Herbert Mason is University Professor of History and Religion at Boston University.

• List of IllustrationsForeword to the Abridged EditionPrefaceCh. 1Biographical Outline1IPrologue1IIChronological Tableau of Hallaj's Life and Posthumous Survival9Ch. 2The Years of Apprenticeship: His Teachers and Friends24INative Milieu24IIThe Cultural Milieu of Basra33IIIAnecdotes from His Years of Apprenticeship: His Hajj (Ghutba)52Ch. 3Travels and Apostolate72IHis Modes of Travel: His Dress, His Itineraries, His Stopping Places72IIThe Two Periods of Public Preaching in Ahwaz (272-273 and 279-281)74IIIThe Other Regions Traveled Through89IVThe Social Expression of Hallaj's Vocation, and His Contacts with the Cultural Renaissance of His Time101VThe Last Hajj of Hallaj and the Waqfa of Arafat114Ch. 4In Baghdad: Zealous Preaching and Political Indictment117IBaghdad117IIPublic Preaching in Baghdad132IIIPolitical Indictment: The Dawat Ilal-Rububiya, Usurpation of the Supreme Power of God150Ch. 5The Indictment, The Court of Justice, and the Actors in the Drama157IThe Indictment and Ibn Dawud's Initiative157IIThe Definition of Zandaqa, a Heresy Threatening the Security of the State177IIIThe Sovereign Authority and Its Delegation to a Court of Justice; the Court of Justice, Its Powers and Jurisdiction180Ch. 6The Trials208IA Critical Note about the Historical Sources for the Trials208IIThe First Trial (298/910 to 301/913)211IIIThe Eight Years of Waiting219IVThe Second Trial (308/921 to 309/922)227VThe Denouement and the Judgment of Condemnation256Ch. 7The Martyrdom280The Peripeteias of the Execution280

"The French original of this work has stood for most of this century as a model of the way Western scholarship can illumine a foreign culture, not patronize or denature it... This translation climaxes one of the most focused projects of humanistic scholarship this century has seen."--Huston Smith, Commonweal "An incomparable study of the religious forces, the social and political life, and the whole culture of the Islamic world within which [this saint] lived and died."--Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies