Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr

by Husayn ibn Mansur Hallaj, Carl W. Ernst (Translator)

Winner of the Global Humanities Translation Prize

Hallaj is the first authoritative translation of the Arabic poetry of Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, an early Sufi mystic. Despite his execution in Baghdad in 922 and the subsequent suppression of his work, Hallaj left an enduring literary and spiritual legacy that continues to inspire readers around the world. In Hallaj , Carl W. Ernst offers a definitive collection of 117 of Hallaj’s poems expertly translated for contemporary readers interested in Middle Eastern and Sufi poetry and spirituality.

Ernst’s fresh and direct translations reveal Hallaj’s wide range of themes and genres, from courtly love poems to metaphysical reflections on union with God. In a fascinating introduction, Ernst traces Hallaj’s dramatic story within classical Islamic civilization and early Arabic Sufi poetry. Setting himself apart by revealing Sufi secrets to the world, Hallaj was both celebrated and condemned for “I am the Truth.”

Expressing lyrics and ideas still heard in popular songs, the works of Hallaj remain vital and fresh even a thousand years after their composition. They reveal him as a master of spiritual poetry centuries before Rumi, who regarded Hallaj as a model. This unique collection makes it possible to appreciate the poems on their own, as part of the tragic legend of Hallaj, and as a formidable legacy of Middle Eastern culture.

The Global Humanities Translation Prize is awarded annually to a previously unpublished translation that strikes the delicate balance between scholarly rigor, aesthetic grace, and general readability, as judged by a rotating committee of Northwestern faculty, distinguished international scholars, writers, and public intellectuals. The Prize is organized by the Global Humanities Initiative, which is jointly supported by Northwestern University’s Buffett Institute for Global Studies and Kaplan Institute for the Humanities.

Genres: Poetry, Philosophy, Spirituality, Religion, Islam

272 pages, Paperback

Published July 15, 2018

Reviews

[Benino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr

Trans. Carl W. Ernst

Cryptic, enigmatic, revelatory

I came to these having read that Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj was a formative figure in the Sufi tradition, influencing Rumi in particular. His impact is remarkable, given that his writings were suppressed for deigning to reveal Sufi secrets to a wider public, and not just a religious elite. A crime, for which al-Hallaj was ultimately executed in Baghdad 922CE.

Beautifully translated from the surviving Arabic quotations, al-Hallaj's poems are presented singularly, extracted from the religious texts and Islamic historical accounts where they have survived. Liberated thus, the verses dance, flowing in eddying currents. They twirl in oblique logic, taking presence as absence, and separation as union, achieving a vision of God in self and reality that is dazzling.

Ernst’s scholarship is admirable, as he cross-references different manuscripts, sources, and traditions of interpretation to provide parallel readings and narrative contexts in multiple indices, but also allowing the poems to stand alone, too. Similarly, he treats with respect the traditions and efforts to preserve, discover, and interpret al-Hallaj's writings, whilst acknowledging the driving forces behind such projects, in particular the mystical strivings of Orientalist Professor Louis Massignon, or the Islamic hagiographical accounts of his miracles.

These verses do not make for easy reading. There is a density that initially feels impenetrable. Instead of trying to track their course and flow, I find myself having to let the poems wash over me, like waves at the shoreline, lapping, gradually taking me more and more into the depths of the tide and their truth. Reading and re-reading each verse, a revelatory logic is found in the movement of the concepts, denial and acceptance, annihilation and discovery. The supposedly heretical claims, “I am the truth”, or misreadings of Hallaj being God incarnate, instead become a profound declaration of union in love, that completely sublimates the ego, the ‘I am’ that only ever separates the speaker from God as truth and love itself.

Ernst’s project aims not just to transmit the texts of al-Hallaj, but allow new audiences to discover his voice. Only a fool would claim to grasp the full meaning of al-Hallaj's surviving poems, or their profound claims. However, I am grateful we can read these fragments and listen for this voice, as if raising a sea-shell to our ear to catch the resounding echoes of a voice silenced over a millennium ago. It speaks of a complex and poignant bliss.

[Maram]

I wrote my senior project on Al-Hallaj’s concept of martyrdom in his poetry, which was incredibly fun to research and write. There’s an undeniable brilliance and deep love woven into his work, and Al-Hallaj really can’t be compared to your average Sufi poet; there’s a kind of bravery in his writing, as no one else really dared to speak what he did.

Obviously, the Arabic doesn’t even come close in the English translation, and to be honest, this particular translation wasn’t my favorite. I understand that there’s a lot of complexities in translation but the word choices could’ve been better.

[Akaash Krishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

can’t even LIEEE such a bountiful readerly experience. avant-garde, subtly rueful, and so so passionate. thinking about the hallajian dialectics to sufi spiral pipeline

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr by Husayn ibn Mansur Hallaj and translated from the Arabic by Carl W. Ernst is a collection of 117 poems by the Persian mystic poet. Al-Hallja lived from 853 to 922 AD. He was executed for proclaiming, "I am the Truth." The phrase was interpreted in two ways. The first as a mystic who annihilated his ego which allows God to speak through him. Others say this as a claim that he was divine. The later having the power had him executed.

The poems are translated by Carl W. Ernst who is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic studies at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ernest provides both a detailed introduction, which covers more than enough ground to allow a novice to understand the poet and a very detailed section of notes, cited sources, and break down of the poems. The poems are categorized by subject allowing for an easy grouping in English. The groupings include conventional love poems, mystic love poems, martyrdom, riddles, and, perhaps the most interesting, metaphysics among other titles. Each poem is prefaced by a few sentences or more to put the poem into proper context. A lone couplet needs some background to understand its importance. Other introductions explain the cultural or religious importance of the poems.  For example: 

55. Temple and Light

This poem presents an anthropology describing, first, the elemental and
material human body, then the luminous spark that is divine.


Body like a temple, luminous of heart,
        spirit that’s eternal, devout, wise,
he returns with the spirit to its lords,
        but the temple remains rotting in the dust.

The work of al-Hallja opens the world of early Islamic culture to the West.  He predates the popular Rumi by three centuries and can be used to see the evolution of Islamic culture.  The Sufi search inward for God.  They believe that in destroying one's ego one can talk through God.  It seems to be a compliment to Buddhism in practice but not dogma. Perhaps translations of Islamic poets can help others see that Islam is a religion of peace.  Al- Hallja is an enlightened writer and poet who practiced and wrote inside of his faith.  The use of God by the poet seems to fit many religions view of God and peaceful existence. A great collection for those interested in not only poetry but culture. 

[J.G.P. MacAdam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Kill me, friends,
for in my killing is my life."

That's Al Hallaj on martyrdom. The martyr himself, hanged, quartered, decapitated in 922 A.D. for being so damned heretical. Though he is revered as a Sufi mystic, an intensely devote Muslim, reciting the Quran from memory, crashing the bazaar in Baghdad amid the ecstasy of revelation crying out to passersby, "Kill me! Kill me!" for only in death could he be reunited, achieve Oneness, with God.

"Ana'al haqq!" he cried upon his execution. "I am God!" or "I am Truth!" or "I am the Truth!" the translation of 'haqq' can mean either or both at the same time, I've read. And, well, that's pretty heretical, so thought the powers-that-be at the time.

I'm reading Hallaj on my way towards Rumi, who is more well known in the West. I've read that Attar, Hallaj and Sainai form a kind of pyramid of foundational texts which influenced Rumi's own poetry a great deal. My own spiritual path, I suppose, though I'm not particularly religious or spiritual at all. Why then douse myself in so much Sufi poetry? I don't know. I don't know why it appeals to me so much.

Perhaps it is the whole concept of annihilation, the death of the self, the ego. Maybe it is simply my way of connecting to Islam, a wholly foreign yet always familiar religion with key figures like Jesus (Issa), Mary (Miriam), Moses (Musa), Jonah (Yunus), and Abraham (Ibrahim), among other biblical and Torah figures constantly repeated and referenced. It's the appeal of the ascetic. The production of literature through the separation of the self, the dilution of the self, on a journey towards some sort of awe. I don't mean to secularize what is, essentially, unmistakably, Muslim works of literature. Many think of Rumi as a romantic poet, but he was Muslim, first and foremost, an especially devout Muslim at that, as all Sufi saints are generally considered to be.

This collection does not include Hallaj's Tawasin but I'll get a copy of that soon and continue on my own path to wherever the hell it is I'm going with this stuff.

[غبار · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I wrote you, but I didn't write you;
I only wrote my spirit, without a letter.
That's because the spirit is not separated
from its lovers by a closing word.
So every letter coming from and reaching you
without reply is my reply."

—p170

[Kyra Krishna]

Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr, poems 1-117 (pp. 49-186), PDF 1-141

[B. AGHA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent. A real gem in poetry and inspiration.