covenant. Then the boy sent word to his father (the Person) informing him of what occurred with the King and the conditions he had placed upon himself. The messenger was gone but a brief moment before he returned. They asked: "What brought you back to us?"
He said to them: "The Ancient of Time (Qadīm al-Zamān) met me and said to me: 'Return, for here I have come'." While they were in discourse with the messenger, he appeared to them. When the King saw him, what he saw terrified him and weighed heavily upon him. He ordered the chamberlains and doorkeepers to be brought. When they arrived, he said to them all: "Woe to you! What prevented you from seeking permission for this man? Did you not see him?" They said all together: "O King, none among us saw him, witnessed him, or perceived him."
Then the King said to him: "Do you not say what this boy said, and do you guarantee what he guaranteed on your behalf and the conditions he placed upon himself?"
He said: "At whatever time you choose that, I shall do it, for I am capable of it—after I renew the covenants with you and conclude the oaths between me and you: that if you see from me what you requested and it becomes clear to you—the return of the sun after its setting and its standing in the dome of the firmament, and my manifestation of the House of Wisdom you requested—that you return from Sun worship, enter into my obedience, and accept my Sunnah and Sharia, and that you do not oppose any command of mine nor reject any word of mine."
The King and all who were present said: "You have that from us if you perform this act and fulfill what this boy guaranteed on your behalf."
He renewed the oaths and covenants with them and set for them a promised day, and they dispersed upon that. When the promised day arrived, the people gathered outside the city in a place near the fissure from which the water emerges. He ascended to the highest point so that everyone could see him. When their gathering was complete and no one remained behind, and the King appeared with his ministers,