al-Hallāj

Persian mystic

• Born: 858
• Birthplace: Ṭūr, Iran
• Died: 922
• Place of death: Baghdad

Al-Ḥallāj’s martyrdom for his unorthodox religious beliefs, including his experiences of mystical communion with Allāh, can be seen as both his intense personal faith and determined resistance to what he considered political wrongdoing and corruption at the highest levels of Islamic government in the tenth century.

Early Life

Al-Ḥallāj (ahl-kahl-AHJ), whose surname ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj means “son of Manṣūr the wool carder,” was born in southern Iran. As a youth, he helped his father in the wool trade in various textile centers both in Iran and Iraq. While living in the ՙAbbāsid caliphal city of Wasit, half way between Baghdad and Basra, he gained his earliest education in Qur՚ānic studies following the strict and literalist Sunni orthodox Hanbalite school of law.

After the family returned to Tustar in Iran, his exposure to Sunnism continued under the tutelage of the famous scholar Sahl. Sahl’s influence, however, contained elements of esoteric interpretations of religious sources, some of which reflected patterns associated with Islam’s earliest and perhaps most famous Sufi mystic, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (642-728). Indeed al-Ḥallāj was soon attracted to Basra, known to be the center of Sufism, at that date dominated by the figure of al-Junayd (d. 910) and his contemporary ՙAmr al-Makki. Both of these mystics emphasized the importance of inner religious experience and withdrawal from society and matters of this world. In 877, al-Ḥallāj married the daughter of one of al-Junayd’s secretaries and Sufi associate of ՙAmr al-Makki, Abū Ya ՙqūb al-Aqta. One of the male children of this union, Hamd, would eventually compile the only firsthand account of his father’s life and the controversy surrounding his teachings.

Already in this early stage of his life, al-Ḥallāj was opposed to signs of conflict between Muslim sectarian movements, and he sought a path that would emphasize unity and justice for all believers. However, he was exposed to tensions that had already led to violence between Sunnis (orthodox Muslims) and Shīՙites (a major sectarian offshoot). In particular, he witnessed firsthand strife at the time of the Shīՙite-supported black slave (Zanj) revolt in southern Iraq. This may have impelled him toward eclectic combinations from both mainstreams of Islam, as well as elements from other monotheistic traditions. This tendency soon led to Sunni accusations that he had abandoned his orthodox origins.

Al-Ḥallāj was so moved by his first experience of the minor pilgrimage to Mecca sometime in the mid-880’s that he remained in the Holy City for an entire year. This sojourn among pilgrims from so many different areas seems to have strengthened his view that Sufi quietism and detachment was an imperfect path to the realization of true Islam.

Life’s Work

Al-Ḥallāj’s form of mysticism clearly combined individual religious inspiration with concern for the actual state of human existence on earth. It was his denunciation of the ruling elite’s acceptance of, and participation in, the atmosphere of greed and corruption pervading Baghdad society that eventually led to his condemnation and execution in 922. Tradition has attributed to al-Ḥallāj’s contemporary (and would-be protector), the official grand chamberlain Nasr, a revealing testimony: “Those who want him dead are the ministerial scribes.”

It was al-Ḥallāj’s rejection of ascetic quietism in Sufi mysticism the path originally attributed to al-Baṣrī that brought him into a number of conflicts with critics in several different camps, including supporters of the “finality” of formal religious law, or Shariՙa (referred to here as canonists, meaning guided by the text of religious law).

Perhaps it was the mixed influence of various Arabicized Iranian elements in his Tustar and Ahwaz homeland area between Iraq and Iran that impelled al-Ḥajjāj to integrate eclectic components into his teachings. Certainly one can find elements of Nestorian Christian (a mid-fifth century offshoot from Orthodox Christianity concentrated in Iraq and Iran), Jewish, pre-Islamic Zoroastrian, and unorthodox Muslim Mutazilite beliefs crisscrossing in his philosophy of religion. One of the most controversial components of this eclecticism would be al-Ḥallāj’s views that Jesus was the true Mahdī (guide) who would return to right the spiritual errors of humankind and establish the “true” canonical path of Islamic laws.

However, there also was a political side to his teaching that displeased the ՙAbbāsid caliph’s elite bureaucracy. Reactions against him as a supposed agent of the Qarmathians (an extreme form of Shia opposition) may have served as an excuse to arrest him temporarily in 887 in the region between Sus in Iran and the official ՙAbbāsid city of Wasit in Iraq and to subject him to public flogging. This public humiliation compelled him to quit the ՙAbbāsid coreland altogether for the next five years. During this time he traveled through the Eastern Iranian province of Khorāsān and into the largely Turkish-speaking area near and beyond the Oxus River. By 893, however, he not only returned to his family in western Iran, but seems to have turned his methods of preaching to even more extreme subjects. His detractors gathered hearsay evidence that, for example, he was being welcomed in towns and villages in Fārs as a miracle worker.

Although such claims were clearly exaggerated, there is no doubt that mystical currents reflected in al-Ḥallāj’s poetic corpus (destroyed after his martyrdom, but passed on in secondary manuscripts kept by his disciples) began to support two strains that made his fame, but also led to his demise as a presumed heretic. One of these strains was his claim that he had experienced direct communion with Allāh. Expressing this personal religious experience bordered on heresy, for Islam insists on the total unity of Allāh’s existence, which is thought to surpass any comparison with human conceptions of existence. One of the most famous statements attributed to al-Ḥallāj, and certainly one that would have outraged orthodox scholars of tawhid (divine singularity), occurred when he proclaimed publicly, “I am the absolute truth” (“Ana al-Haqq”), a qualification reserved exclusively to describe Allāh. The other strain in al-Ḥallāj’s teaching that fomented considerable controversy was his sense of, and apparent willing acceptance of, his impending martyrdom. Martyrdom seemed to be a condition for the final realization of his religious experience; he would finally embrace Allāh and disappear into (that is, become one with) the supreme deity.

After a second pilgrimage to Mecca in 894 (an event marked by the gathering of hundreds of his disciples dressed in rags to symbolize the rejection of worldly possessions), al-Ḥallāj’s resumption of itinerant teaching carried him as far as India and into the Uighur Turkish regions of Central Asia. Islam had not penetrated fully in this region, and elements of Manichaeism (based on the dualism of good and evil) were still prevalent. Al-Ḥallāj preached against dualistic beliefs, predicting the coming of self-sacrificing (thus martyred) saints whose devotion to the love of Allāh (mahaba) would turn the balance of religion against the temptations of evil.

From this point al-Ḥallāj was almost certain to meet with denunciation for heresy if he returned (as he did in 902) to the conservative religious and political capital of Baghdad. Although supporters of strict interpretations of Islamic canon law, led by Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd, denounced al-Ḥallāj to Caliph al-Mutadid himself, the mystic escaped formal judgment once again. Nonetheless, after a third (two-year) extended pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to restate openly the nonconformist tenets that finally led to his condemnation by a vizierial (ministerial) court.

Once again resident in Baghdad, al-Ḥallāj shocked conservative observers by building a replica of the Holy Shrine of Mecca (the Kaaba) in the courtyard of his house and carrying out the rituals of pilgrimage an act that was considered a direct violation of Islamic law. When this was combined with his supposed involvement in a plot to remove the infant caliph al-Muqtadir and substitute a rival under his own spiritual guidance, there was no alternative but to flee again. This time, however, he was pursued, arrested, and held for nine years as a prisoner of the palace. Although he received personal patronage and protection from the grand chamberlain Nasr, intrigues that were political and financial as much as religious multiplied the denunciations against him, and the vizierial court condemned him to death.

After his public execution in 922, the martyred mystic’s head was displayed in Baghdad and throughout the provinces (as far as Khorāsān), most likely to discourage would-be disciples from furthering reformist zeal. By reformist zeal, al-Ḥallāj’s judges meant either the preaching of nonconformist religious tenets or opposing vizierial speculation and questionable financial dealings affecting the state and its responsibilities to the Islamic community.

Significance

Al-Ḥallāj’s life and martyrdom were certainly not typical, even considering the tolerable limits of marginality presented by Islamic mystics either before or after the zenith of Islamic society and culture around 1000 to 1100. Al-Ḥallāj’s intense belief in the cause he espoused and the way he actively preached his beliefs set him apart from the other mystics of his time.

The accusations he leveled at ordinary Islamic belief patterns were one thing; his denunciation of high-level figures in the caliph’s court was quite a different matter, making him a dangerous public figure. Reports that al-Ḥallāj drew fairly large numbers of disciples suggest he may even have been considered a potential candidate for the political leadership of a quasi-revolutionary movement against the status quo of the ՙAbbāsid caliphate. He used religious fervor as a rallying force to attract those who were disillusioned with the arrogant attitudes and corrupt practices of the ruling elite. Perhaps this explains why al-Ḥallāj and his work are still remembered. Indeed, his cause has been reborn and carried, although not always successfully, by religious zealots opposed to unjust government in a number of time periods and places across the Islamic world.

Bibliography

Ernst, Carl W., trans., and comp. Teachings of Sufism. Boston: Shambhala, 1999. Presents a study of the doctrines of Sufism, including the work of al-Ḥallāj. Also discusses the mystical understanding of the Qur՚ān. Includes an index of relevant passages from the Qur՚ān and prophetic sayings, a bibliography, and general index.

Kahn, Masood Ali, and S. Ram, eds. Encyclopaedia of Sufism. 12 vols. New Delhi: Anmol, 2003. A collection introducing Sufism and its basics in Islam, and Sufism’s tenets, doctrines, literature, saints, and philosophy. Bibliography, index.

Lings, Martin. What Is Sufism? 1975. Reprint. Cambridge, England: Islamic Texts Society, 1999. A useful general survey of the principles of mysticism and the various representatives of nonconformist religious practice and thinking in Islam. Bibliography, index.

Mason, Herbert. Al-Ḥallāj. Richmond, Surrey, England: Curzon Press, 1995. This is probably the most readable account of al-Ḥallāj’s life and work, based on the author’s earlier, more specialized studies. Discusses the theme of “disappearance,” universalism, uniqueness, and al-Ḥallāj’s place in Sufism. Bibliography, index.

Massignon, Louis. The Passion of Al-Ḥallāj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam. Translated by Herbert Mason. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. A translation of Vol. 4 of the original work in French, this is an extensive, analytical, and sympathetic study of al-Ḥallāj. Evaluates sources and examines al-Ḥallāj’s influence on later philosophers and theologians.

Sells, Michael A., ed. and trans. Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur՚ān, Mirՙaj, Poetic, and Theological Writings. New York: Paulist Press, 1996. Explores the sources of Islamic mysticism, with a chapter on al-Ḥallāj and a chronology of major figures in the development of Sufism. Bibliography, index.