Ecstatic Confessions

1909 | Martin Buber

[Cultural Jihad]

HUSSEIN AL HALLADJ (D. 309 H-922 C.E.)

At the festival on the slope of Mount Arfat he said, "O thou signpost for the dull witted!" And when he saw all the people praying, he climbed a hill and watched them, and as they were all coming back he struck himself and cried out, "Thou exalted Lord, I know thou art pure; and I saw thou art pure of all the praise of the praisers and all the worship of the worshippers and all the thoughts of the thinkers. My God! Thou knowest that I cannot fulfill the obligation of praise. Praise thou thyself in my stead, that is the true praise."

He was asked whether a contemplative has time left over for himself. "No," he said, "Time expresses the state of one who needs enlightenment; but whoever cannot be content with his state is a knower. That is, one must be able to say, in the words of Mohammed, 'I have times with God when no angel, no cherub even, can grasp me.'"

He was asked, "What is the way to God?" He answered, "Pull back both your feet, and you will be with him - one foot from out of this life, the other foot from out of the other life."

Likewise he said, "Knowing means seeing things, but also being submerged, like all things, in the Absolute."

He said, "When the servant has arrived at the rung of knowledge, God sends him an inspiration, his joy becomes dull, and nothing is to his taste any longer, except the enjoyment of God."

Moreover he said, "The gaze of the seers, the knowledge of the knowers, the light of those who know in the spirit, and the way of those who make swift progress, and the eternity of Before and the eternity of After and all that lies between are temporality." And how do we know this? Hussein answers, "Whoever has a heart, let him throw away his eye, then he will see."

Likewise, "Whosoever seeks God sits in the shadow of his penitence, but whomsoever God seeks sits in the shadow of his innocence."

Likewise, "Whosoever seeks God runs ahead of his revelations, but whomsoever God seeks has revelations that overtake his running."

Likewise, "Hours of divine enlightenment are shells that lie in the sea of our hearts; the morning of resurrection casts them up on shore, and they spring open."

He said, "I am the one I love, and the one I love is I; we are two souls fused in one body. When you see me, you see him. When you see him, you see us.

Now when people began to be astonished at him, liars without judgment revealed themselves, and also many adherents. Wonderful things were seen of him. Some whetted their tongues to calumny and brought his sayings before the caliph. The Imams of Baghdad also voted to condemn him to death, because he had said, "I am God!" They demanded that he should say, "He is God!" He replied, "Yes, everything is he! You say that he is submerged [in the beings] but Hussein is submerged; the ocean does not become submerged, nor does it annihilate."

On the way to his execution he danced, flinging his hands about like a high-spirited stallion, though laden with sixteen chains. They said, "What sort of going is this?" He answered, "Am I not going to my place of sacrifice?" Thereupon he uttered a loud cry and sang these verses:

Never would I wish my friend to be accused of cruelty.
He handed me what he himself drinks, as a host to a guest.
But as the cups went round he called for the block and the sword.
So it fares with him who drinks wine with the dragon in the heat of summer.

"Ecstatic Confessions" by Martin Buber

[L,TOWM]

An interesting post from you.

[Maelstrom]

Careful not to misinterpret it...*chuckle*

[esopman]

OK. I'm dumb, but agree with L,TOWM.

There is now, and since about 30 CE (not just 632) has always been, a 'Cultural Jihad.' It is being waged against all who, while all too human, will not consciously compromise Christ, internally or externally. Twas ever thus.

This post is a curiosity. Perhaps I will understand it later. Perhaps after someone has, in a Zen moment, proven that: while a moose must choose, many meese choose cheese. Shalom.

[Cultural Jihad]

Erratum: "...and I say thou art pure of all the praise of the praisers..."

[BlackVeil]

Thanks for posting, a most profitable text. I did not know that Buber had written anything about Hallaj.

Speak, O Lord, for thy servant heareth. I am Thy servant, grant me understanding, that I may know Thy testimonies. Incline my heart to the words of Thy mouth: let Thy speech distill as the dew. (Psalm cxix, 125, Deut XXXII. 2.)

[L,TOWM]

Knowing CJ's usual stances on things in this forum, about the only certain "interpretation" I can come up with is that CJ now has an Islamic Fatwa on him, in addition to the "Liberal" Libertarian Fatwa [ ;-) ] that has been in place against him on this forum for a long time.