الحلاج
al-Ḥallāj
Person
A Sufi of Baghdad (c. 858–922), executed for saying “I am the Truth”, whom some Muslims honour as a martyr and others as a heretic.
What it means
Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj travelled widely and taught in Baghdad. His saying anā al-ḥaqq, “I am the Truth” (God being al-Ḥaqq), was taken by his accusers as a claim to divinity, and he was tried and executed in 922. Many Sufis understood the saying as describing a state in which the self is annihilated in God, and not as a claim to be God.