Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr - Abridged Edition / Edition 1

by Louis Massignon

Overview

Abridged from the four-volume The Passion of al-Hallaj, one of the major works of Western orientalism, this book explores the life and teaching of a famous tenth-century Sufi mystic and martyr, and in so doing describes not only his experience but also the whole milieu of early Islamic civilization. Louis Massignon (1883-1962), France's most celebrated Islamic specialist in this century and a leading Catholic intellectual, wrote of a man who was for him a personal inspiration.


From reviews of the four-volume translation:

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691019192
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/25/1994
Series:	Mythos: The Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology , #134
Edition description:	Abridged Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Herbert Mason is University Professor of History and Religion at Boston University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword to the Abridged Edition

Preface

Ch. 1 Biographical Outline 1

I Prologue 1

II Chronological Tableau of Hallaj's Life and Posthumous Survival 9

Ch. 2 The Years of Apprenticeship: His Teachers and Friends 24

I Native Milieu 24

II The Cultural Milieu of Basra 33

III Anecdotes from His Years of Apprenticeship: His Hajj (Ghutba) 52

Ch. 3 Travels and Apostolate 72

I His Modes of Travel: His Dress, His Itineraries, His Stopping Places 72

II The Two Periods of Public Preaching in Ahwaz (272-273 and 279-281) 74

III The Other Regions Traveled Through 89

IV The Social Expression of Hallaj's Vocation, and His Contacts with the Cultural Renaissance of His Time 101

V The Last Hajj of Hallaj and the Waqfa of Arafat 114

Ch. 4 In Baghdad: Zealous Preaching and Political Indictment 117

I Baghdad 117

II Public Preaching in Baghdad 132

III Political Indictment: The Dawat Ilal-Rububiya, Usurpation of the Supreme Power of God 150

Ch. 5 The Indictment, The Court of Justice, and the Actors in the Drama 157

I The Indictment and Ibn Dawud's Initiative 157

II The Definition of Zandaqa, a Heresy Threatening the Security of the State 177

III The Sovereign Authority and Its Delegation to a Court of Justice; the Court of Justice, Its Powers and Jurisdiction 180

Ch. 6 The Trials 208

I A Critical Note about the Historical Sources for the Trials 208

II The First Trial (298/910 to 301/913) 211

III The Eight Years of Waiting 219

IV The Second Trial (308/921 to 309/922) 227

V The Denouement and the Judgment of Condemnation 256

Ch. 7 The Martyrdom 280

The Peripeteias of the Execution 280

Editorial Reviews

"The French original of this work has stood for most of this century as a model of the way Western scholarship can illumine a foreign culture, not patronize or denature it.... This translation climaxes one of the most focused projects of humanistic scholarship this century has seen."—-Huston Smith, Commonweal

"An incomparable study of the religious forces, the social and political life, and the whole culture of the Islamic world within which [this saint] lived and died."—-Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies

From the Publisher

An incomparable study of the religious forces, the social and political life, and the whole culture of the Islamic world within which [this saint] lived and died.
— Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies

An incomparable study of the religious forces, the social and political life, and the whole culture of the Islamic world within which [this saint] lived and died.
— Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

An incomparable study of the religious forces, the social and political life, and the whole culture of the Islamic world within which [this saint] lived and died.

Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies - Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The French original of this work has stood for most of this century as a model of the way Western scholarship can illumine a foreign culture, not patronize or denature it.... This translation climaxes one of the most focused projects of humanistic scholarship this century has seen.

Commonweal - Huston Smith

The French original of this work has stood for most of this century as a model of the way Western scholarship can illumine a foreign culture, not patronize or denature it.... This translation climaxes one of the most focused projects of humanistic scholarship this century has seen.
— Huston Smith

Commonweal

An incomparable study of the religious forces, the social and political life, and the whole culture of the Islamic world within which [this saint] lived and died.
— Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies