The
Heart of the Soul
by
Dorothy C. Buck
In 858 A.D. the Sufi mystic al-Husayn ibn Mansur
al-Hallaj was born in Persia. In 922 A.D. he was accused of violating Islamic
law and, after imprisonment and torture, he was executed for blasphemy. The
legend of this mystic/martyr of Islam has been kept alive throughout the Muslim
world in ritual and prayer. Persian and Turkish mystical poets have told and
re-told his story in diverse literary forms and the poet Rumi used the
Hallajian themes. Members of Sufi orders today refer to al-Hallaj as a true
disciple of divine love.
In his travels as a mendicant preacher and
spiritual master, al-Hallaj tried to lead his followers ever more deeply into
the reality of the human soul toward ultimate unity with the divine. His
writings passionately described divine love as he sought to lose himself in God
(Massignon 1983, 2:198):
You infuse my heart with consciousness as You infuse bodies with souls.
One of the most compelling themes from al-Hallaj's devotional doctrine is
that of the Virgin Heart, which refers to the secret place in the center of the
human soul where God alone has access. Al-Hallaj stated (Massignon 1989, 133):
Our hearts are one single Virgin, which the dream of no dreamer can
penetrate ... which only the presence of the Lord penetrates in order to be
conceived therein.
In 1907 Louis Massignon, a young Frenchman, became interested in the life of
al-Hallaj, traveling to Iraq as an archeologist, in pursuit of the Hallajian
legend. Al-Hallaj soon became the subject of Massignon's doctoral dissertation
at the Sorbonne in Paris. Massignon's passionate search for sources on
al-Hallaj's life, doctrine, and legend led him on a fifty-year journey of
research and writing. Most profound, however, was his own experience of
al-Hallaj, which Massignon felt contributed to his own spiritual conversion to
Catholicism. Massignon (1883-1962) was a renowned Orientalist of his time. Not
only was he a distinguished professor at the prestigious College de France, but
he also served as the French cultural ambassador to the Near East. An advocate
of Islamic-Christian dialogue, he ultimately became a Catholic priest of the
Melkite Rite, even as his life work was focused on the life and teachings of
al-Hallaj, the mystic martyr of Islam.
Massignon's conversion experience, from modern
secular intellectual to devout seeker of the divine, took place in Baghdad in
1908. The unique nature of his experience was that his call to Christianity
took place in the Muslim world and that he was convinced that it happened
through the intercession of the tenth century mystic of Islam, al-Hallaj.
Massignon's reflections on al-Hallaj's Virgin
Heart, or
le point Vierge, were incorporated in his major writings,
lectures, and extensive correspondence, and became an integral part of his
ongoing spiritual conversion. He conceived of this theme as a connecting link
between his growing conviction of the need for interreligious dialogue and
understanding and his belief in the need for hospitality, humility, and
compassion for all of humanity. Massignon wrote (Massignon 1989, 133):
Introspection must guide us to tear through the concentric "veils"
which ensheathe the heart, and hide from us the virginal point, the secret (
sirr)
wherein God manifests himself.
Massignon leads me to reflect deeply on the layers of meaning evoked by this
image of the Virgin Heart at the center of the human soul. Here he is
suggesting that my heart is "ensheathed," covered over by
"veils" of illusions, assumptions, judgments, and attachments that
prevent me from even imagining a place for the divine within me. This blindness
prevents me from recognizing the same virginal point in the souls of others.
In 1959 the Trappist monk Thomas Merton began a
correspondence with Massignon. Both men were seekers of the mystical aspects of
diverse religious traditions. Merton was drawn to Massignon's increasing
activism as a witness against war, specifically the Algerian-French crisis, and
was intrigued by the theme of the Virgin Heart. In a letter to Massignon on
July 20, 1960, he wrote (Merton 1994, 278):
Louis, one thing strikes me and moves me most of all. It is the idea of the
"
point vierge, ou le désespoir accule le coeur de l'excommunié"
["the virginal point, the center of the soul, where despair corners the
heart of the outsider"] ... We in our turn have to reach that same "
point
vierge" in a kind of despair at the hypocrisy of our own world.
One day Thomas Merton was standing at the corner of an intersection in the
heart of a busy shopping district. He wrote (Merton 1965, 156-57):
I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those
people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one
another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of
separateness ... This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such
a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud ... I have the
immense joy of being
man, a member of a race in which God himself became
incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could
overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could
realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people
that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Merton's epiphanous moment reminds me of al-Hallaj, who, in his passion for
God, came to see the Divine everywhere and in everyone. In this vision there is
a recognition of the Virgin Heart, a momentary joy at knowing what is hidden
from most of us by our own despair and inability to open our hearts to others
in true hospitality, especially those who are strangers, who practice other
religions, or whospeak other languages.
I am afraid to experience the sacred in others. It
would require me to risk being touched by the Spirit, as Massignon was, and to
experience my own conversion. My heart would be transformed by the presence of
the divine seeking hospitality in the depth of my soul. Yet, despite my fear of
changing my habitual way of seeing the world, of making artificial distinctions
between people of different nationalities, races, or beliefs, the unexpected
visitor awakens me and arouses my desire for communion, for connection, and
love itself transforms my vision. Then I must see people "walking around
shining like the sun". Then I can no longer pass by the homeless people as
if they did not exist, nor can I make any distinction between those who have
wealth, education, or position, and those who do not. I can no longer deny that
I too am homeless, a refugee, a victim of social and political injustice. I
must speak out with al-Hallaj, Massignon, and Merton, who wrote (Merton 1965,
158):
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by
sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs
entirely to God ... this little point ... is the pure glory of God in us ... It
is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in
everybody.
I understand this "point of pure truth" to mean that I must be
capable of recognizing the sacred in everyone, as al-Hallaj did. To believe in
the mystery of the Virgin Heart is to believe in a secret place in every human
soul where the sacred is given to us despite our unworthiness, failures, and
human limitations. That place cannot be touched by anything I do, and yet it
calls me to transcend myself, to see all others as they are -- sacred. Only
then can I say with Hallaj (Massignon 1983, 426):
My soul is mixed and joined together with your soul and every accident that
injures you injures me.
References
Massignon, Louis. 1983.
The Passion of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr. Vol.
2. Translated by H. Mason. Princeton, N.J.: princeton University Press.
Massignon, Louis. 1989.
Testimonies and Reflections: Essays of Louis
Massignon. Selected and introduced by H. Mason. Notre Dame, Indiana:
University of Notre Dame Press.
Merton, Thomas. 1965.
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. New York:
Image Books, Doubleday.
Merton, Thomas. 1994.
Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in
Times of Crsis. Selected and edited by W. H. Shannon. New York: Farrar,
Straus, Giroux.
