet at my home, then commanded his muleteer to accompany me home.