Hairât
حيرة (hairât) — « hairât » chez Garcin de Tassy
The Arabic word for astonishment, bewilderment, the disorientation of one who no longer knows where they are. In ʿAṭṭār’s poem, *hairât* is the sixth of the seven valleys of the path, *“the terrible stupor.”* The seeker who reaches it, having crossed love, knowledge, self-sufficiency, and unity, finds themselves without knowing: they no longer distinguish, no longer know if they are or are not. This loss is not a failure but the second-to-last station, just before annihilation.
la sixième celle de la terrible stupéfaction [304] ( hairât ), la septième enfin celle de la pauvreté ( facr ) et de l'anéantissement ( fanâ ), vallée au-delà de laquelle on ne peut avancer.
From the Arabic root ḥ-y-r, which conveys wandering without direction, being struck dumb, seized by bewilderment, hairât names the state of the traveler who knows nothing anymore. Garcin de Tassy translates it as “terrible stupefaction.” It follows pure unity (tawhid) and leads only to the seventh and final valley, that of poverty and annihilation (fanāʾ).
What makes this valley “terrible” is that it undoes everything the seeker believed they had gained. After attaining knowledge, then self-sufficiency (istignâ), they arrive at a place where this knowing collapses into unknowing: they no longer know whether they love or not, whether they exist or not, whether they are inside or outside. Elsewhere, ʿAṭṭār depicts this disorientation through the figure of the Sufi Shiblī dying, “his loins girded with the belt of stupefaction,” seated in ashes, unable to convey what he feels. Hairât is less ignorance than excess: the mind, dazzled, can no longer distinguish.
Hairât ≠ the skeptic’s doubt. The skeptic suspends judgment methodically, to avoid error, and remains in control of their withdrawal. Sufi stupefaction is not caution but an overflow: one knows no more because they have received too much, not because they refrain from concluding. Hairât ≠ the confusion of the ordinary lost soul: the latter would seek to find their way again, while the former knows every path has already been crossed. It is an ignorance of plenitude, the final threshold before the seeker themselves vanish.