TWELFTH HOPE

One time, I was being held in the district of Barla in the province of Isparta in a distressing captivity called exile, in a truly wretched state suffering both illness, and old age, and absence from home, and in a village alone with no one, barred from all company and communication. Then, in His perfect mercy, Almighty God bestowed a light on me concerning the subtle points and mysteries of the All-Wise Qur’an which was a source of consolation for me. With it, I tried to forget my pitiful, sad state. I was able to forget my native land, my friends and relations, but alas, there was one person I could not forget and that was Abdurrahman, who was both my nephew, and my spiritual son, and my most devoted student, and my  bravest friend. He had parted from me six or seven years previously. Neither he knew where I was so that he could hasten to help and console me, nor did I know his situation so that I could correspond with him and we could confide in each other. Now in my old age, I was in need of someone loyal and self-sacrificing like him.

Then out of the blue someone gave me a letter. I opened it and saw it was from Abdurrahman, written in a way which showed his true self. A part of it that clearly shows three instances of wonder-working has been included among the pieces of the Twenty-Seventh  Letter.  It  made  me  weep,  and  it  still  makes  me weep.  The  late Abdurrahman wrote in the letter seriously and sincerely that he was disgusted with the pleasures of the world and that his  greatest desire was to reach me and look to my needs in my old age just as I had looked to his when he was young. He also wanted to help me with his capable pen in spreading the mysteries of the Qur’an, my true duty in this world. He even wrote in his letter: “Send me twenty or thirty treatises and I’ll write out twenty or thirty copies of each and get others to write them.”

His letter made me feel very hopeful in respect of the world. With the thought

that I had found a bold student who was so intelligent as to be a genius and would assist  me  more loyally and  with  greater attachment than a true son, I forgot my torturous captivity, loneliness, exile, and old age.