Louis Massignon's Monumental Study of Hallaj Reissued

Gallimard has reissued Louis Massignon's magnum opus "La Passion de Hallâj" in its "Tel" collection, a work that has been described as a sort of "Finnegans Wake of Orientalism." Originally a doctoral thesis first published in 1922—exactly a millennium after the execution of its subject—Massignon continued to revise and expand the text for forty years until his death, resulting in a massive 2,000-page volume. The book examines the life and martyrdom of Husayn ibn Mansûr Hallâj, a Persian mystic executed in Baghdad on March 26, 922, for his ecstatic utterance "I am the Truth" (Ana al-Haqq). Massignon's study defies genre classification, combining history, geography, law, grammar, mystical theology, religious sociology, a complete translation of Hallaj's works, and a monumental bibliography. The new edition, however, omits the original plates, which included depictions of Hallaj's torture. Massignon argues that Hallaj's cry was not blasphemy but an affirmation that truth resides in each person, not in doctrine. He also explores Hallaj's radical idea that Satan is the absolute monotheist, refusing to bow to anyone but God. The work is dedicated to Joris-Karl Huysmans and Charles de Foucauld. Massignon's lifelong commitment to the poor, displaced persons, prisoners, and immigrant workers was, in his view, inseparable from his scholarship, echoing Charles Péguy's belief that "mysticism nourishes politics."