We are two spirits dwelling in one body.
If thou seest me, thou seest Him,
And if thou seest Him, thou seest us both.”
[22] Massignon appears to be right in identifying the Divine Spirit with the Active Reason (intellectus agens), which, according to Alexander of Aphrodisias, is not a part or faculty of our soul, but comes to us from without. See Inge, Christian Mysticism, pp. 360, 361. The doctrine of Hallāj may be compared with that of Tauler, Ruysbroeck, and others concerning the birth of God in the soul.
This doctrine of personal deification, in the peculiar form which was impressed upon it by Hallāj, is obviously akin to the central doctrine of Christianity, and therefore, from the Moslem standpoint, a heresy of the worst kind. It survived unadulterated only amongst his immediate followers. The Hulūlīs, i.e. those who believe in incarnation, are repudiated by Sūfīs in general quite as vehemently as by orthodox Moslems. But while the former have unhesitatingly condemned the doctrine of hulūl, they have also done their best to clear Hallāj from the suspicion of having taught it. Three main lines of defence are followed: (1) Hallāj did not sin against the Truth, but he was justly punished in so far as he committed a grave offence against the Law. He “betrayed the secret of his Lord” by proclaiming to all and sundry the supreme mystery which ought to be reserved for the elect. (2) Hallāj spoke under the intoxicating influence of ecstasy. He imagined himself to be united with the divine essence, when in fact he was only united with one of the divine attributes. (3) Hallāj meant to declare that there is no essential difference or separation between God and His creatures, inasmuch as the divine unity includes all being. A man who has entirely passed away from his phenomenal self exists quâ his real self, which is God.
“In that glory is no ‘I’ or ‘We’ or ‘Thou.’
‘I,’ ‘We,’ ‘Thou,’ and ‘He’ are all one thing.”
It was not Hallāj who cried “Ana ’l-Haqq,” but God Himself, speaking, as it were, by the mouth of the selfless Hallāj, just as He spoke to Moses through the medium of the burning bush (Kor. 20. 8-14).
The last explanation, which converts Ana ’l-Haqq into an impersonal monistic axiom, is accepted by most Sūfīs as representing the true Hallājian teaching. In a magnificent ode Jalāluddīn Rūmī describes how the One Light shines in myriad forms through the whole universe, and how the One Essence, remaining ever the same, clothes itself from age to age in the prophets and saints who are its witnesses to mankind.
“Every moment the robber Beauty rises in a different shape, ravishes the soul, and disappears.