The Carder of Innermost Souls

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أنا الحق
Anā l-Ḥaqq
“I am the Truth.”
~ Mansur al-Hallaj

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We all enjoy a good story. Here is one coming from far ago, in ancient Persia, where lived a man who became one of the most celebrated mystic, poet, and teacher of Sufism. Mansur al-Hallaj was born in 858 AD near Shiraz, in the Pars province of today’s Iran. He was considered an ‘al-Insān al-Kāmil’, which in the Islamic tradition is a honorific title meaning literally ‘the complete person’, a human being whose identity is merged with pure consciousness. Al-Hallaj is also known as the ‘Jesus of Islam’. He was tortured and publicly crucified for having pronounced the highly blasphemous statement: “I am the Truth”, which equals in Islam to saying ‘I am God’. The French scholar of Islam Louis Massignon wrote that al-Hallaj was “the most beautiful case of human passion that I had yet encountered, a life striving entirely towards a higher certainty.” The mystic’s last words were said to be:

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“Help me, O You only One,
to whom there is no second!”
~ Al-Hallaj (‘I Am the Truth’)

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From an early age, Mansur al-Hallaj was a devoted practitioner of truth. He grew up in a Sunni Muslim family and read the Quran at an early age, but he was irresistibly drawn towards the mystics. As a young man, he received the Sufi habit and moved to Basra in today’s Irak. After marrying, he began travelling extensively and made his first pilgrimage to Mecca, staying there for a year, facing the mosque in fasting and total silence. Although also the father of three children, he kept pursuing a life of devotion and started preaching to a growing number of followers. He became known as ‘ḥallāj al-asrār’, ‘the carder of innermost souls’, for his name ‘hallaj’ means ‘cotton-carder’. From that time on, he began writing exclusively in Arabic. His reverence for truth and the simplicity of his writing are here perceptible:

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“I have abandoned to the people
their religion and their customs
to dedicate myself to Thy love,
Thou my religion and my use.”
~ Al-Hallaj

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”For your sake, I hurry over land and water;
For your sake, I cross the desert and split the mountain in two,
And turn my face from all things,
Until the time I reach the place
Where I am alone with You.”
~ Al-Hallaj (‘Perfume of the Desert’)

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“Know that Judaism, Christianity and Islam, like other religions,
are only denomination and appellation,
the goal sought through them never varies or changes.”
~ Al-Hallaj

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[…]

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The life and teaching of the ancient Sufi master Mansur al-Hallaj… (READ MORE…)

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