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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“The Love of the human being for God
is a reverence which penetrates the very depths of his being,
and which is not permitted to be given except to God alone.
The Love of God for the human being is that He Himself gives proof of Himself,
not revealing Himself to anything that is not He.”
~ Al-Hallaj

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Al-Hallaj extended his teaching and travelling to Central Asia and India, where he gained ever more followers. It is said that four hundred disciples accompanied him to his second pilgrimage to Mecca. His growing influence was of concern to many Sufis. He settled with his family in Baghdad, before returning to Mecca for his final pilgrimage. His understanding and devotion were growing to such proportions that he began claiming that religious rituals and usages were secondary in the spiritual path, and expressed his desire to replace the pilgrimage to Mecca by a pilgrimage in spirit, saying that “the important thing is to proceed seven times around the Kaaba of one’s heart.” Here are a few examples where he expresses the utter intimacy and likeness of our self with God’s being:

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“A path is between two points but there is nothing beside God!”
~ Al-Hallaj

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“Thy Spirit is mingled in my spirit even
as wine is mingled in pure water.
When everything touches Thee,
it touches me.
Lo, in every case Thou art I.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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“I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I,
We are two spirits dwelling in one body.
If thou seest me, thou seest Him.
And if thou seest Him, thou seest us both.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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“Reject your created nature, that you may become Him, and He, you — in respect to reality.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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“God makes Himself explicit through everything
which is perceived and considered;
everything that one sees face to face signifies Him.
And this is why I have said:
‘I have seen nothing in which I have not seen God’.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Trans. Massignon)

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“I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart.
He said, “Who are you?” I said, “I am You.”
You are He Who fills all place
But place does not know where You are.
In my subsistence is my annihilation;
In my annihilation, I remain You.”
~ Al-Hallaj (‘Tawasin’ – trans. by Steven T. Katz)

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“I know Him by my inability to know Him.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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‘Hanging of Mansur al-Hallaj’ – Amir Khusrau, 1602 – Wikimedia

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There was a general agreement at the time in religious circles that mysticism could not be so zealously shared with the common crowds. But al-Hallaj was so wholeheartedly giving his teachings to all, that his popularity became a growing concern amongst the religious establishment. His absolute fervour and his proclamations were seen as disruptive. He began saying affirmations such as: “There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God”; or later on his infamous statement “I am the Truth”. Al-Hallaj did indeed recognise his own being as God’s being — the ultimate self shared by all beings. There was nothing outrageous as such in this recognition for it is a common goal on the Sufi path towards divine love. But such things could not be said aloud, and the mystic’s enthusiasm eventually cost him to be arrested and put to jail for nine years. As he was found guilty of heresy, al-Hallaj, who would not deny his various claims, was condemned to death in 922. He was beaten, decapitated, and burnt, with his ashes scattered in the river Tigris. While under excruciating torture, witnesses reported that he said: “All that matters for the ecstatic is that the Unique should reduce him to Unity.”

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“Kill me, my faithful friends,
For in my being killed is my life.
Love is that you remain standing
In front of your Beloved
When you are stripped of all your attributes;
Then His attributes become your qualities.
Between me and You, there is only me.
Take away the me, so only You remain.”
~ Al-Hallaj (trans. Andrew Harvey)

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“I do not cease swimming in the seas of love,
rising with the wave, then descending;
now the wave sustains me, and then I sink beneath it;
love bears me away where there is no longer any shore.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Diwan)

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“There is no distance from You for me,
since I became certain that distance and nearness are one.
For me, if I was left, your desertion would be my companion,
so how much more are desertion and love truly one!
Glory to You in Your Providence and in the Essence of your Inaccessibility
for the pious worshipper who does not prostrate before any other than You.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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Al-Hallaj’s story of martyrdom has been shared and kept alive through centuries, from Persia to Turkey, by various mystical poets. To say just a few, Farid al-din ‘Attar, Jalal-ud-din Rumi, Yunus Emre, Hafiz, and so many others, have written multiple allegories about the mystic’s saintship and fate, endlessly celebrating his vision. Rumi wrote: “Wool-carder Hallaj, who… ‘I am the Truth’, declared; swept God’s dust from each road, on which he stepped.” Yet al-Hallaj’s life was and continues to be a source of debate amongst commentators. Many argued that his story as a messianic martyr shed a light on him without which he would have been just one amongst many talented Sufi masters. Others have found that it relegated his preaching and his outstanding writing and poetry in the background.

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“Now stands no more between Truth and me
Or reasoned demonstration,
Or proof of revelation;
Now, brightly blazing full, Truth’s lumination
Hath driven out of sight
Each flickering, lesser light.

He only knoweth God, whom God hath shown
Himself: shall the eternal
Be known of the diurnal?
Not in his handiwork may God be known;
Can endless time be pent
Into a chance event?

Of Him, through Him, and unto Him, a sign
Of truth, an attestation
He grants through inspiration;
Of Him, through Him, His own, a truth divine,
A knowledge proved and sure
Hath made our hearts secure.

This I have proven, this I now declare,
This is my faith unbending,
And this my joy unending:
There is no god but God! No rivals share
His peerless majesty,
His claimed supremacy.

When men have been alone with God, and know,
This is their tongues’ expression
And this their hearts’ confession;
This ecstasy of joy knits friend and foe
In common brotherhood,
Working to common good.”

~ Al-Hallaj (‘Revelation and Reason in Islam’, trans. A.J. Arberry)

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Al-Hallaj is the author of many works amongst which a collection of poems (‘diwan’), some tales or narrations (‘Riwayat’), some prayers (‘munajat’), and his best known book the ‘Tawasin’. A lot of his work was destroyed but later saved by his disciples through a chain (‘isnad’) of recitation and transmission. The Tawasin is a complex and rather technical doctrine of truth based on al-Hallaj’s personal experience, in which he uses diagrams and symbols to describe the indescribable. The Persian Sufi scholar Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi wrote in the 10th century one of the most important works on Sufism: ‘The Doctrine of the Sufis’. In this book is shared this striking poem by al-Hallaj:

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“‘Before’ does not outstrip Him,
‘after’ does not interrupt Him
‘of’ does not vie with Him for precedence
‘from’ does not accord with Him
‘to’ does not join with Him
‘in’ does not inhabit Him
‘when’ does not stop Him
‘if’ does not consult with Him
‘over’ does not overshadow
Him ‘under’ does not support Him
‘opposite’ does not face Him
‘with’ does not press Him
‘behind’ does not limit Him
‘previous’ does not display Him
‘after’ does not cause Him to pass away
‘all’ does not unite Him
‘is’ does not bring Him into being
‘is not’ does not deprive Him from Being.
Concealment does not veil Him
His pre-existence preceded time,
His being preceded non-being,
His eternity preceded limit.
If thou sayest ‘when’,
His existing has outstripped time;
If thou sayest ‘before’, before is after Him;
If thou sayest ‘he’, ‘h’ and ‘e’ are His creation;
If thou sayest ‘how’, His essence is veiled from description;
If thou sayest ‘where’, His being preceded space;
If thou sayest ‘ipseity’,
His ipseity is apart from things.
Other than He cannot
be qualified by two (opposite) qualities at
one time; yet With Him they do not create opposition.
He is hidden in His manifestation,
manifest in His concealing.
He is outward and inward,
near and far; and in this respect He is
removed beyond the resemblance of creation.
He acts without contact,
instructs without meeting,
guides without pointing.
Desires do not conflict with Him,
thoughts do not mingle with Him:
His essence is without qualification,
His action without effort.”

~ Arberry, A.J. (‘The Doctrine of the Sufis’)

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We own a lot of what is known about al-Hallaj to a French Catholic scholar of Islam, Louis Massignon (1883-1962). Massignon became so passionate about the mystic’s life that he made him the subject of his doctoral dissertation, travelled to Irak in pursuit of of his life and work, and finally produced a four-volume study: ‘The Passion of al-Hallaj’, which became one of the major works on Islamic mysticism. On his fifty-year journey of research and writing, Massignon met al-Hallaj in such a profound way that it led him to embrace the Roman Catholic Church. A conversion experience which he describes here so beautifully: “There is no question here of claiming that the study of this life full and hard, and rising, and given, has delivered to me the secret of his heart. Rather, it is he who has searched mine, and is searching it again.”

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“There is indeed a virtue, a heroic flame, in [al-Hallaj’s] life; especially in death; which has sealed it. I went to live near his grave in his country. In studying him, little by little, here and there, I think I have assimilated something very valuable and that I would like to share with others. Happy if others than me feel one day, after having become acquainted with him, — that pressing desire to be imbued with the full Truth, not abstract, but living, which is the salt offered to all mortal existence.”
~ Louis Massignon

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The work of Louis Massignon on al-Hallaj had a far-reaching effect on the American Trappist monk and mystic Thomas Merton. A friendship and correspondence developed between the two, particularly on account of one of Massignon’s expression, ‘le point vierge’ — Al-Hallaj’s “primordial point” — which deeply stirred Merton’s interest. In al-Hallaj’s words: “Finer still than that is the mention of the Primordial Point, which is the Source, and which does not grow or decrease, nor consume itself.” The professor of Christian Studies Sidney H. Griffith wrote: “For Massignon, ‘the virgin’ is the innermost, secret heart (as-sirr) — the deep subconscious of a person.”

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“Our hearts, in their secrecy, are a virgin alone, where no dreamer’s dream penetrates … the heart where the presence of the Lord alone penetrates, there to be conceived.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness
which is untouched by sin and illusion,
a point of pure truth, a point or spark
which belongs entirely to God […]
this little point […] is the pure glory of God in us […]
It is like a pure diamond,
blazing with the invisible light of heaven.
It is in everybody.”
~ Thomas Merton

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“Sufism looks at man as a heart. […]
The heart is the faculty by which man knows God.”
~ Thomas Merton

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Another thing worth mentioning about Mansur al-Hallaj is that he is the first seeker to have used the famous analogy of the moth and the flame. In the Tawasin, the mystic speaks of it eloquently: “The moth flies about the flame until morning, then he returns to his fellows and tells them of his spiritual state with the most eloquent expressions. Then he mixes with the coquetry of the flame in his desire to reach perfect union.” Here, he divides the approaching of the flame in three kinds of ‘reality’:

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“The light of the flame is the ‘knowledge of reality’, its heat is the ‘reality of reality’, and Union with it is the ‘Truth of the reality’.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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“He was not satisfied with its light nor with its heat, so he leapt into it completely. Meanwhile, his fellows were awaiting his coming so that he could tell them of his actual vision since he had not been satisfied with hearsay. But at that moment, he was being utterly consumed, reduced and dispersed into fragments, and he remained without form or body or distinguishing mark.”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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“Praise be to God who is not touched by any secondary cause. […]
His existence is a marvel since He is removed from existence.
‘He alone knows Himself, Master of Majesty and magnanimity’. (Quran, 55:27)”
~ Al-Hallaj (Tawasin)

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‘Seated Dervish’, 16th AD – Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Quotes and poetry by Mansur al-Hallaj (858-922)

Additional quotes by Louis Massignon (1883-1962) and Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Accompanying text by Alain Joly

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Bibliography:
– ‘I am the Truth’ (Anal-Haq), Diwan of Mansur al-Hallaj’ – by Mansur al-Hallaj (Trans. by Paul Smith) – (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
– ‘Husayn Ibn Mansur Al-Hallaj, Complete Poems’ – by Mansur al-Hallaj (Trans. by Paul Smith) – (Independently published)
– ‘The Tawasin of Mansur Al-Hallaj’ – by Mansur al-Hallaj (Trans. by Aisha Abd ar-Rahman at-Tarjumana) – (Gece Kitaplığı)
– ‘The Passion of Al-Hallaj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam, Volume 1 to 4’ – by Louis Massignon (trans. By Herbert Mason) – (Princeton University Press)
– ‘Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr – Abridged Edition’ – by Louis Massignon (trans. By Herbert Mason) – (Princeton University Press)
– ‘Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom’ – by Andrew Harvey – (Quest Books)
– ‘Revelation and Reason in Islam’ – by A.J. Arberry – (Routledge)

Websites:
– Mansur al-Hallaj ( Wikipedia)
– Louis Massignon (Wikipedia)
– Thomas Merton (Wikipedia)
– Amir Khusrau (Wikipedia)
– Metropolitan Museum of Art

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