SIXTH HOPE

One time during my excruciating captivity, having withdrawn from people, I was alone on the top of Çam Mountain on the plateau of Barla. I was searching for a nûr in solitude. One night, I was in the open-top small room on a tall pine tree at the top of that high hill. Old age warned me of three or four ghurbah, one within the other. As is explained in the Sixth Letter, on that night, the plaintive sound rising from the rustles and waves of the desolate, silent, lonely trees extremely touched my compassion, my old age and ghurbah. Old age warned me and said to my heart's ear that just as the day changed into this black grave and the world was wrapped in its black shroud, in the same way, the day of your life, too, will turn into night, and the day of the world will turn into the night of barzakh and summer of life will transform into the winter night of death. My nafs was compelled to say:

Yes, just as I am exiled from my homeland, I am also separated from all I love, who have died, and I remained behind them in tears during my fifty-year lifetime; it is a far more grievous and excruciating ghurbah than the ghurbah from my homeland. Moreover, I am approaching a more grieving and excruciating ghurbah than the grieving ghurbah in the state of that night and mountain; old age informs me that the time of sudden separation from all the world is approaching. I sought a hope, a nûr from this state which is ghurbah within ghurbah and sorrow within sorrow. Suddenly, îmân in Allah came to my help and gave me such a familiarity that even if the compounded fear I found myself in had increased a thousandfold, its consolation could have been sufficient.

O elderly men and women! Since we have a Khâliq, Who is Rahîm, there can be no ghurbah for us! Since He exists, everything exists for us. Since He exists, His malâikah exist too. In that case, the world is not empty. Desolate mountains and empty deserts are full of ‘abds of Janâb-i Haqq. Apart from His conscious ‘abds, stones and trees also become a familiar friend through His nûr and on His account; they can converse with us through their language of being and give us enjoyment. Yes, evidences and witnesses — which testify to His existence — to the number of beings in the universe and to the number of the letters of this huge book of the ‘âlam and evidences and witnesses to the number of the members, foods and ni’mahs — which can be the means of His compassion, rahmah and ‘inayah — of the beings possessing rûh indicate the Court of our Khâliq, Sâni’ and Hâmi, Who is Rahîm, Karîm, Anîs and Wadûd. At that Court, the most acceptable intercessor (Shafî’) is impotence and weakness. And the precise time of impotence and weakness is old age. One should not feel resentful at old age, which is an acceptable intercessor (Shafî’) at such a Court but should love it.