Who Can Re-read Al-Hallaj..?!

I hesitated greatly to write about the figure of al-Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, who died in Baghdad in 922 CE, not because his persona was an exceptional blend of spiritual depth, intellectual rebellion, and literary courage, but rather because of the abundance of his “ecstatic utterances” (shatahat), which stirred storms of excommunication and rejection against him in his time. Nevertheless, he remains an inspiring figure for poets, philosophers, and thinkers, who saw in him a symbol of sacrifice for the sake of principle and the search for absolute truth. I hold a firm conviction that this figure has not received an objective reading, though I may be mistaken; he is certainly worthy of being re-read, especially after some of his propositions, which carried excessive transgression, overshadowed the rest of his work, which contained some inspiring ideas. When dissecting this figure without flattery, we find ourselves facing a highly complex composite in which genius intertwines with a love of suffering, and spiritual purity with an overwhelming desire to attract attention. This seems natural to me when compared with those who possessed his poetic talent. He could have presented his ideas in a style that avoided excessive symbolism, as in his books; for while this style holds literary value, from a communicative perspective it reveals a severe inability to simplify matters for the sake of making them understood by others, or perhaps it is misread as a deliberate attempt to elevate himself above them, when he throws out phrases he knows in advance will be subject to misunderstanding, thereby granting himself a sense of difference and distinction from the rest. His extremity in stances, and his refusal to delineate gray areas or engage in social “compromise,” is viewed in social psychology as a form of inflexibility in dealing with reality. According to accounts, he was advised on multiple occasions to keep his secrets to protect himself and society from fitna (tribulation), yet it appears he insisted on confrontation, reflecting an intellectual stubbornness that refuses to assimilate the “laws” of human reality. This experience offers a major lesson that we should benefit from, perhaps through re-reading it. Nasser Al-Abduli