Love is like Solomon, Borne aloft on the heart, its throne.[1]

The heart is humanity’s most essential feature and its greatest treasure. It is the expression of our spiritual existence, the source of our feelings and beliefs, and the pathway to our soul’s ultimate depths. Those who walk on the path of the heart will not experience any darkness, and those who soar on the wings of their hearts will surmount any obstacle. Human virtues are cultivated on the hillsides of the heart; faith, love, and spiritual pleasures are the fruits of its garden.

If your heart is like a desert, your thoughts and feelings will inevitably wither and fade. In our history, human reason enjoyed its golden age when it submitted to the rule of the heart. Under the heart’s guardianship, reason left behind countless immortal works. In those times, matter was melted and re-forged in the furnace of our spiritual essence. Then our experience became a fairground of the hereafter, this world intermingled with the next, and the treasures of the transcendent realms were on offer here. It is according to the measures of the other world that the objects of this one become priceless. In those times, the sugar was separated from the cane, the bud was pregnant with a flower, and the soil was imbued with the lights of the other world.   Things of this world found fulfillment and were perfected. The tulips and lilies of the earth began to dance in the presence of the heart, and the charms of the next world were felt in every corner.

But we gave our minds to idle gossip and our reason gave way to deceit. And as the tongue of conscience and the melodies of the heart fell silent, the earth became like a graveyard, and our homes like coffins. Life became a drudgery, and our spirits were stifled by the smog of our misplaced longing. In such malaise, carnal feelings and corporeal thoughts ambush our souls like bandits. They present us with various poisons, and we become a deluded crowd: a mob that cannot hear the voice of conscience and is closed to reason, that contemplates and understands nothing.

Today, we yearn for the stories of the heart, for in them we feel the reviving breaths of Jesus.^[2] Since the beginning of the world, the people of the heart have always been the fortunate ones, traveling in the realms beyond the heavens with wings like angels. These heroes transcend the limits of the bodies to hold the reins of both worlds. While others beg from door to door, they live among the blessings of Paradise with contentment. The dust and the grime of this world do not blacken their horizon, nor does the colorful attraction of the hereafter distract them from their purpose. In every deed, they enjoy the friendship of God; thus their devotion is the most profitable trade.[3] In this way, they faithfully realize their heart’s purpose in a way that befits humanity. These fortunate ones sing of their love in the eternal melodies, raising their voices to the furthest galaxies.

The heart is the intersection of God’s grace with humanity’s essence. Therefore, with the seal of the Sovereign on it, the heart unifies the spiritual and material worlds. Our inner and outer beauties are in fact different dimensions of the life of our heart, and the radiance of our appearance is intimately tied to our inner life. When a word is spoken from the heart, the mind is ignited and our consciousness glows like the corona of the sun. At this moment, when the spirit turns its face to the secret voice of the heart, our feelings begin to resonate as if they had been plucked by a mysterious plectrum, and our conscience begins to whirl like a dervish in joy and respect. We feel the fire of love on all sides, and tears of joy quench the suffering of our longing.

When we lose our self and our will in ecstasy, we may temporarily lose our balance, but the heart always remains humble in the presence of God. When we travel in the realm of the heart, we are neither perplexed nor inhibited. If the hero of the heart halts with fright or struggles in his way with difficulty, love succors him like Khidr, holding the reins of his horse and carrying him swiftly over the pits of hesitation.^[4] Our senses, inner and outer, are soldiers at the heart’s command; they are moths fluttering around its brilliant light. The heart speaks with the highest authority, and all our senses submit to its rule. Like the pole star, it orbits only itself, chanting the name of God, while all other senses turn around it, prostrate.

All of us are guests in the house of the heart. Let us sacrifice our hearts to the One whose sovereignty is felt in this house. We are determined to offer our souls to the Sovereign, and we await His judgment. Since the day He breathed life into our hearts, our longing for reunion has bound us to Him, and we have diligently tended to our love as to a great weaving. Our soul trembles with excitement when we feel the nearness of the Friend, but we wait patiently for Him to open the door, with our heads bowed in respect.

As we walk on this way, singing the ballads of longing and love, the heart is our gracious guide. Until our last breath, we promise to follow this blessed guide.

[1] Muhammed Lütfi (d. 1956), Turkish Sufi poet.

^[2] According to the Qur’an, Jesus revived the dead with his word or breath. (See Qur’an, 3:49)

[3] A reference to the Qur’anic concept of the spiritual “trade” mentioned in the verse: “Those who recite God’s scripture, keep up the prayer, give secretly and openly from what We have provided for them, may hope for a trade that will never decline.” (35:29)

^[4] Khidr is a spiritual personality and a man of wisdom in Islamic tradition, who lives in an angelic way, serving God to execute divine commands and succoring people in hard conditions.

We live in the darkest of nights until they appear on our horizon with radiant faces promising the breaking of dawn. Once they have appeared on our horizon, this land of the wretched and the miserable, resembling a gloomy graveyard, will begin to be cheered by flowers of every kind. If our hopes are not blighted by a poisonous wind, this land, changing into a flower-garden through the reviving water that generation brings, will be a place of happiness and spiritual recreation’ for all the world’s people, a place of peace, harmony and serenity. The world of the future will be so enlightened by their light that the moon and the sun will be dim in comparison. In their enlightened ethos, the universe will be studied as a meaningful book and the music of brotherhood will be played everywhere. Art and literature will be refined of coarseness and vulgarities of all kinds and find their practitioners.

This world will indeed be built anew when they sound the note of revival, and those who fell into a kind of winter sleep will wake up. The music of despair composed by Satan and played by some indolent persons will stop; people will be exhilarated with melodies of hope and activity which they compose and play.

The awaited generation are successors to the mission of the master of the Prophets, and therefore have inherited the loyalty and faithfulness of Adam, the resolve and steadfastness of Noah, the devotion and gentleness of Abraham, the valour and dynamism of Moses, the forbearance and compassion of Jesus. When found together in a group, these qualities are such a great source of power that those who have them will inevitably seize the ‘reins’ of the world, provided they remain loyal to the covenant God has made with them.

The world is to be saved by that ‘golden’ generation who represent the Divine Mercy, from all the disasters, intellectual, spiritual, social and political, with which it has long been afflicted. The world will come back, through their efforts, to its ‘primordial’ pattern, on which God created it, and be purified of all kinds of deviation and ignorance, so that people may rise to ‘the highest of the high’ on the ladder of belief, knowledge and love, supported against the heavens by the Divine Message.

Humankind have never been so wretched as they are today. They have lost all their values: the ‘table of art and literature is vandalized’ by drunks; thought is capital wasted in the hands of people suffering from intellectual poverty; science is a plaything of materialism; and the products of science are tools used in the name of unbelief. Amid such disorder and bewilderment, the people neither know their destination in the world nor the direction to follow to reach that destination.

In order to awaken the people and guide them to the truth, the awaited generation those young people who implant hope in our hearts, enlighten our minds and quicken our souls, will suffer with the sufferings of humankind and ‘water’ all the ‘barren lands’ with the tears they shed over centuries-old miseries. They will visit every corner of the world, leaving no-one not called upon, and pour out their reviving inspirations into the souls of the dumb-struck people. Having so long awaited those holy ones, sound-minded, saintly and trustworthy, who have dedicated themselves to humankind, the people will at last feel able to wing their way into the depths of the heavens and reach eternity.

O long-awaited generation. Rise, for the love of the Creator to your sacred task, and replace the darkness choking us with the light of your love, hope and nobility! Rise and force back the `monsters` of the age to their dens! Even if the world unites against you in the form of a terrible bomb; even if they upset your plans and systems; even if they make concerted attacks upon you from all sides, you will never quake; rather, with undiminished hope, you will continue to pave the way for the happy future. You will, like the Prophet Solomon, ride the winds and bring rain to the barren lands in order to change them into flower gardens. You will put an end to injustice all over the world and run to the aid of the oppressed; be so forbearing towards people that there wil1 be no soul you have not embraced, no vengeance or rancour you have not removed.

O you who have been waiting for centuries; look! Darkness is disappearing from your horizon and different melodies are being heard from beyond it. Those melodies, reaching us in the early hours of the ‘morning’ will spread throughout the world in the coming days. If you suspect that this is ‘false dawn’-though it is not really-do not be grieved as a false dawn promises the ‘true dawn’.

Rejoice and sing the praises of the happy future! Let your souls overflow with the glad-tidings of that future, and let your eyes be filled with tears of happiness! I hope that your centuries-old longings are about to come to an end, and you are at the mysterious door opening to a spiritual world. Now you should bow before your Lord humbly, acknowledging your innate powerlessness, then set out for eternity with love, zeal and energy, so that you may deserve His help and exhilarating company during your journey, and watch the beauties displayed by Him.

When you reach, in such spirituality, the door of the Eternal World, the angels will welcome you, saying, ‘Peace be upon you! Well have you done! Enter you here, to dwell therein forever!’ You will respond to this welcome with gratitude and say: ‘Praise be to God, who has truly fulfilled His promise to us, and given us the earth to inherit, and that we may dwell in Paradise wherever we desire.!