Al- Hallaj

“Why do you not free yourself?” they replied.
“I am God’s captive. I am the sentinel of salvation,”
he answered. “If I so wish, with one signal I can loose
all bonds.”
Hallaj made a sign with his finger, and all their
bonds burst asunder.
“Now where are we to go?” the prisoners demanded.
“The gate of the prison is locked.”
Hallaj signalled again, and cracks appeared in the
walls.
“Now go on your way,” he cried.
“Are you not coming too?” they asked.
“No,” he replied. “I have a secret with Him which
cannot be told save on the gallows.”
“Where have the prisoners gone?” the warders asked
him next morning.
“I set them free,” Hallaj answered.
“Why did you not go?” they enquired.
“God has cause to chide me, so I did not go,” he
replied.
This story was carried to the caliph.
“There will be a riot,” he cried. “Kill him, or beat
him with sticks until he retracts.”
They beat him with sticks three hundred times. At
every blow a clear voice was heard to say, “Fear not,
son of Mansur! “
Then they led him out to be crucified.

Loaded with thirteen heavy chains, Hallaj strode out
proudly along the way waving his arms like a very
vagabond.
“Why do you strut so proudly?” they asked him.
“Because I am going to the slaughterhouse,” he
replied. And he recited in clear tones,
My boon-companion’s not to be
Accused of mean inequity.
He made me drink like him the best,
As does the generous host his guest;
And when the round was quite complete
He called for sword and winding-sheet.
Such is his fate, who drinks past reason
With Draco in the summer season.

When they brought him to the base of the gallows at
Bab al-Taq, he kissed the wood and set his foot upon
the ladder.
“How do you feel?” they taunted him.
“The ascension of true men is the top of the gallows,”
he answered.
He was wearing a loincloth about his middle and a
mantle on his shoulders. Turning towards Mecca, he
lifted up his hands and communed with God.
“What He knows, no man knows,” he said. Then he
climbed the gibbet.

“What do you say,” asked a group of his followers,
“concerning us who are your disciples, and these who
condemn you and would stone you?”
“They have a double reward, and you a single,” he
answered. “You merely think well of me. They are
moved by the strength of their belief in One God to
maintain the rigour of the Law.”
Shebli came and stood facing him.
“Have we not forbidden thee all beings?” he cried.
Then he asked, “What is Sufism, Hallaj?”
“The least part of it is this that you see,” Hallaj
replied.
“What is the loftier part?” asked Shebli.
“That you cannot reach,” Hallaj answered.
Then all the spectators began to throw stones.
Shebli, to conform, cast a clod. Hallaj sighed.
“You did not sigh when struck by all these stones.
Why did you sigh because of a clod?” they asked.
“Because those who cast stones do not know what
they are doing. They have an excuse. From him it
comes hard to me, for he knows that he ought not to
fling at me.”
Then they cut off his hands. He laughed.
“Why do you laugh?” they cried.
“It is an easy matter to strike off the hands of a man
who is bound,” he answered. “He is a true man, who
cuts off the hands of attributes which remove the
crown of aspiration from the brow of the Throne.”
They hacked off his feet. He smiled.
“With these feet I made an earthly journey,” he said.
“Other feet I have, which even now are journeying
through both the worlds. If you are able, hack off those
feet!”
Then he rubbed his bloody, amputated hands over
his face, so that both his arms and his face were stained
with blood.
“Why did you do that?” they enquired.
“Much blood has gone out of me,” he replied. “I
realize that my face will have grown pale. You suppose
that my pallor is because I am afraid. I rubbed blood
over my face so that I might appear rose-cheeked in
your eyes. The cosmetic of heroes is their blood.”
“Even if you bloodied your face, why did you stain
your arms?”
“I was making ablution.”
“What ablution?”
“When one prays two rak’as in love,” Hallaj replied,
“the ablution is not perfect unless performed with
blood.”
Next they plucked out his eyes. A roar went up from
the crowd. Some wept, some flung stones. Then they
made to cut out his tongue.
“Be patient a little, give me time to speak one word,”
he entreated. “O God,” he cried, lifting his face to
heaven, “do not exclude them for the suffering they are
bringing on me for Thy sake, neither deprive them of
this felicity. Praise be to God, for that they have cut off
my feet as I trod Thy way. And if they strike off my
head from my body, they have raised me up to the head
of the gallows, contemplating Thy majesty.”
Then they cut off his ears and nose. An old woman
carrying a pitcher happened along. Seeing Hallaj, she
cried, “Strike, and strike hard and true. What business
has this pretty little Woolcarder to speak of God?”
The last words Hallaj spoke were these. “Love of the
One is isolation of the One.” Then he chanted this
verse: “Those that believe not therein seek to hasten it;
but those who believe in it go in fear of it, knowing that
it is the truth.”
This was his final utterance. They then cut out his
tongue. It was the time of the evening prayer when they
cut off his head. Even as they were cutting off his head,
Hallaj smiled. Then he gave up the ghost.
A great cry went up from the people. Hallaj had carried
the ball of destiny to the boundary of the field of
resignation. From each one of his members came the
declaration, “I am the Truth.”
Next day they declared, “This scandal will be even
greater than while he was alive.” So they burned his
limbs. From his ashes came the cry, “I am the Truth,”
even as in the time of his slaying every drop of blood as
it trickled formed the word Allah. Dumbfounded, they
cast his ashes into the Tigris. As they floated on the sur-
face of the water, they continued to cry, “I am the
Truth.”
Now Hallaj had said, “When they cast my ashes into
the Tigris, Baghdad will be in peril of drowning under
the water. Lay my robe in front of the water, or
Baghdad will be destroyed.” His servant, when he saw
what had happened, brought the master’s robe and laid
it on the bank of the Tigris. The waters subsided, and
his ashes became silent. Then they gathered his ashes
and buried them.

Allahu Akbar !

Assalamu 'Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu

A very good narration. One's imaan is lifted whenever we read or hear these types of stories esp during this blessed month.

Subhanallah ! The Truth always wins!!

Glory be to Allah, All Praise belongs to Allah
Peace and blessings on His Beloved Prophet Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa Salla Allahu ta'ala 'alayhi wa Sallam

Assalamu 'Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu

As you have asked so kindly brother i will post regularly stories of more great sufis inshaAllah.

In the mean time I have another short story well its more about his life really about the great Al-Hallaj:

The wanderings of Hallaj

Hosain-e Mansur, called Hallaj (“the Woolcarder”) first came to Tostar, where he served Sahl ibn Abd Allah for two years; then he set out for Baghdad. He made his first journey at the age of eighteen.

Thereafter he went to Basra and joined Amr ibn Othman, passing eighteen months in his company. Ya’qub-e Aqta’ gave him his daughter in marriage, after which Amr ibn Othman became displeased with him. So he left Basra and came to Baghdad where he called on Jonaid. Jonaid prescribed for him silence and solitude. He endured Jonaid’s company for a while, then he made for Hejaz. He took up residence in Mecca for one year, after which he returned to Baghdad. With a group of Sufis he attended on Jonaid and put a number of questions to him to which Jonaid gave no reply.
“The time will soon come,” Jonaid told him, “when you will incarnadine a piece of wood.”
“The day when I incarnadine that piece of wood,”
Hallaj replied, “you will be wearing the garb of the formalists.”

So it turned out. On the day when the leading scholars
pronounced the verdict that Hallaj must be executed, Jonaid was wearing the Sufi robe and did not sign the warrant. The caliph said that Jonaid’s signature was necessary. So Jonaid put on the academic turban and gown, went to the madrasa and endorsed the warrant.
“We judge according to externals,” he wrote. “As for the inward truth, that God alone knows.”

When Jonaid declined to answer his questions, Hallaj was vexed and without asking leave departed to Tostar. There he remained for a year, widely acclaimed. But because he attached no weight to the prevailing
doctrine, the theologians turned envious against him.

Meanwhile Amr ibn Othman wrote letters regarding him to the people of Khuzestan, blackening him in their eyes. He too had grown weary of that place. Casting aside the Sufi garb, he donned tunic and passed his time in the company of worldly folk. That made no difference to him, however, and for five years he vanished. Part of that period he spent in Khorasan and
Transoxiana, part in Sistan.

Hallaj then returned to Ahwaz, where his preaching won the approval of the elite and the public alike. He would speak of men’s secrets, so that he was dubbed “Hallaj of the Secrets”. After that he dressed himself in the ragged dervish robes and set out for the Sacred Territory, accompanied by many in like attire. When he reached Mecca, Ya’qub-e Nahrajuri denounced him as a magician. So he returned to Basra, then to Ahwaz.
“Now I am going to the lands of polytheism, to call
men to God,” he announced.

So he went to India, then to Transoxiana, then to China, calling men to God and composing works for them. When he returned from the distant parts of the world, the peoples of those regions wrote him letters. The Indians addressed him as Abu ‘l-Moghith, the Chinese as Abo ‘l-Mo’in, the Khorasanians as Abu ‘l- Mohr, the Farsis as Abu ‘Abd Allah, the Khuzestanis as Hallaj of the Secrets. In Baghdad he was called Mostalem, in Basra Mokhabbar.

Is this true story ?

Assalamu 'Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu
Masaallah, sister beautiful work done by you Allhumduliilah,Allah give you tofeeq to carry on this blessful work and let you enlighten our hearts further
with knowledge of deen .