After that question, I found myself at the doctors.

“If your heart is OK, then your body is OK,” she told me with worrying eyes.

“I’ve never had pain in my chest for this long,” I told her. “It feels as if somebody is sitting on my heart. But if I put my hand on my chest, that warmth helps to alleviate the pain.”

She was concerned. We stopped and she urged me to go to the ER immediately.

“I need to pray,” I told her. “It will take ten minutes and I will be at the hospital praying room. There are always a few people there, so don’t worry.”

She nodded. “I believe in the power of the prayer and meditation,” she added. And she ensured that I see a specialist for the chest pain.

I left that building and crossed the road to go to the other building. I was holding my heart, thinking the metaphors that we think of as a mundane saying. None of the metaphorical descriptions were solely poetry or were merely linguistic elaboration. Rather, they all meant what is untold and unseen and indescribable. At that moment I realized this heart was given to me. I was doing my best for a month to satisfy her needs and to ease her tension. But she was behaving as a separate and independent unit that has her own free will. I realized this for the first time in my life. Maybe the metaphor for this case would be extending a helping a hand to my heart, or to surround her with muscles. Maybe I forced too much on her, or did not appreciate the help my individual organs, my body as a whole, have given me.

That night, a friend of mine, not knowing what I had been thinking during the day, told me that we should talk to our bodies. “You should thank your feet that carried you all those years, my friend,” she said. “You should appreciate your eyes, which never gave up on you. You should thank your arms and hands since you would be speechless without them as a writer. You should thank your brain, for she listened to her Owner all these years and served you to be a better human every day.” “You know,” I added, “you are so right. After all, the one who cannot thank people and things cannot thank their Owner, the Beautiful, the Merciful, the Wise, the Choice Maker!”

I have been reading a lot lately. But there is something we learn from life and other people that no book can cover. Thus, I believe humankind is a unique book, its own kind of scripture. Humans read the universe with one eye, and the Scriptures with the other. Thus, we are given double eyes. And humans stand at the conjunction of these two books of meaning, being ourselves the third book which is uniquely because it is not just a book to read but also a reader. The more humans read these two books, the more we become a readable book.

So what is written in me? I suppose the basis of all lines is this sentence I heard from my doctor today: Save your heart, if the heart is good then your body and mind will be healthy. I wish I knew the language of the heart that would make my body healthy and would make my mind a reader and my self a book. The heart is at the center of human life, both in the physical and metaphysical senses. The heart is at the heart of the fact that humankind is a book to be read and discovered. The heart defines what we feel and motivates us in life. The heart defines which way the mind will travel. The heart is the teacher of the mind. Do you think we can unravel the language of the heart?

Fethullah Gulen is affectionately and respectfully called “Hodjaefendi” in the Muslim world. In the rest of the world he is a welcomed as a well-respected contemporary thinker, better known as a democratic figure and social renovator who appeals to the common sense of large masses. The Messenger of God: Muhammad by this respected author has been translated in due time addressing the needs of Russian readers.

Modern civilization calls for new ideas to be thought up and new words to be uttered. It seems as if Fethullah Gulen has been sent to our irresolute and apprehensive world by God Almighty to pronounce these.

It is well-known that the Qur’an names Christians and Jews, together with Muslims, as the People of the Book, i.e. believers of one God. Members of monotheistic faiths will embrace this book as a renewed confirmation of this truth, which is a common property of all of humanity. God Almighty has embedded in the essence of humankind a natural inclination to search for the deeper aspects of things and events, to look for love and beauty, and to reach perfection. Religious belief has been genetically injected into the nature of human beings, as the author of this introduction, as well as his colleagues concerned with natural sciences, have written countless times. The essentials of faith and practiced religious duties are in perfect harmony with the needs of human nature.

The Messenger of God is overflowing with faith in God Almighty, the One and only Creator of everything, and it is woven with a deep love of humanity, along with a complete trust in the triumph of “goodness” and “faith.” These two concepts have always been indispensable constituents that make up the basis for the continuity of life. Other works of the prominent scholar Fethullah Gulen need to be considered within the scope of the significance attributed to this work.

Until the end of the 20th century, everything about Islam, the Qur’an and its teachings, God’s final Messenger Muhammad-peace and blessings be upon him-and everything related to him and his Sunna have been faced by various kinds of opposition. Clear truth is obscured where there is oppression and persecution. Deliberately or not, the casual interpretation of anything related to the Prophet and the Qur’an from time to time has paved the way for replacement of Qur’anic truths with exaggerated slogans.

This book by Gulen is a satisfactory work for Muslims who are well aware that such casual interpretations of the Qur’an not only harm individuals but the entire society. The situation is even more critical for Muslims in Russia. This book will surely help people to comprehend the Qur’an more deeply and reflect on it in parallel with modern science, thanks to its academic qualities, carefully chosen expressions, and clear style.

Hopefully, this work by Fethullah Gulen will be a means to feel the Divine Revelation in our hearts and minds, to comprehend it better. I see The Messenger of God as a book to be read by different generations in a family, which will teach them the moral principles of Islam, contribute to the birth of a healthy society, and spread tolerance among them.

As for the non-Muslim audience, the readers can find various positive remarks and the true values of Islam undistorted by political considerations. As a person of a special position and deep spirituality, Fethullah Gulen presents how dialogue, a dialogue between people who give credit for different opinions and give others a chance to speak, but lead their own lives according to their free will and conscience, yields wonderful fruit.

Fethullah Gulen does not tell us to tolerate everything and that we should reach an absolute consensus on every subject. The non-Muslim audience will find various reasons that push them to have arguments with the author in their minds. At the same time however, the reader will see how removed Islam is from terror and other similar vices which endanger human life and make life more difficult for us. On the other hand, there have always been good on one side, evil on the other. The choice depends on individuals. This work will be a means for the human spirit to meet the Absolute Truth, in other words, God Almighty. Dear reader, all that I have said so far makes me dare to say, the book you are going to read is a book of “goodness.”

Translated from the foreword by Vitaliy Ivanovich Sheremet, for the Russian edition of the book.

Dr. Vitaliy Sheremet is a professor at the Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. 

The foreword, written by M. Fethullah Gulen, provides a good summary of the main ideas in the book. Both the foreword and the book try to make it clear that while many enjoy the poetry of Rumi, in many cases, the reader does not pay much attention to the source of his poetry, the Qur’an and the teachings of the Prophet of Islam. This is unfortunate and misleading. This book establishes the strong connection between Rumi’s poetry and Rumi’s utmost respect and love for the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad by presenting samples of his poetry. In fact, Rumi says, “I am the soil under the feet of Muhammad.”

The book contains numerous anecdotes, some with references, which shed light on aspects of Rumi’s colorful personality. In the narration of his life, the book provides some interesting details. It is suggested in the book that the death of Shams, in whose persona Rumi first found the light of the Beloved, might have had something to do with the fact that Rumi did not have a close relationship with his eldest son. Another important person in Rumi’s life was his father, Baha al-Din Valad. Rumi’s father was a prominent Islamic scholar, while his son, Rumi, was anything but a scholar. As I read the book I came to an understanding that after the death of his father, Rumi started searching for a path for himself. But the path he chose for himself was not the path of his father. In fact, Rumi had distaste for the sort of encyclopedic knowledge of God that his father had pursued. Rumi longed for an ever-present and imminent experience of God. “The knowledge of the heart is not learnt from books” is how the author expresses it, while Rumi states, “Love shies away from the light of reason.”

Mr. Can, after presenting Rumi’s biography with many colorful and insightful anecdotes, continues with his presentation of Rumi’s views on some important subjects in the second half of the book, such as unity and union with God, love, salvation, beauty, women, poetry, free will, and reincarnation. While making his case, the author draws on numerous examples from Rumi’s poetry. The author’s aim, as he himself confesses, is not to make an objective criticism of Rumi’s views. This is why some of his comments may at times seem to be excessive. Contrary to being a weak point, I think the author’s unquestioned devotion to Rumi makes the book warm, bringing Rumi ever closer to the reader.

Another very valuable contribution of the book is in the cross-references between Plato and Rumi, and Iqbal and Rumi. The author’s wide background is a tremendous help to the reader in finding the common thread and the differences between Rumi and the philosophers of the West and the East. “Rumi: A Mevlevi Sufi Perspective” is not a book that is exclusively concerned with Rumi’s life and views; it actually can also be seen to be a book on Sufism from Rumi’s perspective as well.

Sefik Can’s book, “Rumi: A Mevlevi Perspective” fills a significant gap in the literature on Rumi. The book does an excellent job of collecting a specific composition of roses from the rose garden of Rumi. After reading the book, the reader wishes to learn Persian in order to listen to Rumi and to be able to collect their own samples from that beautiful garden. This book is a must for anyone who desires to have a thorough, heartfelt introduction to the beloved Rumi.