al-Ḥallāj summary

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al-Ḥallāj, (born c. 858, Ṭūr, Iran—died March 26, 922, Baghdad, Iraq), Muslim teacher of Sufism. Brought up in the Iraqi city of Wāsiṭ, he was drawn to asceticism at an early age and studied with a series of Sufi teachers. From c. 895 he traveled extensively as a teacher and preacher, making three pilgrimages to Mecca and gathering a large following. These travels and his popularity alienated his Sufi masters, and his demands for reform earned him the enmity of non-Sufi Muslims. Accused of fomenting rebellion and claiming to be divine, he was arrested, imprisoned (c. 911–922), and eventually crucified and tortured to death.

Islam Summary

Islam, major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. The Arabic term islām, literally “surrender,” illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islām) accepts surrender to the will of

Sufism Summary

Sufism, mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. It consists of a variety of mystical paths that are designed to ascertain the nature of humanity and of God and to facilitate the experience