Kill me, kill me, O my trusted ones; in my being killed there is life within life.
اقتلوني اقتلوني يا ثقات / إن في قتلي حياة في حياة
Uktulûnî uktulûnî yâ sikât / inne fî katlî hayâten fî hayât.
Mansur al-Hallaj, Dîwân (ed. Louis Massignon, Journal Asiatique, 1931); as quoted in Rumi, Masnavi III/3839.
A man calls to those he trusts:
Kill me.
There is no anger in these words, and no escape.
The account is kept elsewhere.
What is feared
is, for him, the life within life.
Hallaj was executed in Baghdad in 922.
Three centuries later, Rumi
took this couplet into his Masnavi.
The words outlived their owner.