In this excerpt from his chronicle, Ibn al-Athīr reports that a group of Ismāʿīlī bāṭinīs were executed via immolation in the year 494/1101. An eminent local Shāfiʿī jurist apparently gave his support to this punishment. In his chapter comparing earthly justice with heavenly justice in the early Islamic imagination in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Christian Lange cites this example of punitive burning to make the point that judges viewed their own function in adjudication along lines similar to divine judgment: in spite of the circulation of ḥadīths such as “Only the Lord of Fire punishes with fire,” rulers and judges had no qualms about burning criminals.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of primary sources and other material used in and related to the book.