Old Age: Consoling Hopes

Then I said:

“O my weeping heart! Now that you have seen this example, and He has healed the deepest of your spiritual wounds, you must surely trust that He will also heal the remaining wounds that cause you sorrow.”

O my brothers and sisters who, like me, have lost a beloved child or relative in old age, and who, beneath the heavy burden of old age, must also bear the weight of grief and separation!

You have seen that my condition was far more difficult than yours, and yet this blessed verse healed me and brought me relief. Know, then, that within the sacred pharmacy of the Wise Qur’an there are remedies for all your afflictions.

If you turn to Him through your īmān and make use of those remedies through worship, the heavy burdens of old age and sorrow weighing upon your backs and heads will be greatly lightened.

The reason I have described this matter at such length is to ask the readers to pray that Allah's mercy may descend upon my late nephew Abdurrahman. So do not grow weary of it.

Moreover, my intention in revealing my most terrible wound in such an intensely painful and heartrending manner is not to cause you sorrow. Rather, it is to demonstrate the extraordinary power of the sacred remedy offered by the Wise Qur’an—a miraculous medicine and a radiant light.

The Thirteenth Hope

In this Hope, I shall recount an important episode from my life. It wil probably be somewhat lengthy, but I ask you not to grow weary or impatient.

After escaping from Russian captivity during the First World War, I spent two or three years in Istanbul, serving as a member of the Dār al-Hikmat al-Islāmiyyah, a council concerned with religious affairs.

Then, through the guidance of the Noble Qur’an, the spiritual assistance of Ghawth al-A‘zam, and the awakening brought about by old age, I began to feel an aversion to worldly life in Istanbul and its outwardly dazzling social pleasures.

A longing for my homeland—the yearning we call homesickness—stirred within me and impelled me to return. I thought to myself, “Since I shall die in any case, let me at least die in my homeland.” And so I set out for Van.

My first visit was to my madrasa in Van, known as the Horhor. On arriving, I found that it had been burned down during the Russian occupation, along with many other houses in the city.

The famous citadel of Van stands upon an immense mass of solid rock. My madrasa had stood immediately at its foot, adjoining the rock itself. As I stood there, vivid images of my true friends, brothers, and devoted students, whom I had left behind in that madrasa seven or eight years earlier, rose before my mind’s eye.