Ḥulūl and Ittiḥād

Two terms mark the edge of what the mainstream Sufi writers would allow. Ḥulūl is the “infusion” or incarnation of God in a human being; ittiḥād is the identification of the human with the divine. Nicholson, at the climax of his book, says the transformation Sufis speak of, “however it may be conceived, does not involve infusion of the divine essence (hulūl) or identification of the divine and human natures (ittihād). Both these doctrines are generally condemned.” (Chapter VI)

Al-Sarrāj on where the error lies

Nicholson cites Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, the author of the Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, to explain both errors. On the first:

“Some mystics of Baghdād have erred in their doctrine that when they pass away from their qualities they enter into the qualities of God. This leads to incarnation (hulūl) or to the Christian belief concerning Jesus. The doctrine in question has been attributed to some of the ancients, but its true meaning is this, that when a man goes forth from his own qualities and enters into the qualities of God, he goes forth from his own will and enters into the will of God, knowing that his will is given to him by God and that by virtue of this gift he is severed from regarding himself, so that he becomes entirely devoted to God; and this is one of the stages of Unitarians. Those who have erred in this doctrine have failed to observe that the qualities of God are not God.”

— Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, quoted in Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, Chapter VI

And on the second, in a passage aimed at those who starve themselves in the belief that the body’s weakening lets the human nature drop away:

“The attributes of humanity are not the essence of humanity. Those who inculcate the doctrine of fanā mean the passing-away of regarding one’s own actions and works of devotion through the continuance of regarding God as the doer of these actions on behalf of His servant.”

— Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, quoted in Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, Chapter VI

The point is that fanā is a change in what a person looks at, and not a change in what the person is. (Fanā and Baqā sets out the same distinction from al-Hujwīrī.)

The Ḥulūlīs and the Ḥallājīs

Al-Hujwīrī divides the aspirants to Ṣūfiism into twelve sects, ten of them approved and two condemned. The two condemned are the Ḥulūlīs and the Ḥallājīs:

The two condemned sects, he says, are the Ḥulúlís, “who derive their name from the doctrine of incarnation (ḥulúl) and incorporation (imtizáj),” and the Ḥallájís. (Chapter XI)

He is careful about names. The adherents of the doctrine of Abū Ḥulmān of Damascus, he says, attribute to him ideas “of incarnation (ḥulúl) and commixture (imtizáj) and transmigration of spirits,” which the Sufis, who regard him as one of themselves, do not find in the books of the Shaykhs. Of the other sect, which traced its doctrine to a follower named Fāris who claimed it from al-Ḥallāj, he says that Fāris “is the only one of Ḥusayn’s followers who holds such tenets,” and: “Moreover, in the compositions of al-Ḥalláj himself there is nothing but profound theosophy.” (Chapter XIV)

Nicholson’s account of al-Ḥallāj opens with the sentence that made him the test case: “In the early part of the tenth century Husayn ibn Mansūr, known to fame as al-Hallāj (the wool-carder), was barbarously done to death at Baghdād.” His offence was two words, Ana ’l-Ḥaqq, “I am God,” which, Nicholson says, “Islam has, on the whole, forgiven but has never forgotten.” (Chapter VI)

Where the line runs

The line is easiest to see in how two later writers handle it. In Studies in Islamic Mysticism, Nicholson observes: “While Sufis, like Moslems in general, affirm the transcendence of God and reject the notion of infusion or incarnation (ḥulúl), it is an interesting fact that one of the first attempts in Islam to indicate more precisely the meaning of mystical union was founded on the Christian doctrine of two natures in God.” (Chapter II) Al-Jīlī, whose doctrine of the Perfect Man is expounded in the same book, says that when God reveals Himself to someone He annuls the man’s individual existence and puts in his place a spiritual substance, “without incarnation (ḥulúl),” which “is of God’s essence and is neither separate from God nor joined to the man.” (Chapter II, continued) And Ibn al-Fāriḍ, the poet of the Taiyya, was accused of holding the doctrine of incarnation, which, Nicholson says, he “disavows hulul and shows how it differs from his own doctrine.” (Chapter III)

The question of how close union can come without crossing the line is the central tension of Tawḥīd and Insān Kāmil, and of the Law and the Truth.