Abu al-Hasan al-Shabash al-Basri

أبو الحسن الشباش البصري

Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Mahmud al-Baghdadi, known as al-Shabash, who settled at Basra with his father and uncle and came to hold sway there. Accounts of their creed differ, though the view that they were Imami Shi'a and extreme Batinis is the more prevalent. They had ample wealth and many funds, and Shi'a from the Basra countryside, the Qaramita and scattered clans would secretly obey them and bring them what they treated as zakat. Abu al-Hasan made a show of mixing with soldiers and officials, eating, drinking and listening to music, and explained that he meant to clear suspicion from himself. Ibn al-Jawzi relays from the hand of Ibn Aqil that he kept racing pigeons and friends in the lands: he sent doves with notes to villages, informing their people of their circumstances and the news of those among them, then said 'it has just now happened, such and such', and they were astonished. He would take a sparrow, tie to its leg a packet holding a small letter, and say 'O Barish' as though addressing a demon; then he released the sparrow, and the paper rose toward the sky before their eyes while the boy on the rooftop drew it down and made use of it ¹.