THIRTEENTH HOPE

{Note: It is a subtle tawâfuq that the incident of the madrasa which this Thirteenth Hope describes occurred thirteen years ago.} Since I will talk about an important scene from my life story in this Hope, I supposed that it will be somewhat lengthy. I hope you will not become bored or offended.

After being saved from being a captive by the Russians during the Great War, service to the religion in the Dâr al-Hikmah kept me in Istanbul for two or three years. Then through the guidance of Al-Qur'an Al-Hakîm and the ma’nawî influence and assistance of Ghawth al-A'dham and the awakening of old age, I felt a weariness at the civilized life of Istanbul and a disgust at the glittering social life. A feeling of longing for the homeland, which is called "Dâ us-sila", drove me to my homeland. By thinking, since I will die, let me die in my homeland, I went to Van.

Before everything, I went to visit my madrasa in Van, which is called the Horhor. I saw that during the Russian occupation, the Armenians had burned it like the rest of the buildings of Van. Van's famous citadel that it consists of a single piece of stone like a mountain; my madrasa is right under and adjacent to it. The image of my students, who were true friends, brothers and companions, in that madrasa of mine when I left it seven or eight years ago, embodied before my eyes. Some of those self-sacrificing friends of mine had become actual shahîd, while others had died due to that calamity as a ma’nawî shahîd.

I could not restrain myself from weeping, and climbed to the top of the citadel on the madrasa the height of which is two minarets and which looks to the madrasa; I sat down. I went back seven or eight years by my imagination. Since my imagination is powerful, it made me wander in that time for a long time. There was no one around to return me from those imaginations and draw me back from that time. For I was alone. In the space of seven or eight years, whenever I opened my eyes, I saw changes that can only occur in a century. I saw that the centre of the town, the site of the foot of the citadel around my madrasa had been completely burnt and destroyed. From the time I was seeing it before to the time I am seeing it now, it was as though I came to the world after two hundred years; I looked at it sadly that much. I was friend with most of the people in those houses. The majority of them had died in the migrations — May Allah grant His rahmah to them — or become scattered and ruined in ghurbah. I saw that apart from the Armenian neighbourhood, all houses of the Muslims of Van had been destroyed. My heart ached deeply. It touched my compassion so much that if I had had a thousand eyes, they would have all wept together.

I had returned to my homeland from ghurbah; I had supposed that I had been saved from ghurbah. But alas! I saw the most dismaying ghurbah in my homeland. I saw in the grave hundreds of my students and friends to whom my rûh was closely attached like Abdurrahman in the Twelfth Hope, and the places of those friends were all ruins. There was a sentence belonging to a personage that had been in my mind for a long time but I could not see its meaning completely. Now in front of that sorrowful scene, I saw its meaning completely. This is the sentence: لَوْلاَ مُفَارَقَةُ اْلاَحْبَابِ مَا وَجَدَتْ لَهَا الْمَنَايَا اِلَى اَرْوَاحِنَا سُبُلاً That is: “If there was no separation from friends, death could not find a way to our rûhs so that it can take them.” That is to say, what kills man most is separation from friends. Yes, nothing had caused me as much suffering and weeping as that situation. If help had not come from the Qur'an and îmân, that grief, sorrow and sadness would have made my rûh fly away.

Since early times, poets in their poems have lamented at the ruin of the places they have been together with their friends with the passage of time. And I had seen the most painful scene of it with my own eyes. With the sorrow of a man who visited his beloved friends’ place of abode after two hundred years, my heart and rûh joined my eyes and they all wept together. Then the image of sweet pages of my life that I had passed with my valuable students for nearly twenty years of teaching and learning, the time when the places in front of my eyes — which have become ruins now — were flourishing and inhabited and joyful, one by one, like a cinema screen revived and appeared in front of my eyes for a long time then died away and vanished.

Then, I felt bewildered at the state of ahl ad-dunyâ. How do they deceive themselves? Because that situation showed clearly that this world is transitory and human beings are guests in it. I saw with my eyes how true the people of haqiqah were constantly saying: "The world is cruel, deceitful, bad; do not be deceived by it!". I also saw that just as man is connected with his own body and household, so too, he is connected with his town, his country, indeed, with the world. Because while weeping for myself with my two eyes due to the compassion of old age, I wanted to weep with ten eyes not only at my madrasa's old age but for its death. And I felt the need to weep with a hundred eyes due to the half-death of my sweet homeland. There is in the riwâyât of the hadith that every morning a malâikah calls out: لِدُوا لِلْمَوْتِ وَابْنُوا لِلْخَرَابِ , that is: "You are born to die and come to the world; you construct buildings to be destroyed." Thus, I was hearing this haqiqah not with my ears, but with my eyes.

For ten years, when my imagination visits that situation, it still weeps in the same way as my situation made me weep at that time. Yes, the places at the foot of the old citadel that lived thousands of years being ruined and the town below it ageing eight hundred years in eight years and the death of my madrasa full of life below the citadel, which had been the gathering place of friends, as an indication of the ma’nawî grandeur of the corpse that shows the death of all the madrasas in the entire Ottoman Government, the single piece of stone of huge Van citadel had become a gravestone for it. It was as though the late students of mine, who had been together with me in the madrasa eight years before, were weeping in their graves with me. Indeed, the ruined walls of the town and its scattered stones were weeping with me, and I saw them as though they were weeping.

Then I understood that I could not endure this ghurbah in my homeland. I thought that I should either join them in the grave or withdraw into a cave in the mountains and await my death there. I said: "Since there are such unendurable, burning, unbearable separations, which break patience, in the world, surely, death is preferable to life. Such heavy state of life is not a bearable trouble."

Then I looked over the six aspects1 and saw them all dark. The ghaflah arising from the intense grief showed me the world as terrifying, empty, desolate and about to collapse over my head. While my rûh was searching for a point of support against innumerable calamities, which had taken the form of enemies, and seeking for a point of help that will satisfy endless desires in the rûh, which stretch to eternity, and awaiting for a consolation in the face of the sorrow and grief arising from those endless separations, deaths and destructions, suddenly, the haqiqah of the âyah 2 سَبَّحَ لِلّٰهِ مَا فِى السَّمٰوَاتِ وَاْلاَرْضِ وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ ٭ لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَ اْلاَرْضِ يُحْيِى وَ يُمِيتُ وَ هُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ of the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition manifested. It saved me from that pitiful, dismaying, sad imagination full of separations and opened my eyes. I saw that the fruits at the top of the fruit trees were smilingly looking at me. They were saying "Pay attention to us as well! Do not only look at the ruins!" The haqiqah of the noble âyah was warning me of the following:

"Why does an artificial letter written by the hand of man, who is a guest on the page of Van's plain, and which took the form of a city, being wiped out by falling into a terrible flood calamity called the Russian invasion sadden you to this extent? Look at the Azalî Embroiderer (Naqqâsh), Who is The True Mâlik and The Owner and Rabb of everything, His letters on this page of Van, the state you used to see before, continue to be written with perfect splendour. Your weeping for those places becoming empty, desolate and ruined arises from the error of forgetting their True Mâlik, not thinking that men are guests and imagining them to be the owner."

But a door to haqiqah opened from that error and from that burning situation, and my nafs was prepared to accept the haqiqah completely. Yes, just as iron is plunged into the fire in order to be softened and give a beautiful and beneficial form, in the same way, that grievous situation and terrible state became fire and softened my nafs. Through the haqiqah of the above âyah, the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition showed the faydh of the haqiqahs of îmân to my nafs and caused it to accept.

Yes, Lillahilhamd, as we proved decisively in the risales like the Twentieth Letter, through the faydh of îmân, the haqiqah of this âyah gave to the rûh and heart a point of support, which unfolds in relation to everyone's strength of îmân; it gave such strength that can confront calamities a hundred times more dreadful and harmful than the terror of that situation, and warned that "Everything is subjected to the command of The True Mâlik of this country, Who is your Khâliq. Everything’s rein is in His hands. Your relation (intisâb) with Him is sufficient."

After I relied on and recognized my Khâliq, all the things which had taken the form of enemies gave up their enmity; the grievous states, which had made me weep, started to make me happy. And as we have proved with certain evidences in many risales, through the nûr arising from the îmân in âkhirah, it gave such a point of assistance against endless desires that it was sufficient not only for my attachments and desires for insignificant, temporary, brief worldly friends but for my infinite far-reaching desires in all eternity, in al-‘âlam al-baqâ and in eternal happiness.

Because one who, through îmân, relies on the rahmah of such a Rahmânurrahîm, after bestowing uncountable artful, sweet ni’mahs every spring on the table of spring and feeding His guests with those ni’mahs as a breakfast through one manifestation of His rahmah, in order to please His guests for one or two hours on the face of the earth, which is a place in this world, His temporary guest house, Who fills and prepares eight permanent Jannahs for His ‘abds with His innumerable varieties of ni’mahs for an unending time in their eternal dwelling-place, and one who knows his relation (intisâb) with Him, surely finds such a point of assistance that even its least degree provides assistance for innumerable hopes reaching to eternity, and eternizes them.

Also, the haqiqah of that âyah and the nûr arising from the light of îmân manifested in such a brilliant fashion that they illuminated those six dark aspects like daytime. Because they illuminated the state of weeping and being remained behind my students and friends in my madrasa and in the town, and warned me that the ‘âlam your friends have gone to is not dark; they only changed their place; you will meet again. They caused me to stop weeping entirely and to understand that I would find those who would take their place and resemble them in this world.

Yes, Lillahilhamd, with the madrasa of Isparta, He both raised to life the dead madrasa of Van, and with the more numerous and valuable students and friends, He raised to life my friends there in a ma’nawî manner. They also made known that the world is not empty and desolate and that my thinking of it in the form of a ruined country was wrong. Rather The True Mâlik changes the artificial scenes made by man and renews His letters, through the requirement of His hikmah. Like the more the fruits of a tree are plucked, the more others grow in their places, death and separation in mankind also are renewal and change. In the point of view of îmân, they are a renewal which gives not a grievous sorrow arising from the lack of friends, but a pleasurable sorrow arising from parting in order to meet again in another, better place. They also illuminated the face of the beings in the universe which appeared dark due to that dismaying situation. At that moment, I wanted to offer shukr for that state; the following Arabic sentence came and described that haqiqah completely. I said:

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ عَلَى نُورِ اْلاِيمَانِ الْمُصَوِّرِ مَا يُتَوَهَّمُ اَجَانِبَ اَعْدَاءً اَمْوَاتًا مُوَحِّشِينَ اَيْتَامًا بَاكِينَ ؛ اَوِدَّاءَ اِخْوَانًا اَحْيَاءً مُونِسِينَ مُرَخَّصِينَ مَسْرُورِينَ ذَاكِرِينَ مُسَبِّحِينَ

It means that “Due to the ghaflah arising from the effect of such grievous state, through imagining, some of the beings in the universe were shown to my ghâfil nafs in the form of enemies and strangers, {Note: That is like the earthquake, storm, flood, plague and fire.} and others in the form of terrifying corpses and yet others in the form of orphans weeping due to their desolation; I saw this terrible scene. Then, through the nûr of îmân, with ‘ayn al-yaqîn, I saw that those who appeared as enemies and strangers were all friends and brothers. As for the terrifying corpses, they were living and friendly and had been discharged from duty. And since through the nûr of îmân, I saw the lamentation of weeping orphans to be the muttering of dhikr and tasbîh, I offer infinite hamd to Al-Khâliq Zuljalâl, Who gave me îmân, the source of these infinite ni’mahs. And since it is my right to think of all the beings in my personal world, which is as vast as the world, while offering hamd and tasbîh, and it is my right to make use of them through my intention, I say اَلْحَمْدُ ِللّٰهِ عَلٰى نُورِ اْلاِيمَانِ‌3 together with the language of being of each of those beings and the language of being of all of them.”

Also, the pleasures of life, which were reduced to nothing by that dismaying state full of ghaflah, and my hopes, which diminished and withered entirely, and pleasures and ni’mahs belonging to me, who was constricted within the narrowest circle, indeed, was destroyed, as we proved decisively in other risales, the nûr of îmân suddenly expanded that narrow sphere around the heart in such a way that it contained the universe, and in place of the ni’mahs, which withered in the garden of the Horhor and lost their taste, the nûr of îmân made the realms of this world and the âkhirah, each a table of ni’mah and a tray of rahmah. Since it showed not the ten but each of the hundred members of man like the eyes, ears and heart in the form of an extremely long arm that each mu’min can extend in proportion to his degree to those two tables of Ar-Rahmân and pick the ni’mahs from all sides, at that time, I said the following in order to express this elevated haqiqah and offer shukr for those endless ni’mahs:

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ عَلَى نُورِ اْلاِيمَانِ الْمُصَوِّرِ للِدَّارَيْنِ مَمْلُوؤَتَيْنِ مِنَ النِّعْمَةِ وَ الرَّحْمَةِ لِكُلِّ مُؤْمِنٍ حَقًّا يَسْتَفِيدُ مِنْهُمَا بِحَوَاسِّهِ الْكَثِيرَةِ الْمُنْكَشِفَةِ بِاِذْنِ خَالِقِهِ

It means that "If I could do it, with all the particles of my being, I would offer hamd and shukr as vast as the world and the âkhirah to my Khâliq, Who gave me such îmân, in return for the ni’mah of the nûr of îmân, which shows the world and the âkhirah in the form of being filled with ni’mahs and rahmah, and which assures true mu’mins to benefit from those two glorious tables with the hands of all their senses, which developed and unfolded through the nûr of îmân and Islam." Since îmân causes this great effect in this ‘âlam, certainly in the eternal realm, it will have such fruits and faydh that they cannot be comprehended with the mind in this world, nor described.

Thus, you elderly men and women, who suffer the pains of separation from numerous friends due to old age like me! However much older than me he is in years, I guess, I am older than the oldest of you in ma’nawî aspect. Because since I have excessive compassion and pity for my fellow human beings in my fitrah and since I suffer the griefs of thousands of my brothers other than my own grieve due to that mystery of compassion, I am old as though I lived for hundreds of years. However much you have suffered the calamity of separation, you have not been subjected to that calamity as much as I have. Because I have no son that I should think only of him. With excessive pity and compassion in my fitrah, I feel compassion and pain for the griefs of thousands of Muslim sons and even innocent animals, due to the mystery of compassion. I do not have a house of my own that I should think only of it. From the point of Islamic zeal, I am rather connected with this country and even the continent of the Islamic world, as though it is my house. I suffer the pains of my fellow Muslims in those two great houses and grief at being away from them!

Thus, the nûr of îmân was completely sufficient for me and all my griefs arising from my old age and the calamities of separation; it gave me an unbreakable hope and trust, an inextinguishable light and unending solace. Îmân is certainly sufficient for you against the darkness, ghaflah, sorrows and griefs arising from old age. In reality, the darkest old age lacks nûr and solace, and the most grievous and terrible separation is the old age and separation of the people of dhalâlah and dissipation. Enjoying the îmân, which gives such hope, light and solace, and feeling its effects are through having a conscious attitude of ‘ubûdiyyah worthy of old age and appropriate to Islam. Otherwise, it is not through trying to imitate the young, plunging one's head into their drunken ghaflah and forgetting old age.

Think of the hadith, [As he (asm) said] the meaning of which is:  خَيْرُ شَبَابِكُمْ مَنْ تَشَبَّهَ بِكُهُولِكُمْ وَشَرُّ كُهُولِكُمْ مَنْ تَشَبَّهَ بِشَبَابِكُمْ That is “The best of your youths are those who resemble the elderly in having control over themselves and abstaining from dissipation, while the worst of your elderly are those who resemble the young in plunging their heads into dissipation and ghaflah.”

My elderly brothers and sisters! It is in a noble hadith, “When an elderly mu’min of sixty or seventy years raises his hands to the Court of Allah and offers du‘â, rahmah of Allah is ashamed to cause him to return empty-handed.” Since Rahmah holds you in such respect, you too be respectful towards this respect of Rahmah through your ‘ubûdiyyah!