al-Hallaj

Abu al-Mughith al-Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj (c. 858-922 CE / c. 244-309 AH) was a Persian-born Sufi (Islamic mystic) and poet whose life and death became among the most debated in Islamic history. He was born at Tur, near the town of al-Bayda in the Fars region of southern Iran; tradition holds his grandfather was a Zoroastrian. His father, a cotton-carder (the trade from which the name al-Hallaj derives), settled the family in or near Wasit in Iraq, where al-Husayn memorized the Qur'an in childhood. As a young man he studied with leading Sufi teachers, traditionally named as Sahl al-Tustari, Amr ibn Uthman al-Makki, and al-Junayd of Baghdad. He made several pilgrimages to Mecca and, according to his standard biographer Louis Massignon, undertook long preaching journeys eastward; the details of these travels are reconstructed and not firmly documented. He eventually preached openly in Baghdad, attracting followers and powerful enemies. He is famed for the cry "ana al-haqq" ("I am the Truth," al-Haqq also being a name of God), which admirers read as ecstatic self-annihilation (fana) in God and critics as blasphemy. Arrested amid Abbasid political and financial intrigue and held for roughly nine years, he was condemned and executed in Baghdad on 26 March 922. Whether he died chiefly for theology or for politics remains disputed. Sunnis, Shia, and Sufis have judged him very differently, from heretic to martyr-saint.