Al-Hallaj
Persian mystic, poet and Sufi teacher (c.858–922)
Mansour al-Hallaj (Arabic: ابو المغيث الحسين بن منصور الحلاج, romanized: Abū 'l-Muġīth al-Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj) or Mansour Hallaj (Persian: منصور حلاج, romanized: Mansūr-e Hallāj) (c. 858 – 26 March 922) (Hijri c. 244 AH – 309 AH) was a mystic, poet, and teacher of Sufism.
He was best known for his saying "I am the Truth" ("Ana'l-Ḥaqq"), which many saw as a claim to divinity, while others interpreted it as an instance of annihilation of the ego, which allowed God to speak through him. Al-Hallaj gained a wide following as a preacher before he became implicated in power struggles of the Abbasid court and was executed after a long period of confinement on religious and political charges.
Although most of his Sufi contemporaries disapproved of his actions, Hallaj later became a major figure in the Sufi tradition.
Life
Early years
Al-Hallaj was born around 858 in Pars Province of the Abbasid Empire to a cotton-carder (Hallaj means "cotton-carder" in Arabic) in an Arabized town called al-Bayḍā'. His grandfather was a Zoroastrian magus. His father moved to a town in Wasit famous for its school of Quran reciters. Al-Hallaj memorized the Qur'an before he was 12 years old and would often retreat from worldly pursuits to join other mystics in study at the school of Sahl al-Tustari.
“Al-Hallaj” enters the record as persian mystic, poet and Sufi teacher (c.858–922). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Al-Hallaj, Persian and mystic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q172862. VIAF identifies the subject as 44299887. The Library of Congress control number is n84199035. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Al-Hallaj” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.