I just found this interesting and wanted to see if it would spark some discussion, or atleast mean something to someone else.
from wiki..
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During his early lifetime he was a disciple of Junayd and Amr al-Makki, but was later rejected by them both.
Among other Sufis, Hallaj was an anomaly. Many Sufi masters felt that it was inappropriate to share mysticism with the masses, yet Hallaj openly did so in his writings and through his teachings. He began to make enemies, and the rulers saw him as a threat. This was exacerbated by times when he would fall into trances which he attributed to being in the presence of God. During one of these trances, he would utter Ana al-Haqq أنا الحق, meaning "Truth is me" or "I am God" and also, "In my turban is wrapped nothing but God," which was taken to mean that he was claiming to be God, as Al-Haqq is one of the Ninety Nine Names of Allah. In another statement, Hallaj would point to his cloak and say, "Maa Fil Jubbati Illa-Allah" meaning "There is nothing inside/underneath the cloak except God."
These utterances led him to a long trial, and subsequent imprisonment for eleven years in a Baghdad prison. In the end, he was tortured and publicly crucified (in some accounts he was beheaded and his hands and feet were cut off) by the Abbasid rulers for what they deemed "theological error threatening the security of the state." Many accounts tell of Al-Hallaj's calm demeanor even while he was being tortured, and indicate that he forgave those who had executed him. According to some sources, [attribution needed] he went to his execution dancing in his chains. He was executed on March 26, 922.
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He wanted to testify of this relationship to God to others, even at the price of his own life, thus even asking his fellow Muslims to kill him (Massignon, 79) and accepting his martyrdom, saying that "what is important for the ecstatic is for the One to reduce him to oneness." (Massignon, 87) He also referred to the martyrdom of Christ, saying he also wanted to die "in the supreme confession of the cross" (Olivier Clément. Dio è carita, p. 41) Like Christ, he gave his martyrdom a redemptive significance, believing as he did that his martyrdom "was uniting his beloved God and His community of Muslims against himself and thereby bore witness in extremis to the tawhid (the oneness) of both." (Mason, 25) For his desire of oneness with God, many Muslims criticized him as a "'crypto-Christian' for distorting the monotheistic revelation in a Christian way." (Mason, 25). His death is described by Attar as a heroic act,as when they are taking him to court,a sufi asks him:"What is love?". He answers: "You will see it today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow." They killed him that day, burned him the next day and threw his ashes to the wind the day after that. "This is love," Attar says. His legs were cut off, he smiled and said, "I used to walk the earth with these legs, now there's only one step to heaven, cut that if you can." And when his hands were cut off he paints his face with his own blood, when asked why, he says: "I have lost a lot of blood, and I know my face has turned yellow, I don't want to look pale-faced (as of fear)...".
link http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:H2qa1AybzHkJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallaj+ana-al+haqq+wiki&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
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Wow. Has a familiar ring to it.
He certainly was doing no one harm. Those who persecuted him certainly were doing harm.
I choose him as the best example of humanity in this story. Unfortunately,as usual, he was outnumbered.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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