The Fourteenth Word – Conclusion

بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

وَمَا الْحَيٰوةُ الدُّنْيَۤا اِلاَّ مَتَاعُ الْغُرُور1

[A mallet to the ghâfil head and a warning lesson]

O my wretched nafs that sinks into ghaflah, sees this life as sweet, forgets the âkhirah and seeks the world! Do you know what you resemble? An ostrich! It sees the hunter but cannot fly; it sticks its head in the sand, lest the hunter not see it. Its huge body remains out. The hunter sees, but it closes its eyes in the sand and does not see.

O nafs, look at the following comparison and see how restricting one’s view only to the world transforms a precious pleasure into excruciating pain.

For example, there are two men in this village, that is, in Barla. Ninety-nine out of a hundred friends of one of them have gone to Istanbul. They live nicely. Only one has remained here; he too will go there; therefore, this man is longing for Istanbul; he thinks of it. He wants to meet with his friends. When he is told, “Go there,” he happily and joyfully goes. As for the second man, ninety-nine out of a hundred of his friends have gone from here. Some of them have disappeared. Some have been dug into places where they neither see nor are seen. He supposes them to be scattered and ruined, but this unfortunate man wants to find solace in a friendship with a single guest in place of all of them; he wants to cover those excruciating pains of separation with him.

O, nafs! All your friends, foremost Habibullah2 are on the other side of the grave. As for the one or two who remain here, they are also going. By being frightened of death and fearing the grave, do not turn your head. Look bravely at the grave, and listen to what it desires. Smile manfully at death's face, see what it wants. Beware; do not resemble the second man by falling into ghaflah.

O, my nafs! Do not say, "The time has changed, the age has altered, everyone has plunged into the world, worships life and is drunk with the struggle for livelihood," because death does not change. Separation does not transform into eternal union and does not alter. The impotence of mankind and the poverty of man do not change but increase. The journey of mankind does not cease but acquires speed.

Also, do not say, "I too am like everyone else," because everyone accompanies you only until the door of the grave. As for the consolation of being together with everyone in the calamity, it is a fallacy on the other side of the grave. Also, do not suppose yourself to be free and independent, because if you look at this guesthouse world with the eye of hikmah, you cannot see anything without order and purpose. How can you remain without order and purpose? The incidents concerning beings in the universe, the events like the earthquake, are not playthings of random coincidence.

For example, although you see the extremely well-ordered and embroidered shirts made from the species of animals and plants that are clothed the earth, one over the other and one within the other and their being adorned and equipped from head to foot with purposes and hikmahs, and although you know that the earth is being revolved and turned like a majdhûb Mawlawi with perfect order and within extremely exalted purposes, they show the grievous losses of all those stricken with the calamity to be without recompense and to have gone to dust and cast them into fearsome despair by supposing the globe of the earth’s events pertaining to life, which is soiled with death, like the earthquake, {Note: This was written in connection with the Izmir earthquake.} which resembles the earth’s shaking its shoulders due to the ma’nawî weight of the son of Âdam’s demeanours with ghaflah, particularly the demeanours of some of the people of îmân — which the earth dislikes — to be without purpose and coincidental, as published by an atheist. They both make great error and commit great dhulm. Indeed, such events are transforming the transient property of the people of îmân into sadaqa by the command of a Hakîm, Who is Rahîm, and making it permanent; they are kaffârah for their sins arising from kufr an-ni’mah. Since this subjugated earth sees the works of mankind, which are the adornment of its face, as soiled with shirk and not being offered shukr, it finds them ugly. A day will come, at the command of Al-Khâliq, it will wipe its whole face and cleanse it through a great earthquake. At the command of Allah, it will pour the people of shirk into Jahannam and say to the people of shukr, "Let’s enter Jannah!"

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