The declaration “Ana al-Haqq” (I am the Truth/God | أنا الحق) by the 10th-century Persian mystic Mansur al-Hallaj remains one of the most explosive moments in intellectual history. While traditionally viewed through the lens of impure sufism (sukr), I suggest a more radical framework: Sufi Atheism. This is not atheism in the contemporary sense of denying the supernatural, but rather a theological atheism that annihilates the external, monarchical God to find the Absolute within the self.
In traditional Islamic theology, God is Al-Ghaib –the Unseen, the Radically Other, which creates a dualism: the creator vs. the created. Hallaj’s philosophy collapses this distance. By claiming “I am the God,” Hallaj performs a conceptual execution of the “Object-God.” If the individual becomes the site of the divine, the external, judging deity sitting atop a celestial hierarchy ceases to exist. In this sense, Hallaj is an atheist toward the representation of God, rejecting the idol of a distant master in favor of an internal immediacy.
Hallaj’s atheism is specifically a rejection of the Nafs (the illusory self). To say “I am God” is not an act of egoism; it is the ultimate act of self-annihilation (fanafillah). His logic is: “If ‘I’ exist, then God is ‘Other,’” whereas the paradox is to erase the “I” to truly affirm God’s oneness (Tawhid). The outcome of this erasure of the self is that the truth remains. Hallaj positions himself as the speaker of the Absolute.
A Materialist Mysticism?
By attributing “Sufi atheist” to Hallaj’s thought, I suggest that the sacred is not found in the beyond, but in the here. This aligns with certain strands of Hegelian philosophy–where the spirit realizes itself through human history and consciousness. By relocating the divine into the human subject, Hallaj anticipates the “Death of God” by nearly a millennium. However, unlike Nietzschean atheism, which leaves a void, Hallajian atheism replaces the concept of God with the experience of the infinite.
The violent execution of Hallaj in 922 AD was as much political as it was theological. A God that exists only within the individual is a God that cannot be controlled by the Caliphate or the Ulema. Orthodoxy viewed Hallaj’s thought as claims to divinity or an incarnation of God (hulul), which was considered heretical, though Sufis interpret it as the “annihilation of the ego,” where God speaks through the individual.
If every individual has the potential to be “The Truth,” the hierarchical structures of medieval society lose their divine mandate. Hallaj’s philosophy represents a radical democratization of the sacred. It suggests that the “God” used to justify state power is a fiction, and the only real is the one vibrating within the subjective experience.
“I saw my Lord with the eye of the heart.
I asked: ‘Who are You?’
He said: ‘You.'”
But for You, ‘where’ cannot have a place
And there is no ‘where’ when it concerns You.
The mind has no image of your existence in time
Which would permit the mind to know where you are.
You are the one who encompasses every ‘where’
Up to the point of no-where
So where are you?”
~ Tawasin
Mansur al-Hallaj’s “Ana al-Haqq” serves as a foundational text for a Sufi atheism that rejects the theos (the personal, external deity) to maintain the logos (the underlying Truth). He was an atheist to the God of the jurists so that he could be a witness to the God of Reality. His thought suggests that the ultimate religious act is the destruction of the “God-Idea” to make room for a materialist “God-Experience.”
