Brief Biography of Imam al-Mugits Husayn ibn Manswur al-Hallaj (q.s.)
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ This is the story of Imam al-Mugits Husayn ibn Manswur al-Hallaj ( q.s. ), who was born in Madina al-Bayda, a little village in the ancient province of Fars, in southern Persia, in the year 224 A.H./857 CE, two years before his shaykh, Imam Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd ibn Muhammad al-Baghdadi ( q.s. ). He grew up in Wasith and in Tustar, where the cultivation of cotton was the main occupation of most of the people. His father was a cotton-carder from which he gained his name of “ al-hallaj ” - one who cards cotton. Even when he was a young child, Imam al-Hallaj ( q.s. ) felt drawn towards a spiritual life, and at the age of sixteen he attached himself to Imam Abu Muhammad Sahl ibn ‘Abdullah at-Tustari ( q.s. ), whom he accompanied when he moved from Tustar to Baswra, in ‘Iraq. He served this shaykh for two years and then, when he was eighteen years old, he left him, and went to Baghdad. The young Imam al-Hallaj ( q.s. ) did not stay lon