Tomb of Mansur Al-Hallaj (Baghdad City)

 mausoleum, place with historical importance, mazar

Mansur al-Hallaj (Persian: منصور حلاج‎ Mansūr-e Ḥallāj; full name Abū al-Muġīṭ Husayn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ) (c. 858 – March 26, 922) (Hijri c. 244 AH – 309 AH) was a Persian[1] mystic, revolutionary writer and teacher of Sufism, most famous for his poetry, accusation of heresy and for his execution at the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir after a long, drawn-out investigation
Early life[edit]

Al-Hallaj was born around 858 in Fars province of Persia to a cotton-carder (Hallaj means "cotton-carder" in Arabic). His grandfather was a Zoroastrian.[3] His father lived a simple life, and this form of lifestyle greatly interested the young Al-Hallaj. As a youngster he memorized the Qur'an and would often retreat from worldly pursuits to join other mystics in study. Al-Hallaj was originally a Hanbali Sufi Muslim and later turned to be a Qarmatian Batiniyya.[4]
Al-Hallaj later married and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he stayed for one year, facing the mosque, in fasting and total silence. After his stay at the city, he traveled extensively and wrote and taught along the way. He traveled as far as India and Central Asia gaining many followers, many of whom accompanied him on his second and third trips to Mecca. After this period of travel, he settled down in the Abbasid capital of Baghdad.
During his early lifetime he was a disciple of Junayd Baghdadi and Amr al-Makki, but was later rejected by them both. Sahl al-Tustari was also one of Al-Hallaj's early teachers.[5]
Teachings, arrest and imprisonment[edit]

Among other Sufis, Al-Hallaj was an anomaly. Many Sufi masters felt that it was inappropriate to share mysticism with the masses, yet Al-Hallaj openly did so in his writings and through his teachings. He thus began to make enemies. This was exacerbated by occasions when he would fall into trances which he attributed to being in the presence of God.
During one of these trances, he would utter أنا الحق Anā l-Ḥaqq "I am The Truth, " which was taken to mean that he was claiming to be God, since al-Ḥaqq "the Truth" is one of the Ninety Nine Names of Allah. In another controversial statement, al-Hallaj claimed "There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God, " and similarly he would point to his cloak and say, ما في جبتي إلا الله Mā fī jubbatī illā l-Lāh "There is nothing in my cloak but God." This type of mystical utterance is known as shath.
Statements like these led to a long trial, and his subsequent imprisonment for 11 years in a Baghdad prison. He was publicly executed on March 26, 922.
Works[edit]

Hallaj wrote many works in both prose and poetry. His best known written work is the Kitab al-Tawasin (كتاب الطواسين), which includes two brief chapters devoted to a dialogue of Satan (Iblis) and God, where Satan refuses to bow to Adam, although God asks him to do so. His refusal is due to a misconceived idea of God's uniqueness and because of his refusal to abandon himself to God in love. Hallaj criticizes the staleness of his adoration (Mason, 51-3). Al-Hallaj stated in this book:[6]
If you do not recognize God, at least recognize His sign, I am the creative truth —Ana al-Haqq—,
because through the truth, I am eternal truth.
Beliefs and principles[edit]

Part of the series on
Muslim scholars

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First famous scholars
Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man - 699
Jafar Sadiq - 702, Shia Imam
Malik ibn Anas - 715
Abu 'Abd Allah ash-Shafi'i - 767
Ahmad ibn Hanbal - 780
Early scholars
Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili
Baha'uddin Naqshband Bukhari
Imam Bukhari - 810, Hadith compiler
Imam Muslim - 821, Hadith compiler
Abu Dawud - 817, Hadith compiler
At-Tabari - 838, Historian
Al-Nasa'i - Hadith compiler
Ibn Maja - 824, Hadith compiler
Al-Tirmidhi - 824, Hadith compiler
at-Tahawi - 853
Al-Barbahaaree - 940
Ibn Hazm - 994, Andalusian philosopher
Al-Ghazali - 1058, Persian theologian/philosopher
Abdul-Qadir Gilani - 1077
Ibn al-Jawzi
Al-Qurtubi
Ibn Qudamah - 1147
Ibn Athir - 1160
An-Nawawi - 1234
Ibn Taymiyyah - 1263, famous Sunni scholar
Ibn al-Qayyim - 1292
Ibn Kathir - 1301, famous author of tafsir
Ibn Khaldun - 1332, Historian
Ibn Rajab - 1335
Suyuti - 1445
Later scholars
Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab - 1703, Sunni scholar
Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i - 1826, Shia scholar
Yusuf an-Nabhani - 1849, Sunni scholar, influential in Sufism
Muhammad Ilyas - 1885, founder of Tablighi Jamaat
Recent scholars
Ruhollah Khomeini - 1900, Shia scholar, leader of Iranian Revolution
Bin Baaz - 1910, former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia
al-Albanee - 1914, Hadith scholar
Ahmed Deedat - 1918, Comparative religionist
Ibn 'Uthaymeen - 1925, Sunni scholar
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam - 1941, Sunni scholar
Muqbil bin Haadi al-Waadi'ee - Sunni scholar
Modern scholars
Yusuf al-Qaradawi - 1926, Sunni scholar
Rabee Al-Madkhali - 1931, Sunni scholar
Muhammad Taqi Usmani - 1943, Sunni scholar
Yusuf Estes - 1944, former Christian
Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri - 1951, Sunni scholar
Zakir Naik - 1965, Comparative religionist
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Mystical universalism[edit]
His method was one of "universalist mystical introspection: It was at the bottom of the heart that he looked for God and wanted to make others find Him. He believed one had to go beyond the forms of religious rites to reach divine reality. Thus, he used without hesitation the terminology of his opponents, which he set right and refined, ready to make himself hostage of the denominational logic of others. " (Massignon: "Perspective Transhistorique, " p. 76) Even beyond the Muslim faith, Hallaj was concerned with the whole of humanity, as he desired to communicate to them "that strange, patient and shameful, desire for God, which was characteristic for him. " (Massignon, p. 77) This was the reason for his voyage beyond the Muslim world (shafa'a) to India and China.
Spiritual meaning of the pilgrimage to Mecca[edit]
In the trial that led to his execution, he was accused of preaching against the pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj), which he, however, had performed three times. In reality, his concern was more with the spiritual meaning of Hajj, and he thus "spoke of the spiritual efficacy and legitimacy of symbolic pilgrimage in one's own home. " (Mason, 25) For him, the most important part of the pilgrimage to Mecca was the prayer at Mount Arafat, commemorating the sacrifice of Abraham in an offering of oneself.
Re-interpretation of the tawhid and desire for unification with God[edit]
Al-Hallaj believed that it was only God who could pronounce Tawhid, whereas man's prayer was to be one of kun, surrender to his will: "Love means to stand next to the Beloved, renouncing oneself entirely and transforming oneself in accordance to Him. " (Massignon, 74) He spoke of God as his "Beloved, " "Friend" "You, " and felt that "his only self was (God), " to the point that he could not even remember his own name

Mansur believed in union with the Divine, that God was within him, and that he and God had become one and the same. Mansur was cut into many pieces because in the state of ecstasy he exclaimed Ana Abrar-al Haq "I am the Abrar of truth". He was executed in public in Baghdad. They cut him into pieces and then they burnt his remains. He kept repeating "I am the Truth" as they kept cutting his arms, legs, tongue and finally his head. He was smiling, even as they chopped off his head. Al-Hallaj wanted to testify of this relationship to God to others thus even asking his fellow Muslims to kill him (Massignon, 79) and accepting his execution, saying that "what is important for the ecstatic is for the One to reduce him to oneness. " (Massignon, 87) He also referred to the martyrdom of Christ, saying he also wanted to die "in the supreme confession of the cross" (Olivier Clément. Dio è carita, p. 41) Like Christ, he gave his execution a redemptive significance, believing as he did that his death "was uniting his beloved God and His community of Muslims against himself and thereby bore witness in extremis to the tawhid (the oneness) of both. " (Mason, 25)
For his desire of oneness with God, many Muslims criticized him as a "'crypto-Christian' for distorting the monotheistic revelation in a Christian way. " (Mason, 25). His death is described by Attar as a heroic act, as when they are taking him to court, a Sufi asks him: "What is love?" He answers: "You will see it today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. " They killed him that day, burned him the next day and threw his ashes to the wind the day after that. "This is love, " Attar says. His legs were cut off, he smiled and said, "I used to walk the earth with these legs, now there's only one step to heaven, cut that if you can. " And when his hands were cut off he paints his face with his own blood, when asked why, he says: "I have lost a lot of blood, and I know my face has turned yellow, I don't want to look pale-faced
for more info reffer to :www.leapinglaughter.org/archive/tawasin/index.htm