had touched it. And for twenty or thirty days no one at all had climbed to the top of that mountain. The bread was sufficient for us for the two days. While we were eating and it was about to be finished, righteous Süleyman who had been the most loyal of loyal friends for four years, suddenly appeared from below with more bread.

The Fourth: I bought this sack coat that I’m wearing seven years ago second-hand. In five years I have spent only four and a half liras on clothes, underwear, slippers, and stockings. Frugality and Divine mercy and the resulting plenty have sufficed me.

Thus, there are numerous things like these examples and numerous sorts of Divine blessings. The people of this village know most of them. But do not suppose I am mentioning them out of pride, I have been forced to, rather. And do not think they were due to my goodness. These instances of plenty were either bestowal to the sincere friends who have visited me, or a bestowal on account of service to the Qur’an, or an abundance and benefit resulting from frugality, or they have been sustenance for the four cats I have which recite the Divine Names “O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!”, which comes in the form of plenty and from which I benefit too.

Yes, if you listen carefully to their mournful miaowings, you will understand that they are saying, “Ya Rahim! Ya Rahim! O Most Compassionate One! O Most Compassionate One!” We have arrived at the subject of cats and it has recalled the hen. I have a hen. This winter every day almost without exception she brought me an egg from the treasury of Mercy. Then one day she brought me two eggs and I was astonished. I asked my friends “How can this be?” They replied: “Perhaps it is a Divine gift.” The hen also has a young chick she hatched in the summer. It started to lay at the beginning of Ramadan and continued for forty days. Neither I nor those who assist me have any doubt that, being both young, and in winter, and in Ramadan, this blessed situation was a Divine gift and bestowal. And whenever the mother stopped laying, it immediately started, not leaving me without eggs.

S e c o n d S u s p i c i o u s Q u e s t i o n : ‘The worldly’ ask: How can we be confident that you will not interfere in our world? If