“It’s very hard to grow a tree,” he said. “Just like it’s very hard to grow a person.”

“Well” my brother said, “if you and mom could grow me, I can grow a tree.” He was eleven at the time.

By the end of the summer, only one of his sprouts was still alive. He’d forgotten what kind of tree it was – in his enthusiasm, he hadn’t time for labels. On a Sunday in early September, after church, my family went out to our backyard with hand shovels and a rake. On our hands and knees, we took turns digging in the soft, wet earth. It was a warm day, and the late-season sun spilled like gold filigree through the leaves of our large oak tree. My brother and father, rich earth worked into the fissures of their hands, tenderly planted the sapling. I could tell, by my father’s face, that he didn’t give the tree a chance. But my brother believed completely, and when the planting was finished to his satisfaction, he stood and said a prayer, a brief benediction and blessing for our house.

He spent that autumn tending to the sapling. He would water it daily, and measure its progress with a ruler. Against all odds, it continued to grow.

So, too, did my brother. As the years passed, and the tree grew thicker, my brother grew taller. He fell in love, had his heart broken, lost his way. By the time he left home, seven years later, the tree had grown into a healthy, albeit small, tree. It had claimed its unceremonious space in our backyard. But it hadn’t borne fruit, and we had mostly forgotten to notice that the tree was there. We still had no idea what kind of tree it was.

“A defective tree,” my father said one night, bitterly. “A tree incapable of growing fruit.” My brother had been gone a year then, and we heard word of him sparingly – a postcard from Louisiana, or a phone call from a hotel in Oklahoma. I left home the next year. I took my first trip to Paris, where I fell in love with the city, and a woman, my future wife. Another year passed, and my brother and I did not speak.

When I received word that my brother had died in a car crash in Texas, I was living in the south of Spain with my wife. She was pregnant by then, a small sapling growing inside her, and when I hung up the phone on my father, the first thing I thought of was what my brother had said all those years before: There’s a whole tree in this little seed. I looked at her and thought: There’s a whole person in this little seed. Then, naturally, I cried.

It was late June. We arrived in Philadelphia just in time for the funeral. It was a small affair at a church outside the city, on a small plot of land overlooking a creek. The grave had already been dug, the fresh earth piled high beside it. I remembered my brother’s small hands, their crevices grooved with dirt. Afterwards we returned to our house. It had grown quiet in the years since my brother and I had left, and my parents would soon sell it.

That night at dusk, my father took me out to the backyard. “I have something to show you,” he said. We walked barefoot through the grass, the cicadas murmuring in the dense, sultry summer air. When we got to my brother’s tree, I noticed something moist and wet beneath my foot. I knelt down. It was a plum. There were plums all over the ground, and more on the tree.

“It’s the first year it blossomed,” my father said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

We roamed through the gloaming, prospecting the luscious, purple globes from the low branches, biting into the soft flesh, the juices spilling down our chins. They tasted good. As I ate, I picked out the seeds, put a few of them in my pocket. They came with me on the plane back to Spain. I planted them in cups all over our house, much to my wife’s amusement. I watered them diligently, checked them daily for growth. When we planted one of the seedlings at the end of the summer, my wife’s stomach was already large, and while I worked in the earth, she sat on our porch and watched. “It will never grow,” she called out to me. “Seedlings never grow.”

As I write this, our son is playing in our backyard, his small, growing body shaded by the small, growing branches of a plum sapling.

“Mom! Mom, wake up!” I cried shaking her by her shoulders, determined to stop her dreaming before something terrible happened to the boy.

Mom sat up robotically, opened her eyes, and as the contours of her room sat in place under the moonlight, she took a deep breath and urged me back to sleep. Alas, I spent the rest of the night wondering who the lost boy was. Was it my brother, the only son in our family? Did the dream mean that something bad would happen to him?

Although my curiosity almost killed me like the proverbial cat, I dared not ask Mom about the dream which continued visiting her in the following months. For one thing, dreams good or bad were never told in our family. Mom believed that if you put a dream into words, if you articulated it even in a whisper, you pronounced an undeniable invitation for the dream to become true.

“Dreams,” Mom often said, “should be left alone. Dreams are tricky. Everything you see in them stand for something else in the real world. Rats stand for money, money for gossip, crack and holes in houses for deaths in the household.”

So I kept my peace and never talked with anyone about the matter.

One day, long after that night, I was looking for a dear necklace of mine which I couldn’t find, having hidden it too well for my own good. As it often happens, if you look into all possible hiding places in a household, you are bound to find unexpected things—like your sister’s secret diary in the wardrobe or your brother’s savings under the mattress. But what are the chances that you will find pictures of a brother you never knew!

At first, I couldn’t make sense of those two pictures. One was a photo of a baby in his crib with eyes half open and the other was a shot of the same baby with Mom, in her younger years, leaning over the crib as if to place a kiss on the baby’s face. Mom’s face seemed so sad that I wanted to tear up the photo right there.

I went to my older sister instead and asked her, “Who is this baby?” My sister snatched the photos from me and reproachfully said, “Why can’t just you leave anything alone?”

She immediately headed toward mom’s bedroom, apparently knowing the hiding place. Then she stopped midway and replied without turning around, “He is our brother. He died from a fever when he was ten months old. And don’t ask Mom about him. After all these years, she still cries when she speaks of him.”

A tender feeling of longing, gripped my heart. “What was his name?” I asked.

“Leonard,” she replied. “He would have been fifteen-years-old now, had he lived.”

I wanted to take another look at the photos and stroke with my fingers the little face of my brother, but I dreaded my sister’s anger. She went into Mom’s bedroom and closed the door shut.

On the days that followed, I started fantasizing about what it would have been like for me to have another brother, four years older. I imagined us going to school together, his arm on my shoulder, me proud of my protective brother, daring the bullies to come even closer.

I imagined covering up for him when he came home late and he telling me first, before anyone else, about the girl whom he loved. I smiled as tears welled up in my eyes when I thought of those happy moments that never came to pass. It was then that I willed myself to believe death couldn’t be the end of all things. A sweet hope invaded my heart that one day I would see him, hug him, and catch up on missed happiness.

I wanted so much to share this hope with Mom so that she could accept her loss, so that her nightmares would stop tormenting her, so that those two photos would come out of hiding and join the light in the family album. But I never had the courage to confront her grief. I had understood by then that no matter how many living children a mother has, her heart will always mourn the death of a child.

One afternoon, five years later, I overheard my aunt talking in low tones to Mom. “He would have been twenty years old today,” she said while she stroked Mom’s hand in sympathy.

“It’s kismet!” Mom said, taking a deep breath. “It’s the destiny.” Her voice quavered, but she did not cry. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

After this, the photos came out of hiding and took their place on my mom’s dresser. Yet, Mom’s nightmares did not vanish. They continued to torture her. One thing remained a mystery to me. Why did Mom never ask, “Where is my boy?” It was always the boy? And during all these years, why hadn’t she uttered his name in her dream even once?

Every time I heard her search in the darkness of the night for the nameless boy, I wanted to whisper into her subconscious before waking her up, “Mom, you have to let things go. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t meant to be.” But I never did. ***

Tonight, Mom is having another of her nightmares, but I won’t wake her up as I have before. I watch her turn in her sleep, hoping that her dream, left undisturbed this time, will relieve her from the burden of her conscience. Tonight, I know Mom is looking for some other boy. One she doesn’t dare to own.

We were talking this afternoon about how life had changed for her and Dad after each of us, their children had married and left home. Mom didn’t enjoy her empty nest as much as one would expect.

“People always remarked that my five children were too much for any normal person to handle, but look at us now,” she said, taking in the tidy and spotless living room. “The house is quite, empty, just me and your Dad and… the memories. It would have been nice to have another child for our senior years, someone who would tie us to life with bittersweet worries.”

A wave of sadness covered her face, a feeling of regret I couldn’t quite grasp. Did she remember Leonard? But he still wouldn’t have been the child of my parents’ senior years. What else?

“It wasn’t meant to be,” I said insinuating on his death. “Destiny.” Mom’s eyes watered and her voice trembled. “Sometimes you pick your destiny.”

“But what could you do? The doctors couldn’t reduce his fever and…”

“I am not talking about Leonard,” she interrupted and then paused in pain. Seeing my shock, Mom, with great difficulty, told the story of her last child. While listening to her, I realized that a house cannot hold enough hiding places for the secrets of the past.

“When you were nine years old, I discovered I was pregnant again,” Mom continued.

“Everybody was so against the idea of me giving birth to that baby. Your father worried about our already strained finances. My doctor warned me about the difficulties of a labor at forty-one. Your eldest sister, who was newly engaged at that time, complained of how ashamed she would feel to tell her fiancé’s family that her mother was pregnant when it was her own time to have children. My friends told me that women my age often gave birth to children with disabilities. I felt so helpless and scared, so alone.” She let out a sigh.

Gathering her strength, she continued. “People push you to take one definitive step and leave you to bear the burden alone afterwards. It was hard for me. I regretted it the moment it was done.” Mom sniffed and closed her eyes, struggling for a deep breath.

“As I was about to leave the hospital, the nurse told me the baby was a boy. It was then that I remembered Leonard, my son whom I had lost in infancy. I know, it sounds crazy, but at that moment I felt as if the soul of Leonard had made a second attempt to come to this world, to my arms, and I had brutally rejected him.”

Mom couldn’t continue any longer. Her chest was heaving for air. I took her hand and stroked it lovingly. Who of us hasn’t done things that we terribly regret? Don’t the tears of remorse expiate the past? Shouldn’t we forgive ourselves as we are asked to forgive others? Mom listened, nodded, but she did not speak a word. She excused herself and went to her room. Tonight as I lay in the dark by her side, I pray Mom will find the boy in her dream, present her tears to him, and find peace in reconciliation.

And (mention) that blessed woman who set the best example in guarding her chastity. We breathed into her out of Our Spirit, and We made her and her son a miraculous sign (of Our Power and matchless way of doing things) for all the worlds (Anbiya 21:91).

And also Mary, the daughter of Imran who kept herself chaste (body and soul), so We breathed into it out of Our Spirit, and who affirmed the truth of the words of her Lord (His Revelations – commandments, promises and warnings – to His Messengers), and His Books; and she was of those devoutly obedient to God (Tahrim 66:12).

Her expression of astonishment when she was given the tidings that she was to give birth to a son is clear evidence of her chastity: How shall I have a son seeing no mortal has ever touched me, and I have never been unchaste? (Mary 19:20). It is also revealed in the Qur’an that whoever spoke against or slandered Mary would be subjected to grievous punishment and destruction, for their hearts are sealed from belief (Nisa 4:156). While the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches believe in accordance with the Qur’an that Mary remained chaste throughout her life, some other Christian churches believe that Mary was only a virgin until the birth of Jesus. The main justification for their view is in the New Testament, which uses in various chapters the phrases “brothers of Jesus” and “sister of Jesus,” sometimes even referring to them by their names. So for this reason we must look deeper into the meaning of the word “brother” in both the Old and New Testaments and understand the sense in which the word was used. Here I would like to point out that there have been various studies of the Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, aimed at understanding this matter, so I think it is appropriate firstly to explore the possibility Jesus having brothers within the boundaries what is said in the Qur’an and hadith, and then continue by examining the sources in the Old and New Testaments.

A. In the Qur’an and hadith

When Hannah, Imran’s wife and Jesus’ grandmother gave birth to Mary she prayed, “I commend her and her offspring to You for protection from Satan eternally rejected (from God’s Mercy)” (Al Imran 3:36). There have been some who claim that there is a possibility of Jesus having brothers or sisters because the word “offspring” (dhurriyya) refers to a plurality, but a majority of the interpreters of the Qur’an have understood the words “her and her offspring” as referring in particular to “Mary and Jesus.” Most scholars refer to the following hadith as a reason for their interpretations:

“It was reported by Abu Huraira that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, ‘There is no newborn except that (at the moment of birth) Satan disturbs him, so he begins to cry from Satan’s disturbance, with the exception of the son of Mary and his mother,” and the scholars say that this was the result of Hannah’s prayer (Bukhari, Muslim).

The word used for “offspring” (dhurriyya) in the Qur’an has a wide range of meaning in the Arabic language; it is used to refer to the children and lineage of a person, a generation of humans and jinns, a household made up of a father, mother and child, and also sometimes used solely for women or fathers and grandfathers. Though most scholars say that the Arabic word for “offspring” has a singular referent, there are some who argue the word to be plural. Raghib al-Isfahani argues that this is a word used in both the plural and the singular sense, but in this case it refers to plurality and Said ibn Mansur states that the word for “offspring” can refer to both the male and female sexes. Other interpreters of the Qur’an like Al-Baghawi and Qurtubi also state that this word can be used for males and females and at the same time singular and plural. The Arabic word for “offspring” is mentioned in various verses of the Qur’an mostly in the singular (e.g. Baqara, 2:124, 128, 266; Al-Imran, 3:34, 36, 38; Nisa, 4:9; An’am, 6:84, 133) sense but with a plural meaning in a few of the verses (An’am, 6:87; Ra’d, 13:23; Furqan, 25:74) and in one verse it is used to describe a group of people (Yunus, 10:83). If we accept the word in the plural sense and agree that this word means at least “three persons from a person’s lineage” it is still impossible to say that the Qur’an’s revelations in any way prove that Mary gave birth to a child other than Jesus. When Mary’s mother made the supplication to her Lord there was no indication of plurality or of the number of Mary’s children, or for that matter if she was to have children at all, for it goes without saying that Mary herself was just a newborn baby at the time. If we take a brief look at the supplication itself, we see that it refers to the likelihood of her having children; so the use of the word “offspring” does not provide foundation for a possibility that Jesus may have had brothers or sisters. We also see in the Qur’an that the whole incident was a miraculous event, that the pregnancy and birth were on the Divine command, a miracle of the Almighty. A hadith of the noble Prophet refers to Mary as “Al-Batul” and “‘Al-Adhra,” both meaning “virgin” or untouched and in the hadith it gives clearer explanations of these words saying, “She was untouched by man,” and goes on, “She bore no child other than Jesus.” The term al-adhra means a virgin woman while al-batul has a more extensive meaning-“the virgin, the woman who withdraws from worldly pleasures, one who devotes herself to worship.”

The conclusion of the examination of both the Qur’an and hadith shows that there is no evidence supporting the claim that Jesus had brothers or sisters, and Ibn Hajar specifically stresses that Mary only gave birth to Jesus and she had no other children.

B. “Brother” and “sister” in the Bible

The word “brother” in the Old Testament has a very broad meaning; it refers to the immediate descendants of the father, the son and the male relatives as a whole, cousins, in-laws and those with blood ties and even includes friends and those with whom a person has political dealings. The words “brother” and “sister” were sometimes used to portray the main family members as we see in the example of the forty two “brethren” of King Uzziah. Another interesting example is in the Song of Solomon, where two lovers are serenading one another, and the young man says in some verses of the song, “How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride.”

Maurice Bucaille, commenting on the word “brother” in the New Testament states that the words “adelphoi” and “adelphai” in Greek refer to biological brother and sister, and he said that these words, had been defectively translated from Semitic languages, where they had been used to denote “kin” in the general sense and the people in question were probably cousins. As the word “cousin” did not exist in Hebrew and Aramaic, the languages spoken by both Jesus and his disciples, they probably had no other option; they could either use the word “brother” or would have to define a person by calling them “my father’s sister’s son” and so on, which is neither easy nor appropriate, and this was the likely reason for Jesus using “brother” for his close acquaintances.

In the New Testament, the equivalent of brother in Aramaic was given as the word “adelphos,” which in the general sense means “brother” or “brotherly friend,” a kind of sign of closeness to someone. Unlike in Hebrew or Aramaic, the word “anepsios” in ancient Greek gave a distinct meaning to the word “cousin,” but those who wrote the scriptures used “adelphos” or “friend” to correspond “cousin.”

So we understand from this that the writers of the New Testament used the same word “adelphos” from ancient Greek to convey the meaning of “friend” and for the meaning of “two sons of the same family” or “biological brothers.” This is very confusing when the text is translated into English or any other language.

C. According to the New Testament

One of the reasons for opinions that Jesus had brothers or sisters several verses in the New Testament which say that Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they had come together Joseph realized that she was carrying a child and had decided to leave Mary. But an angel came to Joseph in his dream and told him the truth of the miraculous conception, and Joseph decided to take Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:18–20; Luke 1:27; 2:5). There is no mention in the Qur’an or hadith of Joseph, the person said to be betrothed to Mary in the Bible, and there is certainly no report of the Biblical scriptures found in the Qur’an and hadith stating that Mary married this man called Joseph. However, there are a few weak reports of some historical sources that say that there was a carpenter of the same name who was a member of Mary’s family and both of them were serving at the Temple during the same period.

Another matter which leads the Protestant churches to believe that Jesus may have had brothers and sisters is the verse in the Gospel of Luke saying that Jesus was Mary’s “firstborn son” (2:7). However, this declaration is no reason to believe that Jesus had brothers and sisters, this statement being rather a declaration that her first child would be a holy servant of his Lord (Luke 2:23) a declaration invoking a legislation in the scriptures.

As further evidence, the Gospel of Luke (2:41–52) tells how Jesus attended the Temple in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover with his parents, that he went missing, and that his parents were searching for him. We see there is no mention at all of any other children except Jesus. To the contrary, the context leads us to believe that there was only one child present.

Another special detail is that according to the Gospel of John (19:26–27), Jesus entrusted his mother to one of the disciples when he was being placed on the crucifix, so immediately the question arises: if Jesus had brothers and sisters, then why did he entrust his mother to someone else? Even if we assume that Joseph, who was claimed to have married Mary was not alive at the time, there being no mention whatsoever of the existence of Jesus’ brothers or sisters at this point is another aspect which seems to invalidate the allegation.

D. The use of the word “brother” in reference to Jesus

It is apparent that when the word “brother” was mentioned in reference to Jesus, in most cases it was actually used as a figure of speech and there is no indication to the contrary. For instance in the verses of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where Jesus’ mother and brother ask to speak to Jesus while he is talking to his disciples, and he replies, “Here are my mother and my brother! For whoever does the will of my Father in Heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew, 12:46–50; Mark, 3:31–35; Luke, 8:19–21) Again, the Gospel of John (20:10–18) claims that following the crucifixion of Jesus, he was resurrected and appeared before Mary Magdalene, telling her “Go to my brothers and say to them I am ascending to my Father and your Father and my God and your God.” This is clear evidence that “brothers” was a figurative expression, for it goes on to say, “Mary went and said to his disciples.”

Another statement which only appears in the Gospel of John (7:3–10) says that the “brothers” of Jesus invited him to leave Galilee and set out for Judea as the Jewish festival of Passover was approaching, but Jesus refused the invitation and told his “brothers” to attend the feast, following on in secret later. Again, an event only recorded in the Gospel of John (2:12) states that following the miracle of the wine, Jesus, along with his mother, brothers and disciples went to Capernaum and stayed there for a few days. It is almost impossible to prove that from these narrations in the Gospels that Jesus had any biological brothers or sisters.

In Antiquities of the Jews, a book written by the famous Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, it is claimed that Jesus had at least one brother, Jacob. But a narration of Simon bar Cleopas, who is known to have been a cousin of Jesus, and who is said to have died when he was 120 years old, claims that the man Jacob, the so-called brother of Jesus, was stoned to death in 62 CE at the age of 96. According to this statement Jacob must have been born in 34 BC, which proves that it was impossible for him to be Jesus’ biological brother since this date would make Jacob older than Mary, his supposed mother.

It is interesting that when Luke’s gospel portrays the same event as the Gospels of Matthew and Mark the word “brother” is not used at all (4:14–30). When we compare the names mentioned with those of the disciples, we see an interesting connection with the names of the supposed brothers: the names given as the four brothers of Jesus, with the exception of Joseph, are among those on the list of the chosen disciples. In the lists given in the Synoptic gospels, the gospel of Barnabas and in commentaries by Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir respectively, the names Simon and Jacob are both mentioned twice. Another interesting fact is that Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, is the one name mentioned by all of them.

The word “brother” is similarly mentioned in two verses of the Qur’an, one of them being To the ‘Ad people (we sent) Hud, one of their own brethren (Hud 11:50), in which it is clear there is no indication of any blood tie, and the other is when the sons of Israel address Mary as “O sister of Aaron!” (Mary 19:28). Scholars have stressed the fact that this is not a reference to a biological sister ; as the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, explained in one of the hadith, “The Israelites used to name their children after their prophets and pious persons who had gone before them” (Muslim, Tirmidhi, Hanbal). Another present-day example supporting this theory is nuns who refer to each other as “sister,” which is, of course, used in the spiritual sense.

So it is probable that those who were referred to as Jesus’ brothers were actually his spiritual brothers or brothers in religion.

Ahmet Cetinkaya is managing editor at Nil Yayınları, Istanbul. He is a Ph.D. candidate in theology and his dissertation is on narrations about Jesus in the hadith literature.

Notes

1. Fath Al-Bari, VI: 470.
2. II. Samuel, 1:26; Amos, 1:11
3. Deuteronomy, 23:7; Nehemiah, 5:7; Jeremiah, 34:9; Kings 2, 10:13–14.
4. Song of Solomon 4:9–12; 5:1.
5. Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, the Qur’an, and Science, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, 2003, p. 96.
6. Some say, “maternal uncle’s son” (Ibn Kathir, History II, 68) and “paternal uncle’s son” (Al-Alusi, Tafsir, xvi, 80).
7. See at-Tabari, Tafsir XVI, 64-5; Tarih I, 350; Ibn Kathir, Tafsir III, 113.
8. Eisenman, Robert H.; James the Brother of Jesus, Penguin books, Paperback edition, 1998, p. 320.
9. Barnabas mentions his own name instead of Simon’s. The gospels of Luke and Barnabas mention another person apart from Judas Iscariot. See: Matthew, 10:1–4; Mark, 3:13–19; Luke, 6:12–16; Gospel of Barnabas, 14; At-Tabari, Tafsir, vi, 14 onward.
10. At-Tabari, Tafsir xvi, 77–78; Fahruddin ar-Razi, Tafsir, xv, 327–328.

The other man takes the left fork for the sake of freedom. He appears outwardly comfortable, but feels no inner tranquillity. Reaching a desert, he hears the terrible sound of a beast getting ready to attack her. Running away, he sees a dry well 60 meters deep and jumps into it. Halfway down, he grabs a tree growing out of the wall. The tree has two roots, both of which are being gnawed away by two rats, one white and the other black. Looking up, he sees the beast waiting for him. Looking down, he sees a horrible dragon almost at his feet, its large mouth open to receive him. Looking at the wall, he notices that it is covered with laboring insects. Looking again at the tree, he sees that many types of fruits are growing on it, although it is only a fig tree.

He does not understand what has happened. He cannot imagine that somebody has caused all of this, for he cannot reason. Although inwardly distressed, and despite his spirit’s and heart’s complaints, his evil-commanding self pretends everything is fine and so ignores their weeping. Pretending to enjoy himself in a garden, he starts eating the fruits-for free. But some are poisonous and will harm him.

In a hadith qudsi, God says: “I will treat My servants in the way they think of Me.”¹ This man sees everything happening to him as unimportant, and thus that is the way it is for him. He neither dies nor lives well, but merely persists in an agony of suspense.

The wiser and well-disciplined brother thinks of the good, affirms the law, and feels secure and free. Finding beautiful flowers and fruits or ruined and ugly things in a garden, he focuses on what is good and beautiful. His brother cannot, for he concerns himself with evil and finds no ease in such a garden. The wise brother lives according to: “Look on the good side of everything,” and thus is generally happy with everything.

He also reaches a desert and encounters a beast, but is not so afraid because he thinks that it must be serving someone. He also jumps down a well and, halfway down, catches hold of some branches. Noticing two rats gnawing at the tree’s two roots, as well as the dragon below and the beast above, he finds himself in a strange situation. But unlike his brother, he infers that someone has arranged everything as a sign. Thinking that he is being watched and tested, he understands that he is being directed and guided as a test and for a purpose. His curiosity aroused, he asks: “Who wants to make me know him?” Meanwhile, he remains patient and self-disciplined. This curiosity arouses his love for the sign’s owner, which makes him want to understand the sign and the events, and to acquire good qualities to please its owner.

He realizes that the tree is a fig tree, although it bears many kinds of fruit. He is no longer afraid, for he realizes that it is a sample catalogue of the unseen owner’s fruits prepared for guests. Otherwise, one tree would not bear so many different fruits. He starts to pray earnestly and, as a result, the key to the secret is inspired in him. He declares: “O owner of this scene and events, I am in your hands. I take refuge in you and am at your service. I desire your approval and knowledge of you.” The wall opens, revealing a door (the dragon’s mouth) opening onto a wonderful, pleasant garden. Both the dragon and the beast become two servants inviting him to enter. The beast changes into a horse upon which he rides.

So, my lazy soul and imaginary friend, see how good brings good and evil brings evil. The brother who followed self-trust and self-willed freedom is about to fall into the dragon’s mouth. Anxious and lonely, considering himself a prisoner facing wild beasts, he increases his distress by eating apparently delicious but actually poisonous sample fruits. Their

function is to draw people toward the originals, not to be eaten for their own sake. He changes his day into darkness. Wronging himself by changing his situation into a hell-like one, he does not deserve pity and has no right to complain.

In contrast, the other brother is in a fruitful garden and surrounded by servants. He studies each different and beautiful incident in awe, and sees himself as an honored guest enjoying his generous host’s strange and beautiful servants. He only samples the fig tree’s fruits and, understanding reality, postpones his pleasure and enjoys the anticipation.

The first brother is like one who denies his favored situation in a summer garden with friends, and instead, becoming drunk, imagines himself among wild beasts in winter and complains thereof. Wronging himself and insulting his friends, he deserves no mercy. The other brother, who accepts trustingly what is given and observes the law, sees and accepts reality, which for him is beautiful. Respecting the owner of reality, he deserves mercy. Thus can we attain a partial understanding of: Whatever good befalls you is from God, and whatever ill befalls you is from yourself'(4:79). Upon reflection, we see that one’s inner self prepared a hell-like situation for him, corresponding to his own attitude of reality, whereas the other’s potential goodness, positive intention, and good nature led him to a very favored and happy situation. Now, I say to my own inner self as well as to the reader’s: If you desire success, follow the Qur’an’s guidance.

The Gist of the Allegory

One brother is a believer; the other is an unbeliever. The right road is that of the Qur’an and faith; the left road is that of unbelief and rebellion. The garden is human society and civilization, which contain both good and evil, cleanliness and pollution. A sensible person “takes what is clear and pleasant, leaves what is turbid and distressing, and proceeds with a tranquil heart.” The desert is the Earth, the beast is death, the well is our life, and 60 meters is our average lifespan of 60 years. The tree in the well is life, and the two rats gnawing on its roots are day and night. The dragon is the grave’s opening. For a believer, it is a door opening onto the Garden. The insects are the troubles we face, gentle warnings from God not to become heedless. The fruits are this world’s bounties presented as samples from the Hereafter’s blessings, inviting customers toward Paradise’s fruits.² The sign shows the secret will of God in creating. It is opened with faith, and its key is: “O God, there is no god but God; God, there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsistent.” For one brother, the dragon’s mouth (the grave) changes into a door to the Garden (Paradise). For the other, as for all unbelievers, the grave is the door to a place of trouble (Hell). The beast changes into an obedient servant, a disciplined and trained horse. In other words, for unbelievers death is a painful detachment from loved ones, an imprisonment after leaving the Paradise-like Earth. For believers, it means reunion with dead friends and companions. It is like going to their eternal home of happiness, a formal invitation to pass into the eternal gardens, an occasion to receive the wage bestowed by the Most Compassionate and Merciful One’s generosity for services rendered to Him, and a retirement from life’s burdens. In conclusion, those who pursue this transient life place themselves in Hell, even though they stay in what appears—to them—as a paradise on Earth. Those who seek the eternal life find peace and happiness in both worlds. Despite all troubles, they thank God and patiently conclude that all of this is merely a waiting room opening onto Heaven.

Adapted from Bediuzzaman’s Eighth Word.

Footnotes

1. Hadith Qudsi: This is a specific category of sayings from the Prophet. The wording is the Prophet’s, but the meaning belongs to God.
2. The tree with various fruits shows the seal of Divinity, Whose unique virtue is “to create everything out of one thing” and “to change everything into one thing”; to make various plants and fruits from the same soil; to create all living things from one drop of water; and to nourish and sustain all living things in the same manner but through different foods.

Once upon a time, there are two brothers who set off on a long journey together. One is self-indulgent and clever. The other is self-disciplined and wise. After a while they come to a fork in their road where they see a wise old man. They ask him which way to take. He tells them that the right fork requires obligatory observance of the law which governs both roads, but that this burden of observance brings with it a certain security and happiness; while the left fork promises a certain kind of freedom it represents also certain danger and distress. Now the choice is yours, says the old man.

On hearing this, the well-disciplined brother, by relying on God, takes the right fork saying that he accepts dependence on law and order. The other brother takes the left fork just for the sake of freedom. Seemingly, he is comfortable but in truth he feels no tranquillity inside. He reaches a desert. Suddenly he hears the terrible sound of a beast, about to attack him. He runs away and, happening to come across one, jumps down a dried well which is sixty metres deep. Half-way down, he tumbles upon some branches of a tree and grabs on to these to save himself from falling further. He also notices that the tree protruding from the wall of the well has two forks. He hangs down from the branches. Meanwhile, two mice, one white and the other black, are gnawing away at the two roots. The man looks up and sees that the beast is still there. He looks down and there is a horrible dragon almost at his feet, with its large mouth gaping to receive. Having time to do so, the man looks more closely at the wall of the well and notices that it is all covered with labouring insects. He looks again at the tree. It is actually a fig tree but it is a miracle of a tree in that it has a great variety of fruits growing on it, such as walnuts and pomegranates.

There, hanging in the well, he cannot understand that all that has happened to him is in any way special or meaningful, that the scene and the events upon it cannot be merely coincidental. That there should be, must be, some secret to it all, that behind the scene and the events there must stand an arranger and doer of all-none of this, alas, even occurs to him.

Now although this man is well aware of the danger all around him, he gets used to his state of suspense, more or less, and pretends to himself that he is in a garden, having a nice time, eating all kinds of fruits for free but which, it will turn out, are poisonous and harmful to him to consume in this way.

In some of the sacred sayings, God addresses mankind. The meaning of one of those sayings is: I will treat my servant in the way he thinks of Me. This wretched man in the well sees every event that befalls him as no more than itself, as having no further weight or significance and, for him, so it is. He does not die but he does not live well either. He persists merely in an agony of suspense.

Let us now recall the other brother. He is the wiser of the two and, because well-disciplined, not suffering anxieties. He always thinks of the good; affirms the law, and feels himself to be secure and free within it. Whenever, on his journey, he enters a garden and comes across ruined or ugly things in it, he is able to turn his mind to that which is good and beautiful. His brother cannot and does not do the same; he has concerned himself with evil and therefore cannot find ease in such a garden. The wise one lives according to the saying: Take the good not the evil. He is therefore generally happy with everything.

On his way he too reaches a desert, just as his brother did, and the same beast shows up. He too is afraid but not as much as his brother, because he is sure that the beast must be in the service of a certain master. This disciplined man also jumps down a well that happens to be there and, half-way down, catches hold of the branches of a little tree. He too notices the pair of mice gnawing at the two roots of the tree. Looking down, he sees the dragon and, up above, the beast still waiting for him. Just like his brother, he finds this suspense a strange situation to be in. But because he is wise and self-disciplined, he infers that all these strange happenings are arranged by someone, and constitute a sign. He thinks he is not alone and that he is being watched and examined by someone. He understands that he is being directed and guided in some way.

He is curious about the one who arranged all these events and asks: Who is it that desires to make me know him? Even in his curiosity he is patient and self-disciplined, and so this curiosity changes into a sort of love for Him who arranges all these events. And this love causes him a desire to open the secret sign of these events and that desire drives him to be approved by the owner of the sign.

He observes that the tree from which he is suspended is a fig tree but one that bears almost every kind of fruit. He is no longer afraid; he understands that this tree is actually a sort of catalogue of samples of the fruits the owner has. Otherwise, one tree would not bear so great a variety of fruits as this one does. He desires more earnestly and the key to the secret is inspired in him. He declares:

Oh Owner of all this scene and these events, I am your servant and I desire your approval and I desire to know you.

Following this prayer, the wall of the well changes into a door to a wonderful garden. The dragon and the beast become two servants inviting him in. The beast even changes into a horse for him to ride on.

Now, let us compare the positions of these two brothers and see how good brings with it good and evil causes evil:

The unfortunate traveller who took the left way, the way of self-trust and self-willed freedom, is about to fall into the mouth of the dragon; he is continually anxious. He suffers loneliness and considers himself a prisoner facing the attacks of wild beasts. Furthermore, he adds more to this distress, eating apparently delicious but actually poisonous fruits which are only presented as samples, not intended to be consumed for their own sake. This unfortunate one changes his day into darkness; he himself does injustice, changing his situation into a hell-like one.

In contrast, the traveller who took the right way is invited to a fruitful garden with servants all .around him. He studies every strange incident in awe, and enjoys himself. He does not eat up the fruits on the fig tree, only samples them, curious as to why they should be there at all-which is how they are intended to be used.

The other is just like a man who, by not being content with what has been served for him and intoxicating himself with alcoholic drink, denies his favoured situation in a summer garden surrounded by friends, and instead imagines himself to be among wild beasts in winter time, and complains thereof. He does himself injustice and deserves no mercy. The brother who took the right way, the way that accepts trustingly what is given and observes the law, sees and accepts the whole reality and for him it is beautiful. In doing this he respects the One who possesses reality, and that is why this brother is deserving of mercy. By this we may understand, at least in part, the meaning of the Qur’anic phrase: Know that evil is from yourself but goodness is from God.

When we reflect upon the differences between the two brothers we see that the inner-self of one prepared a kind of hell-like situation for him, corresponding to his own attitude to reality, whereas the other’s potential goodness, positive intention and good nature led him to a very favoured and happy situation.

Now, I say to my own inner-self as well as to the inner-self of anyone who has read thus far:

If you desire to be like the luckier of the two brothers, follow the guidance of the Qur’an. The details of the allegory could be explained at very great length, but the gist of it, roughly, is this:

One of the brothers is a believer who is good-hearted and the other is a blasphemous unbeliever. Of two ways the one on the right is the way of the Qur’an and faith, whereas the other is the way of unbelief and heresy. The garden on the way is human society and civilization which has in it both good and evil, cleanliness and pollution. The wise one is he who acts according to the law of this road and so travels peacefully.

The desert in the story is the earth, and the beast who turns up unawares is death. The well is life and the body of man, and sixty metres in depth because that is our average life span. The tree in the well is life itself, the two mice gnawing its roots are day and night. The dragon in the well is the opening to the hereafter and, for a believer, becomes a door to the Garden. The insects on the walls of the well are the troubles people face on this earth. However, these troubles are but little warnings for a believer, to remind him of God. And the fruits on the tree, as we have already indicated, are samples from the blessings of the hereafter.

(There is only one tree in the well but there are various fruits on it. This shows the seal of divinity whose unique virtue is to create everything out of one thing and to change everything into one thing, to make various plants and fruits from one soil only; to create all living things from one drop of water; to make a simple skin for each species from a variety of foods, to nourish and sustain all alike living things and make all parts of body from a simple food.)

To return to the allegory, the sign shows the secret will and purpose of God in creating; this sign is opened with faith and there the key is:

God, there is no god save God. God, there is no god save Him.

For one of the brothers, the mouth of the dragon changes into a door to the Garden. For the other, as for all unbelievers, the grave is the door to a place of trouble, the belly of a dragon, whereas for believers it is the door to the eternal Garden which is the blessing of God for the faithful followers of the Qur’an.

The beast changes into an obedient servant. This means that, for unbelievers, death is a painful detachment from loved ones, a kind of imprisonment after leaving (for them) the paradise-like earth. For believers on the other hand, it is just like going forward to meet friends and companions, it is like going into their eternal home. It is for them a formal invitation to pass into the eternal gardens from the prison of the earth, a kind of retirement from the burden of life.

In sum, the one who chooses the transient life as his aim puts himself into hell even though he stays in what appears to him paradise on earth. By contrast, the one who aims at the eternal life will find peace and happiness in both worlds. Despite all troubles, he still thanks God and will patiently conclude his stay on the earth which, as he properly comes to understand, is merely a waiting room opening up to heaven.

R. Nur Collection (Eight Word)