Those who report utterances from Abū Yazīd and others expressing individual union with God and denying distinction, while excusing him for them, say that he lost his reason, to the point that he said: “I am the Truth,” “Glory be to me,” and “There is nothing in this robe but Allah.”

They say that when love overpowers someone whose heart is weak, he becomes so absorbed in his Beloved that he loses awareness of his love; in the One he finds, that he loses awareness of his ecstasy; and in the One he remembers, that he loses awareness of his remembrance—until he who once did not exist is annihilated, and He who has always existed remains.

They recount that someone threw himself into the water, and the man who loved him threw himself in after him. The first said, “I fell in, but why did you fall in?” He replied, “Absorbed in you, I lost awareness of myself, so I thought that you were me.”

Such a state, in which someone loses the ability to distinguish between the Lord and the servant, and between what is commanded and what is forbidden, is neither knowledge nor truth. At most, it reflects an impairment of the reason by which he distinguishes between these things. The most that can be said in his favor is that he may be excused—not that his words express true realization.

Yet some Sufis who claim true realization regard this as realization and affirmation of divine oneness, as did the author of Manāzil al-Sā’irīn (Stations of the Wayfarers), Ibn al-‘Arīf, and others. Likewise, some have regarded universal union as realization and affirmation of divine oneness, such as Ibn ‘Arabī al-Tā’ī.

Some have supposed that al-Hallāj belonged to the former category, and they then divided into two groups.

“One group” says that he fell into that state of annihilation and was therefore inwardly excused, but that his execution was obligatory on outward grounds. They say, “The killer is a fighter in Allah’s cause, and the slain is a martyr.” They also relate that one of the spiritual masters said, “He stumbled; had I lived in his time, I would have taken him by the hand.” They regard his state as akin to that of those who experience istilām and annihilation.