The   reason   for   writing   this   long   piece   was   to   seek   more   prayers   for Abdurrahman, not to weary you. Also, my purpose in showing my worst wound in an extremely grievous and unpleasant way which may upset you unduly and put you off, is to demonstrate what a wondrous remedy and brilliant light is the sacred antidote of the All-Wise Qur’an.

THIRTEENTH HOPE13

In this Hope I shall describe an important scene from my life; it is bound to be somewhat lengthy, so I hope you will not become bored or be offended.

After being saved from captivity in Russia during the Great War, my serving religion in the Darü’l-Hikmet kept me in Istanbul for two or three years. Then through the guidance of the All-Wise Qur’an and spiritual influence of Ghawth al-A’zam and the awakening of old  age,  I felt a weariness at the civilized life of Istanbul and a disgust at its glittering social life. A feeling of longing for my native land drove me there, I went to Van with the thought that since I am bound to die, I’ll die in my own country.

First of all, I went to visit my medrese in Van, the Horhor. The Armenians had razed it  during the Russian occupation, like the rest of the buildings. It was right under  and  adjacent  to  Van’s  famous  citadel,  which  is  a  great  monolith  like  a mountain. My true friends, brothers, and close students of the medrese were embodied before my eyes. Some of  those devoted friends had become actual martyrs, while others had died due to that calamity and had in effect become martyrs.

I could not restrain myself from weeping. I climbed to the top of the citadel which overlooking the medrese, towers above it to the height of two minarets, and I sat down. I  went  back in my imagination seven or eight years. Having a powerful imagination, I wandered all around that time in my mind. There was no one around to distract me and draw me back. For I was alone. As my view of those seven or eight years expanded, I saw enough to fill a century. I saw that the town at the foot of the citadel had been completely burnt and destroyed. It was as though two hundred years had passed from when I had seen it previously to them, it seemed so infinitely sad. Most of the houses’ inhabitants had been my friends and acquaintances. The majority of them had died in the migrations, may God have mercy on them, or had gone to a wretched exile. Only the Armenian quarter remained, all the Muslim houses of Van had been levelled. My heart was lacerated. I was so affected, if I had had a thousand eyes they would have all wept together. I had returned to my homeland from exile; I had supposed that I had been saved from exile. But alas! the most lamentable exile I experienced was in my homeland. I saw that hundreds of my students and friends to whom I had been closely attached, like Abdurrahman in the Twelfth Hope, had entered the grave and that their places were all ruins.

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13 It is a subtle ‘coincidence’ that the incident of the medrese* which this Thirteenth Hope describes occurred thirteen years ago. (1921 – Tr.)

* Medrese: school where religious sciences were taught. See also, note 21, page 325. (Tr.)