Suggestion and Expression

By Mansur Hallaj

I wrote to him with an understood suggestion

       and intimately explored the language of expression,

In a letter for him, from him, by him, to him,

       translating a hidden lore of veiling,

With U of union and the P of proof,

       the M of modesty and the P of purity,

The L of loyalty, the C of cleanliness,

       and an L and F revolving round a life,

In a hidden secret as heart’s ecstasy,

       and the H of hidden, the S of suggestion _

Creatures belong to God as an ultimate truth,

       by a right when the truth of the visit is proved,

By them, not by them, since they are not they,

       though there is no lofty feature but them.

For all are by all, the whole of the whole,

       from the all by the all, the word of a day.

It is clay, and fire, and light, because 

       the answer responds to the expression.

And He remains who was there, before there was place,

       comprehending everything in knowledge as His abode.

For He instantly raises up his enemies 

       among jinn and men in heat as a fire,

And He settles his friends in His vicinity,

       with wonderful grace and beautiful freshness.

For he is He, the original origin of origins,

       and he is He, the time of times of eternity.

By Mansur Hallaj, translated by Carl Ernst, in Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr (Northwestern University Press, 2018) English translation copyright © 2018 by Carl W. Ernst. Published 2018 by Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved.