Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword to the Abridged Edition

Preface

Ch. 1 Biographical Outline 1

I Prologue 1

II Chronological Tableau of Hallaj's Life and Posthumous Survival 9

Ch. 2 The Years of Apprenticeship: His Teachers and Friends 24

I Native Milieu 24

II The Cultural Milieu of Basra 33

III Anecdotes from His Years of Apprenticeship: His Hajj (Ghutba) 52

Ch. 3 Travels and Apostolate 72

I His Modes of Travel: His Dress, His Itineraries, His Stopping Places 72

II The Two Periods of Public Preaching in Ahwaz (272-273 and 279-281) 74

III The Other Regions Traveled Through 89

IV The Social Expression of Hallaj's Vocation, and His Contacts with the Cultural Renaissance of His Time 101

V The Last Hajj of Hallaj and the Waqfa of Arafat 114

Ch. 4 In Baghdad: Zealous Preaching and Political Indictment 117

I Baghdad 117

II Public Preaching in Baghdad 132

III Political Indictment: The Dawat Ilal-Rububiya, Usurpation of the Supreme Power of God 150

Ch. 5 The Indictment, The Court of Justice, and the Actors in the Drama 157

I The Indictment and Ibn Dawud's Initiative 157

II The Definition of Zandaqa, a Heresy Threatening the Security of the State 177

III The Sovereign Authority and Its Delegation to a Court of Justice; the Court of Justice, Its Powers and Jurisdiction 180

Ch. 6 The Trials 208

I A Critical Note about the Historical Sources for the Trials 208

II The First Trial (298/910 to 301/913) 211

III The Eight Years of Waiting 219

IV The Second Trial (308/921 to 309/922) 227

V The Denouement and the Judgment of Condemnation 256

Ch. 7 The Martyrdom 280

The Peripeteias of the Execution 280