My parents moved here from Turkey for higher education and met during their master’s program at Lehigh University. But their story — and mine — truly begins with how they encountered Hocaefendi, whose leadership inspired them to pursue their studies in the U.S.

During her college years in Eskisehir, Turkey my mom attended lecture circles discussing Hocaefendi’s writings and sermons and became captivated by his teachings. My grandmother still recalls having to pull her away from those books to help around the house. Meanwhile, an old uncle in my dad’s village had introduced him to the “Risale-i Nur” by Said Nursi, one of Gulen’s teachers, which led him to people who helped him find housing for college. He was introduced to Hocaefendi’s teachings when asked to become a tutor there. At first, he didn’t understand why — he just wanted to focus on his studies. Neither of them had met Hocaefendi in person. Yet, somehow, his influence was powerful enough to guide them to seek education across the globe in a country they had never been to — long before the age of widespread internet or video calls.

My parents came to the U.S., met, and had me — all thanks to the sermons of a man they had never met. By God’s grace, they met him in the unlikeliest place: Saylorsburg. I’m sure you can guess how many Turks lived here before 1999, so when news broke that he was moving permanently, my parents were honored to help him find his new home. I remember the sweet rush of preparing his room with my mom before Hocaefendi’s arrival.

I was 4 or 5 years old, so my memories are mostly snippets. Still, one is clear: I felt completely comfortable around Hocaefendi, free to be myself, even when the adults always told me to act differently —“Be quiet, stop running around, be respectful.” I was being respectful; I loved my Hocaefendi.

I remember running wild around Chestnut Retreat Center when it was a couple of weathered cabins along a dirt road, but as with everything Hizmet and Hocaefendi, there was a vision.

One day, while he was busy writing in his room, my friends and I were next door, jumping on couches and having the time of our lives — just being kids in full chaos mode. He came out and asked us to settle down, and we did … for as long as a group of unsupervised kids could. Then he came out a second time and a third, this time wearing a stern expression. He lined us up and said he would give us a “ceza” in Turkish. To us, that word only meant one thing: punishment. To our surprise, he handed each of us a $20 bill. We raced down the stairs, nearly giving our parents heart attacks as we exclaimed, “We got a ceza from Hocaefendi!” The candy we bought from the vending machine that day may have been the tastiest we’d ever had.

As an adult, I learned that in Ottoman Turkish, ceza refers to any kind of equivalent returned for something given or done, whether punishment or reward. Throughout my life, I’ve never witnessed Hocaefendi tell a lie, even for the sake of a joke.

I have countless priceless childhood memories, yet the truth is that my connection with Hocaefendi mirrors that of my parents — rooted in his writings and sermons. Throughout my adolescence, college years and moments of crisis, Hocaefendi’s words guided me back home.

Often, I found myself as the only visibly Muslim woman in a room or even in an entire school. Despite this potentially isolating experience, I discovered a sense of community wherever I went. Inspired by his example, I aspired to make everyone I encountered feel as he made me feel — free to be themselves. His teachings allowed me to connect through faith, service and shared purpose, emphasizing the importance of accepting people for who they are, walking with humility, caring with compassion and serving with intention. He gave me a profound purpose: to be the best version of myself that God wishes to witness in His creation.

Now, as I live in Hawaii, completing my pediatrics residency and building a new home community, I reflect on the lessons Hocaefendi imparted. Though I wasn’t able to attend his funeral, I find comfort in knowing that he would encourage me to continue my journey with the same dedication I embrace every day.

In Turkey, it is customary to identify oneself by stating the birthplace of one’s father when asked where they are from. However, for me, I proudly and confidently say I am from Pennsylvania, knowing that it’s a place deeply intertwined with my identity and the invaluable lessons I’ve learned from Hocaefendi.

First published in The Morning Call, November 2, 2024

How could this piece of information solve my problems? This little sentence cannot really answer all of life’s possible dilemmas, can it?

I am walking home on the unusually dark street. I am only used to seeing it in the brightness of day, when the flowers are in stark contrast to the shortly trimmed grass and the voices of other kids fill the air with their sweet, bell-like melody. It has been a long, long day at my best friend’s house. We have played hide and seek for hours, we have painted suns with her new water colors. But it is late now and my big brown eyes are almost closing. As always, I do not want to admit that I am tired. It seems shameful and boring. Only old people get tired! To the bouncy, curious 6 year-old that I am, sleep is the ultimate waste of time, especially when constant adventure is waiting around every corner.

It would have probably seemed frightening to see the neighborhood so empty, so suspiciously silent if I had to walk home by myself. My excessively wild imagination would have made me shudder at the thought of all the horrific monsters, dragons, witches and ghosts whispering and quietly planning their evil moves in the darkness. But I am not alone. A strong, tall man is walking next to me, holding my little hand. Dad. He is there to guide me through the summer evening. His presence makes the place seem warm and inviting. The dim lights coming out of the windows of the houses around me appear to soften the atmosphere, making the moment almost dream-like.

I suddenly remember a very important question I wanted to ask him. I have been wondering about it all afternoon but the logic of it seemed to be beyond me. It is undoubtedly an adult matter. I turn up to gaze at his friendly round face and ask with urgency:

“Dad, which side is better, the left or the right? I can’t decide which one is my favorite.”
He smiles from under his black moustache and wisely answers, his green eyes sparkling:
“The left of course. It’s where your heart is.”

Adults have it so easy. They simply have all the answers. Of course the left side is the best one! I nod, completely agreeing and feeling overwhelmed with my father’s undeniable expertise at life. I am also a bit disappointed that I did not reach the conclusion myself. I wish I was like him.
…

From that day on, I had no doubts. Every time I had to choose between turning left or right at an unfamiliar cross roads, I chose left. Every time my best friend wanted me to choose in which of her two clenched fists she had hidden a candy, I chose the left one. I never doubted my dad’s conclusion for a second. Choices, choices… who said they were so difficult?

My father died shortly after that walk. Nobody warned me that my source of endless adult wisdom would abandon me and my beautiful mother so abruptly. I did not manage to ask him even one hundredth of my questions. I could not ask him why boys were so annoying at kindergarten or why my first grade teacher had such an enormous belly. I knew he would have had the explanation. He would have dispersed the fog of my confusion in an instant.

Later, my questions changed but I still wished my dad were there to help me with the riddles. Why were boys even more annoying as I got older? How could I heal my broken heart? The more I grew, the harder the questions became. Why did he have to leave so early? Would he be proud of me? Was I making the right choices? Did I choose the right university? What would he think of my boyfriend? I had the feeling he might not have had all the answers. I was starting to realize that nobody does. But I wanted to ask him all the same.

I had so many questions but so few memories. The more time passed, the less I remembered. I remembered he was so fun, that he would play with me and a balloon in the living room until it was time to go to bed (and even a little longer when my mom wasn’t watching). He liked to fish; it was his passion. He had many friends, and our apartment was always full of smiling, warm people.

With time, however, I started forgetting these memories. I forgot the important details – I no longer remembered his smell, his voice. The most difficult was that I did not have any recollection of his words to me. I craved to know his opinion, to have his advice, to feel him guiding me once again. But the only real memory I had of his wisdom was the short little answer to my silly childish question. The left side was better because my heart was there.

How could this piece of information solve my problems? This little sentence couldn’t really answer all of life’s possible dilemmas, could it? It couldn’t tell me how my father first knew he was in love with my mom. I will never know that. It could’t tell me if he would approve of me studying abroad. Had I wasted my time with my dad on a meaningless, pathetic little discussion …

Forgetful creatures we humans are. If we live abroad long enough we could forget our own language, they say. I’ve also heard that, once vested with too much power, some people forget where they came from. This is a dangerous kind of amnesia. It can, of course, be a good thing – they say forgetting helps you heal faster, helps you deal with loss and pain. This, they say, is the good kind of forgetfulness. In my case, loss and pain did not disappear with time. Only memories.

This stupid human nature tricked me – I suffered the worst kind of amnesia – I was forgetting my father. It felt like I was being unfairly robbed of the little I had left from him. As a teenager, I tried to rebel against this stupid memory loss. I wanted to simply turn off all my thoughts about him, I excluded him from all conversations; I would not say the word ‘dad’ – I just skipped it. But it didn’t help. Late at night, I kept looking at pictures of him from our summer vacations together, hoping a memory would jump at me and help me get to know him better. But it never did.

The only real memory I had left was the silly conversation in the evening street. It was perhaps quite illogical of me but with time, I grew to believe that my precious recollection could, in fact, guide me through life. I chose to make the best of what I had left. My only memory of my father’s words became my life motto. ‘Follow your heart.’ It might sound cliche but I sure did not take it from the movies. It’s true that he never really said that to me. But I believe he meant it. I believe that if he could sit with the already grown-up me tonight for a cup of hot chocolate by the fire, he would tell me exactly that: to follow my heart. His moustache would be gray or even white, but his sparkly green eyes would be the same. He would tell me to follow my heart. After all, he was a wise man, how could he not agree?

This motto helped me finally answer my endless questions. It wasn’t my father doing all the work for me. I had to solve the puzzle myself. I simply followed my heart. I followed my heart when I chose to study law – I wanted to fight for justice. I followed my heart when I chose to go abroad – I wanted to help my inspiring mother have a better life. My heart took me places that were not easy. I had to learn to survive on my own among strangers and build my life from scratch. It was scary and it made me doubt my heart. My human nature had a tendency to betray, and this made me fear, and fear made me weak. But my heart never disappointed me. I stuck with it and it brought me to magical kingdoms filled with love, compassion and friendship. I will follow it again and again, and I will not hesitate. I have learned to trust it, because it knows best. And I know my father would approve. After all, he is also in my heart. He is still holding my hand, guiding me through the darkness with a smile under his moustache. And he would be proud of me.

I don’t really need to know all the answers. Nobody ever does. Some people know too much and yet they are not happy. Plus, where is the thrill of knowing everything? Where is the adventure? I am blessed to have what I have: my family, my friends, my love and my precious memory to show me the way. Supposing I have inherited my father’s wisdom (and I like to think that I did), I should be alright. Don’t worry about me.

Factors underlying variable DNA methylation in a human community cohort. L.L. Lam et al. PNAS October 16, 2012 vol. 109

The effect of environment on genes can be very profound. Our surroundings may not directly change our DNA sequence but it can surely dictate how our genes are transcribed. Epigenetics studies heritable changes in gene expression caused by non-genetic mechanisms, i.e. mechanisms other than the changes in the DNA sequence itself. DNA methylation is one of the major epigenetic modifications to regulate the gene expression. The addition of methyl groups on DNA sequence acts like a dimmer on a light bulb switch, which will turn certain genes on or off. A recent study showed that a person’s early life experiences shape their DNA methylation patterns. The research team discovered that childhood poverty (not socioeconomic status as an adult) is highly correlated to distinct methylation marks left on genes. Although children in rich and poor households have identical sets of genes, the degree of adversity or stress at home determines which combinations of those genes are activated or silenced through differential DNA methylation. One can imagine that such epigenetic changes might cause some alterations in the gene expression program of blind people to certain environmental signals or make them even more sensitive. Perhaps such changes could make some people more adaptive to harsher life conditions, hence enhance their survival. These findings suggest that environmental conditions early in life shape our epigenomes permanently thereby influence our life experiences, health and probably many other things that we are not yet aware of.

An alien planet next door

An Earth-mass planet orbiting α Centauri B. X.Dumusque et al. Published online 17 October 2012, Nature

Astronomers have just discovered an earth-size alien planet right next to our solar system. A new earthlike planet, named Alpha Centauri, is just 4.4 light-years away. That’s 40 trillion km away from earth! Although this rocky planet’s mass is similar to Earth’s, it orbits much closer (25 times closer than the Earth) to host star Alpha Centauri B. As a result, a year lasts 3236 days and the surface temperature of the planet reaches around to 1200 °C, which makes the planet incapable of supporting any life form we know. However, solar systems with a rocky world are usually predicted to have multiple planets. One possibility is that that Alpha Centauri A, the bigger sibling of Alpha Centauri B, might host some yet to be discovered unknown planets with more habitable zones. Although this recent discovery has sparked people’s dreams to travel to another star system outside of our planetary system, such an exploration mission unfortunately seems impractical in the near future. Even a cell phone-sized probe that is accelerated to 10% of the speed of light would need to travel non-stop for 40 years to reach the target. So, what is the next best thing to do? Will it be taking photos or dropping probes on the planet’s surface to study a potentially modified atmosphere? It seems like while astronomers work hard on the identification and characterization of this new star system, scientists should focus on developing super-fast propulsion systems, which will perhaps include new concepts like nuclear rockets and antimatter fusion drives.

Bad memories, substitute or suppress

Opposing Mechanisms Support the Voluntary Forgetting of Unwanted Memories
Benolt RG et al., Neuron, Volume 76, Issue 2, 450-460, 18 October 2012

For the nervous system, forgetting a memory is almost as complicated as creating one. A recent study probed the mechanism of how the brain allows us to voluntarily forget unwanted memories. Researchers utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain activity of participants who had learned associations between pairs of words and subsequently attempted to forget these memories by either blocking them out or recalling substitute memories. The fMRI results showed that two separate forgetting strategies looked equally effective yet they seemed to use different neuronal circuits in different parts of the brain. For memory suppression, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex inhibits neural activity in the hippocampus which is a critical region for recalling past memories. On the other hand, memory substitution specifically activates caudal prefrontal cortex and midventrolateral prefrontal cortex that are known to bring specific memories into awareness in the presence of distracting memories. These findings can help us to better understand the mechanisms of memory disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder, and may ultimately help to develop effective treatments. At a more personal level, this study may direct us to explore how we deal with our unpleasant or unwanted memories. We might be surprised to realize that one approach might be working much better for us than another one. In other words, neuronal wiring in our brain might simply favor one approach over another.

If life is a book of colorful pages, I cherish each color I shared with you. Colors of laughter, love and joy, emotions I can never pen down. Such were the 20 young pages of my life, with 85 of yours. Your companionship was indeed incomparable to any other object of the world. But holy wisdom lays in a calm surrender my friend; life is in fact no more than a brief existence, and we are sole travelers. It’s neither ours to give nor ours to take. Like a shell imprisoning the pearl. This body is a prison for the soul that demands to fly away one day, without any khalil, close friends, up onto the final abode, where He has blessed the Prophets, the foremost believers, martyrs and the righteous ones. So today is a plain deal my friend, conditioned by death and remorse, tomorrow all the spirited ones leave the world at a constant loss.

Indeed sometimes to say goodbye to someone you love is quite impossible.

I know memories tend to fade away but they say the heart retains its scars longer than any other part of the body. Along with the pleasant memories I hold in my heart, there are some regrets too that make me ache but make me love you more and more with each passing moon. Surely, I stand firm because of Him whose love is greater than our disappointments. It’s not easy my friend, but it’s His decree. I hear, I obey, and I surrender. So does every man.

You have gone away my friend. Your soul is free. But you’re still alive in my heart. I like to go back in time and remember old days, our offering Jumu’ah, Friday, prayer together in your favorite mosque, that white dress of yours and your beautiful embroidery veil, a veil that sheltered me once from the sunrays, on our return to home; your old kind eyes full of wisdom and your face gentle and calm. The times you used to sit by my side whenever I was sick and pray with tears in your tender eyes. I still dream of your hands my friend, when I think of you, so soft like silk caressing my teary face.

Indeed sometimes to say goodbye to someone you love is quite impossible.

They say I am your reflection my friend, what a lie they tell. How could I possibly be as pious as you? You were the height of righteousness while I… Oh! How badly I wish, if I could turn back time and end my grief. How badly I desire to right the wrongs of yesterday, bring you back and sit next to you again. But Alas! Life is momentary and uncertain my friend, death is its part.

As patience is retained by the desert without rain, I shall have patience and remember you as my friend, O my beloved Nano . I shall pass your love to my children’s children. I shall walk in your footsteps and keep you alive in my heart. As time goes by, my memories will fade away but I shall always remember the one who caressed me and took my worries away. You and I belong to different worlds now but death is only a pause in this momentary life, a new life awaits. So when He will shower His rain upon me I shall meet you again. Until then I pray thee peace, my friend, whenever I kneel before Him in my prayer. I’ll grow older and older with each fleeting moment and memories will grow fainter so they say, but as long as my mortal heart will beat, I’ll keep in heart the day the angel of death took you to your heavenly abode, an unseen place…

Indeed sometimes to say good bye to someone you love is quite impossible.

But …We All belong to God my friend, and to Him we shall return!

May God rest your soul in peace, my beloved Nana! I miss you. But One day, if God wills, we’ll surely meet. They ask me over and over again Nano, why life does everything in its power to return to death? I say hush, silent…believe and pray. Death in itself is a desire to live young, forever and ever again!

“God is He to Whom belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth. He gives life and causes to die. And you have, apart from God, neither a guardian (who will protect you and to whom you can entrust your affairs) nor a helper.” (Tawbah, 9:116)

Pervisha Khan is a student of B.S. Hons. Mass Communication at Lahore College for Women University, Pakistan.

No one else, you, the candidly expected

A voice unreserved, sentimental

Nourishing sermons forever in memories

The sublime pundit,

Within an exalted sound

You left us an earnest legacy

More than a touching discourse

Guiding the devout minds

Into soulful sincerity.