Although suffering always takes on the same form, dervishes experience it differently according to their capacities and their powers of resistance. Some are almost completely freed from corporeality and worldliness, and are content with extremely little to meet the essentials of life, spending all their time in worship, thinking and mentioning God. Some others try to live consciously every hour, minute and second, letting no part of life pass without an effort to attain His nearness. Hours pass, weeks follow one upon another, and hunger, thirst and other hardships continue, without any sign of ending, but a dervish who has been accustomed to suffering as a way of life never desires the periods of suffering to come to an end. However, when the first period of forty days ends, the guide investigates to see at what stage the dervish is. The guide looks into the heart of the individual or reflects upon any dreams or visions reported. If the dervish has reached the point of being able to lead a life at the level of the heart and spirit, the guide will then put an end to the period of suffering with certain ceremonies. But it is always possible that new periods will be assigned if the guide considers that the dervish still needs more suffering in order to complete the spiritual purification.

In addition to the Mawlawis—followers of the Sufi order attributed to Mawlana Jalalu’d-Din Rumi—Persians, Azerbaijanis and even some Baktashis—followers of a Turkish mystical order—have ceremonies of their own for suffering. To whatever spiritual order or way a dervish belongs, the purpose of suffering is that travelers to God should purify themselves, discover their inner world and advance toward new horizons through the steps that are to be taken during the spiritual journey, leading a life at the level of the heart and then deepening through their other innermost faculties, such as “the secret” and “the private,” and “the more private,” observing their relations with and duties to the guide, perceiving the significance of obedience to orders, and endowing their spirit with humility and a feeling of nothingness, sincerely adopting the principle of being a simple human being among the people. This is what the guides, who teach dervishes suffering, and the dervishes who suffer, are seeking and what they expect from suffering. The final goal is to become true, perfect human beings.

However, it is not inevitable that one must suffer a certain period in order to attain what is expected from suffering. It is possible to obtain the expected result by abstention from doubtful things, not only the forbidden ones, being content with the pleasures inherent in the lawful sphere under the supervision of a guide who has truly succeeded God’s Messenger, upon him be pace and blessings, and who has achieved the degree of great sainthood, by the acknowledgment of one’s innate poverty and helplessness before God, by thankfulness to Him, by zeal in serving His cause, and by exceptional piety, abstinence, and sincerity. What is absolutely essential in this way is that we should not approach the forbidden things, we should be careful about doubtful things, and we should benefit from the lawful only to the extent of what is necessary.

For those who succeed the Prophets, suffering is, rather than going into retreat to be busy with worship and the recitation of God’s Names, and the abandonment of an easy life for the sake of torment, the pursuit only of God’s good pleasure and approval, always being aware of God’s company even while among people, arousing in hearts zeal for worshipping God with sincere Islamic thoughts, feelings and attitudes, representing Islam in daily life in the best way possible, stirring up Islamic feelings in others, and by developing in others the desire to believe. This is the way of the Companions.

Suffering in this sense becomes, beyond our own spiritual progress, the dedication of our lives to the happiness of others in both worlds and living for others. In other words, we should seek our spiritual progress in the happiness of others. This is the most advisable and the best approved kind of suffering: that is, we die and are revived a few times a day for the guidance and happiness of others, we feel any fire raging in another heart also in our own heart, and we feel the suffering of all people in our spirits. In response to selfish considerations, such as “One who has not suffered does not know what suffering is,” we groan with the afflictions and pains which others in our immediate and distant surroundings endure.

Actively expecting (exerting the necessary efforts for) the subsidence of the storms of denial and heresy is a great suffering, while enduring with humility and grace life among rude and ignorant people in order to enlighten them both mentally and spiritually is double suffering. The struggle with the cruel people who take belief in and submission to God as a sport and who reject Islamic values is suffering upon suffering. Finally, in an atmosphere where all the causes of suffering already mentioned exist, and where friends are unfaithful, where time and conditions are pitiless, where troubles are numerous, where cures are extremely scant, where enemies are powerful, and where the wheel of events turn in the opposite direction, to always breathe in the atmosphere of the Ultimate Truth while having to live every moment of life as if sipping poison is the greatest of sufferings. All of this will help travelers to God to reach the final point in a very short time.

Those who suffered the most in this sense are the Prophets, and on their right and left are the pure, verifying scholars who succeed them and the saints. The hadith, Those who are subjected to the greatest afflictions and suffering are the Prophets, and then come others (according to the depth of their belief) [1] indicates this fact and reminds us that the intensity of suffering is directly proportional to the resistance of the sufferer.

There are few who really suffer in the sense that has been discussed here. It is not genuine suffering that people are subjected to in daily life. Those who really suffer feel suffering and bear it in their private worlds. It cannot be shared by others. Prophet Joseph, upon him be peace, whose suffering began when he was cast into a well, experienced suffering doubly in a foreign county when he was sold as a slave and thrown into jail, and left among a people who had a different culture and language, and who did not sympathize with him. The suffering he experienced purified and perfected him in the name of his mission as a Messenger; and God made him nearer to Him. Prophet Adam, upon him be peace, bore his suffering with tears, and Noah, upon him be peace, had to breast terrible disasters and destruction, while Abraham, upon him be peace, whom God took to Himself as an intimate friend, always had to travel in rings of fire. Prophet Moses, upon him be peace, whom God addressed directly, struggled fiercely against the rebellion of brute force. Jesus, upon him be peace, a pure spirit from God, called people to God under the fatal shadows of the gallows. And finally, the master of creation, upon him be peace and blessings, suffered all that the other Prophets and Messengers suffered. He wept tears, groaned and burnt inwardly for the salvation and happiness of others, but without displaying any sign of suffering.

Hundreds of sufferers from the first day of human history have tasted the pleasure of suffering for the salvation and happiness of others in both worlds in utmost submission to God and have been wholly dedicated to the life of others, without ever considering that they have been made to experience the greatest of sufferings. More than this, they have welcomed such suffering and have been intoxicated with the pleasure thus received.

Suffering of thought is also another great suffering. Thinking, leading others to think, setting themselves to solve the severest problems and world-heavy enigmas, including that of existence, is a form of suffering. Without yielding, making  compositions and syntheses from the thought under the guidance of the Divine Revelation and presenting pure extracts produced from these compositions and syntheses to “hungry” and “thirsty” hearts and minds: this is the suffering in which the heroes of suffering, who are as sincere as angels and who have followed the Messengers, have found an antidote for poison in the poison itself, peace and coolness in the fire, having experienced such with the greatest pleasure. Such people are fortunate that there is no end to their periods of suffering; they cannot be pleased with the idea that such suffering is bound to come to an end. If you attempt to take them out of gardens of suffering, you will not be able to do so; if you were able to do so, you would extinguish their fire and leave them to die.

It is this suffering which is the purest source that feeds the spirit of a true dervish, and which is the most powerful means for travelers to the Ultimate Truth to reach eternality.

Our Lord! In You we trust, and to You we turn in contrition, and to You is our homecoming. Our Lord! Pour out upon us patience, and set our feet firm, and help us to victory over the unbelievers. And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad, the leader of those nearest and most lovable to You, and on his Family and Companions, patient and faithful.

Notes

• at-Tirmidhi, “Zuhd,” 57; Ibn Maja, “Fitan,” 23.

Nobody wants it, but it looks like “suffering” is one powerful source of impetus for us to move forward and faster. Many readers might have seen the test in which two balls are being dropped on an inclined plane with two ramps, one straight and shorter, the other with dips and hills and longer, though both starting and ending at the same spots, to see which one reaches the end faster. Many think the one on the straight ramp would reach faster, for the ramp is shorter and there is no hill to slow down the ball. However, it is the other one that goes faster: the uphill slopes also go on a downhill ride, which help the ball accelerate even more. Life is never a straight plane, and The Fountain 148 is offering some perspectives on how the bumps on our path can actually help us grow exponentially – we may just need a little push from behind.

In “Dreams Are Fragile,” Mustafa Ridvan tells us about suffering at a societal level by sharing his own college experience. As is the case for millions of other students around the world college is a bumpy road. Thanks to that little push from charitable funds and of course his perseverance in the face of many difficulties like studying away from home, language barrier, desperately looking for a position, and uncertainties, he was able to complete his studies in medicine and now is working to give back.

At a micro level, human life starts with the suffering of a sperm desperately rushing to reach the ovum. In “A Journey of the Mind in the Mother’s Womb,” Fatmanur Kilic explains how an amazing this journey is when we reflect upon it with its both visible and invisible dimensions. As the sperm unites with the egg, both forsake their existence to become something completely new: an embryo that will grow in the womb, as the mother will have to deal with many transformations in her body. Despite many sufferings she will go through, the connection with the new life forming in her is a priceless experience which makes all the dips along the way worthwhile.

At a spiritual level, suffering is best told by Yunus Emre, a Turkish poet from thirteenth century, in his poem, The Troubled Watermill. Serdar Kilic explains how Emre interprets the constant squeaking of the wheel of this watermill as the inner groanings of creation. For Emre, these squeaks are murmurs of remembering the Divine – as the wheel turns and groans, it actually voices the inner pain of separation from the Beloved. Similar to Rumi’s reed flute, Emre uses the watermill as the metaphor for the human condition in this worldly life.

Denoting abandonment of all (worldly) pleasures and delights, and the affliction and hardship one bears when overcoming corporeality, chila (suffering) is used to express an initiate’s spending at least forty days in strict austerity and self-discipline in the name of spiritual training. During this period, initiates keep to the absolute bare minimum in meeting such bodily needs as eating, drinking, sleeping and speaking, and spend most of their time in worshipping, mentioning God, thinking and self-supervision. As if they had died before dying, they concentrate on death and are annihilated with respect to their carnal soul and prepares for a new, spiritual life with the necessary endowment to be persons devoted to God.

Dervishes spend the period of suffering either in a silent corner of a dervish lodge or in a quiet room in their homes. Associated with austerity and even serving to fulfill some of its functions, suffering is an attempt to gain nearness to God or an active expectation of meeting with Him in the spirit. The original word used, chila in Persian and arba‘in in Arabic, means forty, because such a period lasts at least for forty days, although it may last for many more days or even months or years. It may even occur that the dervish feels obliged to suffer the whole life long in order to surmount the animal aspect of his or her nature. Regarding all hardships that they suffer on God’s way as His precious gifts, they like life more as its griefs and hardships increase, and they welcome afflictions in the delight of living a conscious, deeply felt life. Some people of the heart consider such sufferings and afflictions as Divine favors presented in those forms, and desire more. Fuduli expresses his thoughts in this respect in the voice of Majnun as follows:

Never reduce Your grace on people of affliction;
that is, make me addicted to more and more misfortunes.

Jalalu’d-Din Rumi likens suffering and afflictions to a guest knocking on our door every morning and stresses that the dear guest should be welcomed and entertained:

Every moment a grief comes upon your heart like a dear guest.
When an emissary of grief visits you, welcome it as a friend.
In fact, it is not a stranger to you, for
you and it are acquainted.

Ibrahim Haqqi voices the same thoughts, dressing them in the style of his age:

If grief and melancholy come upon your heart,
suffer it and know that it is acquainted with you.
If anything occurs to you from the Ultimate Truth,
accept it with warm welcome.
Sorrow is a guest, entertain it, so that
God may find you welcoming every misfortune.
….
Hold not back from affliction so as not to become unmanly;
Many people relying on God are happy with affliction.

For Esrefoglu Rumi [1], even poison is like honey or sugar:

Esrefoglu Rumi, this is what behooves
those who love the Beloved,
They should swallow poison
as if it were sugar for the sake of the Friend.

In this way, it is essential to be very welcoming toward afflictions, and to welcome with the same contentment whatever comes from God—good or bad, happiness or suffering. Moreover, there are some other principles which dervishes should observe during certain periods of suffering that they spend in retreat.

Suffering, which usually lasts for forty or a few forty days, is the most direct way for travelers to God who are in pursuit of lofty ideals to purify their minds and hearts and to deepen in thought and feelings in consideration of the world beyond, and to rise to the level of life in the horizon of the heart and spirit where they will share the same aura with spiritual beings. Suffering exists in all the heavenly or unheavenly religions and religion-like spiritual systems; it is necessary in order to discover the innate power of the spirit. But here we will not discuss that aspect of it, which rather concerns mystical movements and parapsychology.

Muslim Sufis base their consideration of suffering on the forty days which Prophet Moses spent on Mount Sinai before being addressed by God (see, the Qur’an, 2:51; 7:142). They also refer to the forty years the Children of Israel had to spend in the desert of Sinai as a punishment for their refraining from fighting and as a preparation for their future life. In Christianity, there is the time of Lent (a period of forty days before Easter), which shows that suffering is common to almost all religions and religion-like systems. Furthermore, even if it only lasts at most for ten days, retreat into a mosque without going out during the last ten days of Ramadan for the purpose of more devotion can also be considered as having some relation with suffering.

In the Muslim, Christian and Jewish worlds, and in different schools of thought in Islam, there have always been retreat and seclusion for the purpose of spiritual refinement and training. While such refinement and training have been performed in special rooms of retreat and seclusion, called houses of suffering, followers of other religions have performed the same in the seclusion of their places of worship.

Dervishes are taken into a retreat or a house of suffering by their spiritual guide. There they live alone, eating, sleeping, and speaking little, and spending most of their time in worship. They hold themselves under strict control and self-supervision, continuously breathing life into the heart, and traveling in the mind between their inner world and the outer world. Wholly dedicated to attaining a purely spiritual life, they try to feel the Lord with all their being and to see beyond the door half-opened on the heart. Endeavoring to discern and attain unity, they fear missing any signs of the Divine manifestations that may dawn on the hills of the heart. They express the limits of their capacity and the insufficiency of their willpower with sighs of poverty and helplessness, and become more hopeful with their reliance on the limitless Power of the Ultimate Truth. When left with no means at all, they expect to be surprised by the opening of a door, and unburden themselves to their Lord, Who sees everything, in the manner of a poor beggar, saying like Muhammed Lutfi Efendi:

Be kind to me, O my Sovereign,
do not abandon favoring the needy and destitute!
Does it befit the All-Kind and Munificent to stop favoring His slaves?

As long as they grow in knowledge and love of God, they deepen in relationship with the Lord, and devote themselves wholly to feeling and thinking of the Divine. Keeping the satisfaction of their essential needs to the barest minimum, and overcoming their corporeality, they become confidants of heavenly beings in their states, attributes and being, and begin to breathe the breezes of friendship with the Sovereign. (to be continued in the next issue)

Note

1. Esrefoglu Abdullah Rumi (d. 1484) was a Sufi scholar and poet who lived in Iznik in the North-Western Turkey. He was taught by Haji Bayram Veli in Ankara and Husayn Hamawi in Hama, Syria. His Muzakki’n-Nufus (“The Book Which Purifies Souls”) is very famous. (Tr.)

For many people, especially in today’s world, it is very hard to reconcile the personal, sometimes seemingly intolerable, suffering of admirable and pious people with Divine justice and love. Believers of all religions face this challenge. There are many answers offered from karma to reincarnation.

Muslims and Jews have traditionally given the same answers with some variation. This is to be expected since both Jews and Muslims share the same belief in God’s oneness, goodness, and justice; and both Jews and Muslims reject the doctrines of “bad luck,” inheriting sins from previous lives, or one being guilty for the “original sin.”

The Qur’an tells us that just because you become, or already are, a believer does not mean that you will be exempt from personal suffering. “Do men think that they will be left alone on saying ‘We believe’ and that they will not be tested?” (29:2) It is additionally stated that: “Ye shall certainly be tried and tested in your possessions; and in your personal selves.” (3:186)

We will be tested by fear of, and hunger for, the loss of material goods, loved ones’ lives, and the failure of our efforts to bear fruit. Yet if we patiently persevere then all will be well: “Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods, or lives, or the fruits (of your toil); but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere” (2:155).

The glad tidings might come from a reversal in your bad fortune in this world, as happened to Prophet Job, or in your life in the world to come.

Traditional Jewish sages and rabbis would have agreed with all of the already quoted verses in the Qur’an as well as the following Ahadith, or reported sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad: “Anyone for whom Allah intends good, He makes him suffer from some affliction” (Bukhari) and “When Allah intends good for His slave, He punishes him in this world, but when He intends an evil for His slave, He does not quickly take him to task, but calls him to account on the Day of Resurrection” (Tirmidhi).

Most importantly, God never puts any burden on a soul that is beyond its ability to bear. “No burden do We place on any soul but that which it can bear” (6:152) and “Those who believe and do good – We do not impose upon any of them a burden beyond their capacity” (7:42).  

The rabbis were in full accord with these statements. They extended them even further to conclude that believers who were afflicted with severe calamities should take comfort that those who have a strong faith are given harder trials.

So too when Prophet Muhammad was asked about who suffers the greatest afflictions he replied, “The prophets, then those who come next to them, then those who come next to them. A man is afflicted in keeping his religion. If his religion is firm, his trial is severe; but if there is weakness in his religion, it is made light for him, and it continues like that until he walks on the earth without sin” (Tirmidhi).

If this seems very unjust and unfair, remember that “The magnitude of the reward goes along with the magnitude of the affliction” (Tirmidhi). Thus, “The believing man or woman may continue to have affliction in their person, property, and children so that they may finally meet God free from sin (Tirmidhi).

It is probably easier to understand this philosophy of life if it is first expressed in terms of the suffering that comes from human love. To love another person is to expose your heart to heartache. If it is worthwhile to love another human, how much more so is it desirable to love God who desires our love.

The Torah declares, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) and “What does the Lord your God require of you, but to revere the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12).

This can be illustrated by the following parable (Martin Buber was a famous 20th century Jewish philosopher):

One day a young man stood in a town square proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and all admired his heart, for it was perfect. There was not a single mark or flaw in it.

Yes, they agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. It was an ideal heart. As beautiful as a Greek stature of an ideal youth. The young man said that his perfect, beautiful heart, was due to his philosophy of following a path of self-realization, calmness, and detachment.

Then a Rabbi named after Martin Buber appeared at the front of the crowd and said, “Why, your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”

The crowd and the young man looked at the Rabbi’s heart. It was beating strongly, but it was full of scars. It had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn’t fit quite right and there were several jagged edges.

In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared. How could Martin Buber say his heart was more beautiful than the heart of the ideal youth?

The young man looked at the older man’s heart and laughed. “You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine; mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”

“Yes,” said Rabbi Buber, “Yours is a perfect, heartache free heart, but I would never trade my heart for yours. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love. I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to people, and often they give me a piece of their heart, which fits into an empty place in my heart. But because the pieces aren’t exactly equal, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared.”

Rabbi Buber then said, “Sometimes I give pieces of my heart away, and the other person doesn’t return a piece of his or her heart to me. These are the empty gouges… giving love is taking a chance. And then there are places where my heart is broken, reminding me of the love I have had, and lost. I say the Kaddish prayer for remembering those who have died, in order to praise God for the pains of living a life of loving and caring; for it is better to love and lose than to be detached and never to love at all.”

The young man stood silently, with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the older man, reached into his own perfect, young and beautiful heart and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The Rabbi took the young man’s offering, placed it in his heart, and then took a piece from his old, scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges.

The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore, but more beautiful than ever, since love from Rabbi Buber’s heart now flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.

I didn’t know what to expect when we landed in Athens. I knew we were going to be meeting with refugees and hearing their stories, but I did not expect what I saw and heard. For one thing, I may have expected a strong narrative of unbearable suffering that ran through every one of these meetings. A narrative of victimhood and helplessness. A narrative which wanted so badly to be heard and listened to so that it could expose its most tragic and historic aspects to create greater awareness and anger for it. I may have expected helpless, uncontrollable tears rolling down my cheeks in response to harrowing tales of torture, imprisonment, of separation – mother from child, husband from wife, brother from sister.

What happened, instead, has left me incredibly perplexed. I heard the harrowing tales of torture, imprisonment, separation, familial betrayal, the difficulties of escaping a brutal crackdown, and of near-death situations. But an almost unexplainable sense of calm ran through these people as they told their stories. A calm motivated by faith and the belief that God is with the Hizmet, or “service,” Movement and has already manifested His mercy by preserving the movement despite these hardships. These atrocities did not destroy the Movement or break its spirit; they look more united than ever.

The narrative that believers suffer at the hands of unjust oppressors, as many prophets did under the tyranny of various pharaohs, is all too common in the Abrahamic texts. But it is an entirely different experience to physically see and talk with someone who has gone through these kinds of traumatic experiences, who is still in the thick of trying to find a home for themselves and their family, to be able to tell their story while showing the utmost reliance on God’s plan. They were also weary of putting their experiences in the context of other refugees, as they understood that others suffered even more.

I believe that their reliance upon God, and their calm approach to faith in the midst of such turmoil, is real. And the reality is clear for all of us to see and hear. Reading about their stories through an article such as this one, or even hearing them speak on the news, pales in comparison to actually being with them during their greatest hour of need. I feel that my mind is not the same as before. I am not claiming that the refugees, the heroes who were persecuted and driven from their homes for crimes they never committed, are completely okay with their situation. What I am pointing out is that, even in the midst of their losses and suffering, they thank God and are not hopeless.

The hospitality with which they welcome guests is astonishing. Considering the fact that they were refugees, they still took the time to host us and make us feel attended to.

Shaken by trauma, the brothers we spoke to find assurance by making dark jokes about their time in prison, or the difficulties they experienced while crossing over to Greece and other countries. Hours were spent strategizing ways to escape Turkey and flee to other countries or to reunite with family members that had already escaped. Their hopes hinged on the kindness of border police and passport patrol. There was rarely enough time to grieve about a father who might still be suffering in prison, or think about those in prison that were without medical attention, or the difficulty of having to share a single toilet among 50 people at a time. There was rarely enough time to grieve about the discrimination that they endured at the hands of their cruel jailors, who tortured and beat many of them until they went blind. I almost felt ashamed that I did not cry in front of them, however I did not feel that it would be respectful to show my pain in front of them when their suffering had outmatched mine so much more. So I sat there, listening quietly, waiting for their words to unfold into long complicated stories of imprisonment, release, escape, survival (or drowning to death), landing in Greece (or being caught), staying in a refugee camp, and then ending up with fellow refugees from Turkey.

The lessons that this experience taught me are too stark to ignore. It showed me that Hizmet is a movement that brings power into question. Every effort is made to mitigate whatever suffering and loss might come from the jihad of speaking out against injustice. But when it strikes, the experiences of those that are suffering, and have suffered, as a result of doing what is good remind us once again that to be comfortable, and to put all of our eggs in one basket, is not the way to live. We should not just strive to be productive people, and the best citizens we can be, even though this is incredibly important. We should also work within the social sphere to make active change to the way people think, and to the ways in which people oppress themselves and other people. And we must be prepared, as opposed to being scared, for a time in which we might need to make drastic changes to our lives. We might even be forced to do so. To work towards active change does not fit comfortably with people who are happy with oppression. As the common maxim goes, “silence is violence.”

Being as comfortable and privileged as we are in the United Kingdom, we need to remember that, even here, people are suffering. We must stand up for them.

I am still shocked that I had the honor of hearing these most intimate stories. I am also honored that Allah has given me the chance to see what real faith looks like. I say to myself that, if I cry, it should not just be because their suffering is too much to bear (not to say that we should not cry at all about this). But it should be because I have a long way to go to meet their level of faith and commitment to Hizmet and their service to humanity.

In fact, such a journey is not specific to humanity: all creatures come into being in order to go through a difficult journey according to their level. And then they keep flowing into different molds and undergoing constant transformations until they reach their own identity; sometimes, they even transform into a second existence. They do this through pain, suffering, death, and resurrection, a few times in every moment.

Water cannot vaporize and attain purity without the challenge of the heat; a seed cannot sprout and rise to a higher life form without cracking and decomposing. Rivers cascade down and hit rocks to become as pure as the raindrops of a cloud. Spring does not come without winter. Even if it did, it would not be appreciated. Gold owes its value and brightness, and steel owes its hardness and durability, to the melting pots they were formed in. A bone dry land revives and serves as a bed for thousands of flowers in proportion to the amount of lightning flashing over it. Darkness cocoons light in its bosom, to its own disadvantage. Winter always weaves its canvas for the benefit of spring. Hence, a spring follows every winter, and a day follows every night. Deaths are for resurrection, and sufferings are for attaining a more beautiful life. By dying and resurrecting thousands of times throughout their lives, individuals are freed from the dark and deceiving pressures of the “ego” and reach eternity in their soul. A community ripens, matures, and attains immortality through the sufferings it undergoes and by clawing its way against the troubles it faces.

What a pleasure it is to die and resurrect time and again in order to attain eternal existence! How enjoyable it is to consider every blow a warning, telling us to come to our senses! What a great heroism it is to maintain hope and embrace the future in the face of so many misfortunes! Those who live their lives with faith and consciousness fly away through this journey of tribulations with wings of hope, under the bright light of their thoughts, through this land of trials and its seas of pus and blood. They are aware that they have come here to be distilled and purified. And they know that they can be skinned like the great Sufi Nesimi (d. 1417) or executed like Mansur (d. 922). Since they welcome both divine wrath and grace, and since they see the cure within the affliction, they watch what befalls them with pleasure and admiration, and they never panic. Every new misfortune becomes a plectrum, sounding out different tunes in their hearts and invigorating them with fresh excitements. For them, sufferings are no different than snowstorms on high mountaintops. They are nothing unusual. We can even say that living without suffering at all becomes an irresistible torment for them; it would mean their death. This is particularly true if their people are suffering and their values are being destroyed!

The most glorious servants of God did not spend a moment without suffering with such concerns. The same can be said for those who guided their nations to light: Imam Abu Hanifa (d. 767), one of the immortal guides of humanity with his fresh ideas and well-placed comments, was subjected to a raw deal and thrown into prison; he endured a life of suffering. Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) was mistreated like a worthless person and underwent the meanest tortures – and this lasted for years! Sarahsi (d. 1096) wrote his masterpiece Al-Mabsut in the bottom of the well in which he was imprisoned. And there were many more who suffered …

As those mature souls were subjected to tortures, as if they were being squeezed in presses, their blessed heads reached the realms beyond the heavens, and they became infinite sources of light with their enlightened hearts on the path to the revival of their people. People like Campanella (d. 1639), Cervantes (d. 1616), and Dostoyevsky (d. 1881) discovered themselves in captivity and reached immortality in the hearts of their people.

Everybody who bears the thought of serving humanity must know that the duty is sacred; the journey is long; the roads are steep; and different evils await them on this road. At every corner they will face death. They will be insulted, as if they were contemptible criminals, and most of the time they will be deprived of their right to live like human beings. They should be dedicated to this blessed cause with such awareness. Otherwise, some immature and heedless souls might change their course and direction due to petty hardships and deprivations.

O, you lazy soul! You expect it to rain without any thunder; you expect greenery without any seeds being cracked and no grains being sacrificed! You expect mothers to deliver babies, but without any labor pains! Namely, you expect the general course of divine destiny and order, in spite of its splendid wisdom, to be shaped according to your personal considerations. No! You have not come to this world for fun, for living according to your fancies and fantasies. You have come for the sake of realizing your inherent human potentials and cultivating the exalted qualities in your essence, for the sake of your inner enlightenment. So that you may become a mirror to reflect the divine, you will be put into melting pots many times over and burned in fire; you will be pushed through barrels of needles and undergo many trials!

These are the rules of the way, and the rest is futile and deceptive!

“Do not, then, be faint of heart, nor grieve,
For you are always the superior side if you are (true) believers.”

Here is the reviving breath to cure hearts!

O heart! You and your suffering for Him exist; ah, how nice it is always to be concerned with Him and suffering for Him! That suffering is, in fact, your cure.
O you who are seeking the world; you are like a day laborer in this world;
and you, lover of Paradise, are also far distant from truth.
O you, who are unaware of the truth and pleased with the two worlds,
You are excused, for you have not felt
the pleasure of suffering for the Beloved’s sake. (Rumi)

How does suffering become a cure or a pleasure? Just like hot peppers do. Why do we consume hot peppers, even though they are painful to eat? In his article, Ali Fethi Toprak explains that experts think hot peppers “are good for our health by lowering blood pressure, having antimicrobial effects, and increasing salivation thus making a boring diet fun.” Kocabas also suggests that, according to some studies, the capsaicin present in hot peppers could be used as a pain suppressor.

Also in this issue, Katharine Branning explains that researchers have discovered a link between the heavy consumption of isot pepper and the very low cancer rates in southeast Turkey. The “research has provided conclusive evidence that isot pepper does indeed possess substantial anti-cancer properties.” In Branning’s piece, the very hot isot pepper does not only help cure cancer, but is also an emblem of dialogue, friendship, and mercy, stretching across cultures and religions.

In her heartbreaking memoir, Magdalena Rusanova tells us about her father, who she lost when she was a child. As we read along, we trace each and every threshold she needed to surpass in her life as she grew into adolescence, developed relationships with others, and faced important choices. Even though her father’s memory faded as the years passed, and despite her pain, there was one significant piece of advice he had given her, which happened to guide her all her life. Choosing the right guide is necessary for an unwavering walk in our lives, as Niyazi-i Misri says,

Let not any guide lead you, for he may make it
too difficult to proceed;
It is very easy for one whose guide is perfect
to advance along this path.
The right guide can even help us discover the pleasure in pain.

Life is indeed full of contrasts and surprises.

Something that is no more a surprise in our lives but still as scary as it was first discovered is cancer – the disease-whose-name-must-not-be-mentioned, as in the case of Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. “The long illness” or “the bad disease” are some of the other euphemisms for cancer which almost all nations have developed as none of us are really willing to sully our conversations with possible implications that it may bring into our imaginations. For almost every one of us knows someone who has been suffering from it, or we have already lost him or her because of it.

Ali Fethi Toprak in this issue takes matters further with his analogy of cancer as anarchy. What the cancer disease does in our body is, in a sense, no different than what anarchy causes in the society. Just as “anarchy cuts and throws away norms and laws that organize social life, one by one, thus destroying the order and leading to mischief and rebellion, cancer breaks genetic rules that organizes cell proliferation and eliminates pathways that suppress tumor formation. Thus, it eradicates the order and triggers chaos and malignancy. Again, cancer works against the life of the body without considering the rights of other cells,” writes Kocabas in his “Cancer: Cellular Anarchy” article in this issue. He also notes that genetically engineered T cells offer us a medical hope for healing from cancer, and that patients should never give up on prayers and always keep spirits high, which is ultimately the greatest strength in fighting against it.

Overcoming troubles or diseases, or at least standing up honorably in the face of their danger, is perhaps bound with attaining “immortality,” as described in this issue’s lead article. “Souls of immortality” Gülen writes, “never fall into despair… Neither the darkness of menacing nights, nor the multiplicity of accumulated problems can discourage them. Even if they were faced with Noah’s flood, they would walk away from it without a drop touching their feet.” This portrayal is indeed a very high peak to climb, but aren’t we mankind perfectly equipped potentially for this challenge?

Indeed, we as human beings are well equipped and have much to offer the world, both intellectually and technologically, when compared to the past. However despite having the upper hand in the fields of science and technology, our environment is still struggling and suffering due to our negligence. Every year, 14 billion pounds of garbage are dumped into our oceans and as a result, 1 million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are being killed. Erhan Yenilmez gives insight into the current state of affairs and how we can work together to protect our environment.

“In heaven all is gladness. In hell all is sorrow. Upon this earth, since it lies between, sometimes the one, and sometimes the other. We have our being between the two extremes, and so it partakes of both.” -Baltasar Gracian

I.

At some time in our lives, if we are mildly introspective and equally as observant, the incessant obviousness of life’s modus operandi is unmasked: That life, in essence, operates not as a utopia would, but as a dystopia, wherein woe is inextricably conjoined to its antithesis-felicity. Following this observation, many of us may find ourselves pondering over that timeless question which feigns simplicity: Why do bad things happen to good people? A vast myriad of philosophers have attempted-with little more than modest triumph at best-to make sense of this seemingly cruel paradox. Whether you are one of those who contemplate the visitation of woe upon yourself, or upon the good people you know, is only half of the task; at some point, woe shall manifest itself in our lives and in those of our loved ones. The other half of the task, then, involves acceptance and coping with it.

People of faith and without faith alike find themselves habitually treading on common ground, and they wonder: Is nature inherently our own worst enemy? Is God deliberately targeting us with misfortune for having transgressed? In a word, no; but eminent men and women have speculated. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that “Nature is no sentimentalist,-does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.” Natural laws operate indiscriminately; history has provided endless examples of this, where both the bad and the good perish from disease, natural disasters, or by fang and claw. Not even the intensely pious and god-fearing are exempt from suffering; one only need consult the story of Job in the Bible-and other holy scriptures-to see this. The Prophet Job, a man who was “blameless and upright, who feared God, and turned away from evil,” suffered legendary misfortune, yet did not curse God, nor did he give in to his plight, but accepted it, saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” To say that God and/or Nature contrive, through duplicity, for the good people of this world to taste the suffering which should, as some perceive it, be reserved for the wicked, is positively absurd. What must be kept in mind is the fact that this is not Heaven, and that laws of nature do not discriminate-they simply act.

Menander, an ancient Grecian dramatist, gave prima facie advice on how to avoid woe: “If you want to live your whole life free from pain you must either become a god or else a corpse. Consider other men’s troubles and that will comfort you.” Also, consider the words of stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius: “Nature gives and nature takes away. Anyone with sense and humility will tell her, ‘Give and take as you please,’ not out of defiance, but out of obedience and goodwill.” The sooner we accept our humble stations in life, and the sooner we realize that neither nature nor God owes us a life of pleasantries and unending bliss, we can conclude that it is not an applicable question of “why bad things happen to good people”, but a question of “what can I do to live the best amidst misfortune, and how can I assuage my fellows in times of their misfortune?” Misfortune, as the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote, is not “….exceptional; but misfortune, in general, is the rule.” By helping our fellow man, and by not giving in to woe, we can try breaking that rule.

II.

In this dystopia, there is no possible way to traverse along without encountering an unpleasant incident; ironically, however, it is often those very incidences that shape us into exceptional human beings. Nietzsche’s perspicacious adage of “what does not kill us makes us stronger,” should be the byword of humanity and our heroic equanimity when it comes to enduring misfortune. Reflect on how many myriads of good people have suffered and have turned that suffering in on itself, only to rise above, changing themselves-or the societies they live in-into more benevolent mechanisms. Reflect on how many good people have perished in wars, subsequently gaining liberty, or bettering their fellows’ lives by extirpating oppression; reflect on the good people who have endured sickness; and though possibly succumbing, lent us their strength, their hope; and reflect on the good people in your life today, on their misfortunes, and how you, as a good person, may become a better one by assuaging their suffering. Remember that both good and bad people are equal prey, and woe does not differentiate.

My own personal experience with misfortune will hopefully illustrate the point I mentioned above, about how unfortunate incidences can shape us into better people; therefore misfortune, at times, will not always deserve the appellation “bad” but can merit that of “good.”

Close to a decade ago I suffered an injury that forever deprived me of the use of about eighty percent of my body; as a result, I am confined to a wheelchair. The caustic arrow of misfortune that struck me seemed like an exceedingly pitiless one-especially considering the fact that I was only twenty years old, strong, and capable of almost anything. Abruptly I became paralyzed from the middle of my chest down, the arrow of misfortune leaving me with the scar of incomplete quadriplegia. Questions to ask: Was I a good person before woe’s arrow struck me? Good enough. Am I a better person now? Absolutely. Whether it was divine intervention, or the desultory act of nature instigated by my actions, rapidly began to matter little. And as I lay in the hospital, the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe echoed within my mind: “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” The tide did turn, and my dreadful situation turned into an auspicious new beginning.

Within most of us, there is a better person imprisoned behind the guise of a bad or indifferent one; moreover, for myself, “why a bad thing happened to a good person” was and is not applicable, because I’ve chosen it not to be applicable, simply by the recognition that what could be interpreted as bad was really a good thing disguised as a bad thing, and it changed my life for the better. By believing a misfortunate event in one’s life to be bad, and by agonizing over it unremittingly, we exacerbate the “badness” of it; we unwittingly inundate ourselves with negativity, thereby breeding fresh misfortune; we lament on how much of a good person we were, forgetting that we still can be; and finally, we wrongfully cast maledictions upon God, the world, or the people closest to us. If we accept the misfortune, if we accept the injury, and if we accept the pain-knowing that it will soon regress and dissipate-the quicker we can begin to heal and return to our life’s path.

Thoughts to keep in mind: The misfortune and woe that manifests within our lives will certainly vary in degree; not all of us who are brought low will ever rise up again. Undoubtedly some will perish, and fate-that unstable force impervious to all attempts to be controlled-will operate according to her own dictates, even as the tears of humankind wash over her like waves on a lonely sea…

III.

Long ago, Sophocles said of fate: “Dreadful is the mysterious power of fate-there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by towered city, or dark, sea-beaten ships.” Indeed, fate can be as odious as it can be charitable, analogous to time. The domineering trait ascribed to fate is its immutability. Should fate meddle in an adverse fashion against a magnanimous person (why bad things happen to good people), it may be denounced as a person’s bad luck-or as something opprobrious and unfair. But is it that simplistic? Human beings have a domineering trait of their own-imprudence. A hypothesis not heretofore mentioned is one in which good people are responsible for succumbing to adverse turns of fate based on their own imprudent actions and inactions. The vicissitudes of fortune, then, should not always come as a surprise-nor as something inexorable.

For a moment, let us suppose a person leads his or her life as the absolute paragon of goodness. He/she is charitable, pleasant, humble, and ethical when meeting out all endeavors; in a word, they are like a saint. Now presume they have an unhealthy diet, smoke profusely, and never exercise-all imprudent choices which carry foreseeable fates. Suddenly they find out at a young age that they are diagnosed with lung cancer, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease; suppose that they soon die. Do we attribute these “bad” things (i.e., sickness and eventual death) as bad things happening to a good person? Should we not, instead, label it as mere folly? Their own choices led to them being struck by the arrow of misfortune, and in this example, fate could possibly have unfolded differently had their life choices been more innocuous. This is not to say we should castigate a person for their life choices. Instead, we should offer advice and encouragement which would lead them to obviate an adverse fate.

Indifference, or inaction, can be just as fatal. Charities, for instance, rely on the actions of empathetic people. Thus, if those people were to become wholly indifferent, and were to stop donating their money or time (inaction), how many more good-yet poor-people would suffer misfortune? By being proactive, as a whole, we can ameliorate the suffering of those whose circumstances are less fortunate, and even if it is a one percent reduction in the sum misery of the human race, it shall have been worth it. By contributions of food, medicine, or funds we can alter a worse fate into a better one: we can prevent the arrows of misfortune from striking, and in so doing, give others opportunity to a life in the midst of less woe. In doing nothing, we allow suffering to breed. Therefore, seemingly bad things will happen to good people-all the more so if we remain in moral stasis. A poem by Emily Dickinson inspires us to act:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

IV.

As avowed earlier in this essay, I attempted to convey why bad things happen to good people, not as a matter of choice by God, who is loving and merciful than any other attribute; nor by nature-in the guise of a nefarious collaborator specifically targeting us-but rather as a consequence of our own choices and the nature of the dystopian structure in which all life, past and present, exists. Misfortune can be overcome by the acceptance of it; thereafter, one can move on without losing stride. Furthermore, as a result of an episode of suffering, we may become better people, and perhaps after we overcome our suffering we can help others through their times of crisis-thereby lessening an adverse turn of fate.

Fate, then, is immutable only to the degree that we allow. By our actions, inactions, and life choices, we contribute to either the sum of misfortune, or to the subtraction of misfortune.

Nothing happens without a purpose, including woe. Yet woe seems to be a sightless archer. Still, if we keep our faith in God, and if we recognize that all anguish and suffering must-and will-come to an end, the arrows of misfortune can do us no harm.

Harold R. Olcese is a history major at Western Connecticut University and will be receiving his B.A. this Fall. He is an accomplished landscape artist and lives in CT. Contact him via email at: harold.r.olcese@hotmail.com.

Another man of letters discussed in this issue is from a neighboring literary nation to that of Aytmatov’s: Dostoyevsky. From his masterpiece Crime and Punishment, Alice Bolton produces a thought-provoking analysis of nineteenth-century “human-centered theories and movements that would be implemented later in the twentieth century.” This piece sheds a bright light on why we continue to have violence at all levels of human existence and how such bloody atrocities, which most of us cannot even stand to hear of, can easily be perpetrated by some people. For those of our readers who would rather focus on the spiritual than the criminal, Bolton’s conclusion offers a comforting solution: “The repair of the human soul is possible only through a return to the Absolute Being.”

Another heart-expanding analysis comes from Mesut Sahin who discusses how we can come to an understanding of suffering in the world that is in agreement with God’s Mercy. He shares with us the glad tidings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who said, “Never is a believer stricken with a discomfort, an illness, an anxiety, a grief or mental worry or even the pricking of a thorn but God will expiate his sins on account of his patience.”