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And among them: the one immersed in inner meaning and consumed in his claim, Abu al-Mughith al-Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, may Allah be pleased with him. He was among the intoxicated and ardent lovers of this path, and he had a powerful spiritual state and a lofty aspiration. The masters of this story differ concerning his standing: to one group he is rejected, and to another accepted. Amr ibn Uthman, Abu Ya'qub al-Nahrajuri, Abu Ya'qub al-Aqta', Ali ibn Sahl al-Isbahani, and others rejected him; while Ibn Ata, Muhammad ibn Khafif, Abu al-Qasim al-Nasrabadi, and all the later ones accepted him; and yet another group suspended judgment concerning his case, such as Junayd, Shibli, Jariri, Husri, and others; and another group attributed to him sorcery and its means. But in our days Shaykh Abu Sa'id, Shaykh Abu al-Qasim Gorgani, and Shaykh Abu al-Abbas Shaqani, may Allah be pleased with them, held a secret regard for him, and in their eyes he was great. But the master Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri, may Allah be pleased with him, says: 'If he was one of the possessors of inner meanings and truth, he will not become forsaken by their forsaking him; and if he was rejected by the Truth and accepted by the people, he will not become accepted through the acceptance of the people. By the rule of submission we leave him to Him, and to the measure of the sign of the Truth that we found in him, we hold him great.' But of all these masters, may Allah be pleased with them, except a few, none deny the perfection of his virtue, the purity of his state, and the abundance of his striving and self-discipline. And to leave out mention of him would be a breach of trust in this book, because some of the people of the exterior declare him an unbeliever and deny him and attribute his states to treachery, trickery, and sorcery, and they suppose that Husayn Mansur al-Hallaj is Hasan ibn Mansur al-Hallaj — that heretic of Baghdad who was the master of Muhammad Zakariya and the companion of Abu Sa'id al-Qarmati. This Husayn, concerning whose case we differ, was a Persian from Bayda, and the rejection and forsaking of him by the masters is not in the sense of impugning his religion and creed, but concerns his state and conduct. At first he was a disciple of Sahl ibn Abdallah, and he left him without permission and joined Amr ibn Uthman, and left him too without permission and attached himself to Junayd. He did not accept him, and for this reason they all forsook him. So his forsaking was a forsaking of conduct, not of fundamentals. Did you not see that Shibli said: 'I and al-Hallaj are one thing, but my madness saved me while his reason destroyed him.' And if he had been impugned in religion, Shibli would not have said 'I and al-Hallaj are one thing,' and Muhammad ibn Khafif said: 'He is a divine scholar (alim rabbani),' and the like of this. So the displeasure and disobedience toward the elders of the path and the masters, may Allah be pleased with them, brought forth forsaking and estrangement. He has brilliant compositions, and symbols, and refined discourse in the fundamentals and the branches. And I, who am Ali ibn Uthman al-Jullabi, saw fifty pieces of his compositions in Baghdad and its environs, and some in Khuzestan, Fars, and Khurasan. In all of them I found words such as belong to the early manifestations of disciples — some of them stronger and some weaker, some easier and some more offensive. And when someone has a manifestation from the Truth, through the strength of his state expression comes to hand and virtue aids. The speech becomes obscure, especially when the one who expresses marvels at his own expression. Then imaginations increase in aversion to hearing it, and intellects fall short of comprehending it. Then they say: 'This speech is lofty.' One group denies it out of ignorance, and another group affirms it out of ignorance. Their denial is like their affirmation. But when the verifiers, the people of insight, examine it, they do not cling to the expression nor busy themselves with marveling at it; they are free of blame and praise, and they rest from denial and affirmation. And again, those who attributed the state of that noble young man to sorcery — that is impossible; because in the fundamentals of the Sunna and the community sorcery is real, just as a miracle is, while the manifestation of sorcery in the state of perfection is unbelief, and that miracle in the state of perfection is gnosis; because the one is the fruit of the wrath of the Lord, may His majesty be exalted, and the other is the concomitant of His good pleasure. And this discourse we shall explain in detail in the chapter on establishing miracles, God willing. And by the agreement of the people of insight, a Muslim of the Sunna and the community is not a sorcerer, and an unbeliever is not honored with miracles; for opposites do not gather together, and Husayn, may Allah be pleased with him, as long as he lived was in the garb of righteousness — with good prayers, remembrance and much intimate supplication, continuous fasting, refined praises, and subtle points in divine unity. If his acts had been sorcery, all this would have been impossible from him. So it is established that they were miracles, and miracles do not belong to any but the verified realizer. And some of the people of the fundamentals have rejected him and object to him in his words in the sense of commingling and union, but that reproach is in the expression, not in the meaning; for the one overcome by his state has no capacity for expression, so that in the overwhelming of his state his expression could come out correct. And it is also possible that the meaning of the expression is difficult, so that they do not grasp the intent of the one expressing; their imagination makes for them a certain form of it, and they deny that. That denial of theirs returns to them, not to that meaning. But I saw a group of the heretics of Baghdad and its environs — may Allah forsake them — who claimed allegiance to him and made his speech a proof for their own heresy, and put upon themselves the name 'Hallaji', and were extreme concerning his case, like the Rawafid in their allegiance to Ali, may Allah be pleased with him. In refutation of their words I shall bring a chapter in the 'distinction of distinctions', God willing, mighty and majestic. And in sum, know that his speech is not fit to be followed as an example; because he was overcome in his state, not firmly established, and one needs the speech of the firmly established so that one may follow it. So he is dear upon my heart, praise be to God, but his path is not upright upon any fundamental and his state is not settled upon any station, and in his states there is much trial. And in the early manifestations of my own I had strengths from him, in the sense of proofs, and before this I composed a book in explanation of his speech, establishing by proofs and arguments the loftiness of his speech and the soundness of his state, and in a book I made besides that book, named 'Minhaj', I mentioned its beginning and end — here I have brought this much as well. So a path whose fundamental must be established with so much caution — why should they attach themselves to it and follow it? But caprice never agrees with rectitude; it is always seeking something by the way of crookedness so that it may cling to it. It is related from him that he said, may Allah be pleased with him: 'The tongues are made to speak; beneath their speaking are the ones consumed.' That is, the speaking tongues are the destruction of the silent hearts. These expressions are all affliction, and in truth their meaning is mere prattle. When the meaning is attained, it is not lost through expression; when the meaning is absent, it is not made present through expression — except that in it a false supposition appears and destroys the seeker, so that he supposes the expression to be the meaning. And God knows best.