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TheTwenty-Eighth Letter

Updated: Feb 4

 This letter consists of eight matters




The First Matter, which is the First Part

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

If it be that you can interpret dreams.(12:43)


S e c o n d l y : You want me to interpret now the dream you had three years ago three days after meeting me, whose meaning has long since become apparent. That beautiful, happy, and auspicious dream has been consigned to the past, so I’m right to say the following regarding it, am I not?


I am neither the night nor a lover of the night; I am a servant of the Sun; it is of the Sun that I speak. (1)


Those illusions which are the snare of the saints, Are the moon-faced reflections of the garden of God. (2)


Yes, my brother, we have become accustomed to discussing with you teachings concerning pure reality (hakikat), but to study dreams, the doors of which are open to fancy and illusion in order to ascertain reality, is not completely in keeping with our way of researching into and verifying reality. So in connection with that minor incident of sleep, we shall explain six points about the reality of sleep, the small brother of death, (3) according to scholarly principles and from the angle indicated by verses of the Qur’an. In the seventh, we shall offer a brief interpretation of your dream.


The First


Just as an important element of Sura Yusuf is Yusuf’s dream, so the Qur’an indicates with many of its verses, such as:


And We made your sleep for rest(78:9)


that dreams and sleep may hold important, though veiled, truths.


The Second


Verifiers of reality do not favour trusting in the interpretation of dreams and taking of omens through the Qur’an. For the All-Wise Qur’an strikes at the unbelievers frequently and severely, and if such severity is shown towards the person who takes omens, it causes him to despair and confuses his heart. Dreams also, because although they are good they are thought to be evil and sometimes appear to be opposed to reality, may cause a person to fall into despair, destroy his morale, and make him think badly of things. There are many dreams the meanings and interpretations of which are very good although the form they take is terrifying, injurious, or unclean. Not everyone can discover the relation between the form a dream takes and its true meaning, so they become unnecessarily anxious, despairing, and unhappy. It was only because of this aspect of dreams that, like Imam-i Rabbani and the verifiers of reality, I said at the beginning: “I am neither the night nor a lover of the night.”


The Third


An authentic Hadith states that one of the forty parts of prophethood was made manifest in the form of true dreams during sleep, (4) which means that true dreams are both valid and have a connection with the functions of prophethood. This Third Point is both important, and lengthy and profound, and related to prophethood, so I am postponing it to another time and not opening this door for now.


The Fourth


Dreams are of three sorts. (5) Two of them, in the words of the Qur’an, are “A confused medley of dreams”(12:44) and not worth interpreting. If they have any meaning, it is of no importance. Either due to some ailment, the power of imagination mixes things up and depicts them accordingly; or it recalls some stimulating event that happened to the person that day, or previously, or even at the same time a year or two earlier, and it modifies and reproduces it in some other form. These are both “A confused medley of dreams,” and not worth interpreting.


The third sort is true dreams. When the senses that bind man to the Manifest World and roam in it rest and cease their activity, the dominical subtle faculty in man’s make-up forms a direct relation with World of the Unseen and opens up a window onto it. Through the window, it looks on events that are in preparation; it comes face to face with the manifestations of the Preserved Tablet and some samples of the missives of divine determining; it beholds some true occurrences. Sometimes the imagination governs in such dreams, dressing them in the garments of form. There are numerous types and levels of this sort of dream. Sometimes they turn out exactly as dreamed; sometimes they turn out slightly obscured, as though under a fine veil; and sometimes they turn out heavily veiled.


It is narrated in Hadiths that the dreams God’s Most Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) had at the outset of the revelations turned out as true and clear as the breaking of morning. (6)


The Fifth


True dreams are a higher development of premonitions. Everyone has premonitions to a greater or lesser degree. Animals even have them. At one time I discovered two senses including premonition scientifically, additional to the well-known external and inner senses such as the unconscious instinctive senses that impel and stimulate, and hearing and sight. Philosophers and the people of misguidance mistakenly and foolishly call those little known senses “natural instinct.” God forbid! They are not “natural” instinct; divine determining impels human beings and animals through a sort of innate inspiration. For example, if some animals like cats lose their sight, through this impulse of divine determining, they go and find a plant that heals their eyes and rub it on them, and they get better.


Also, birds of prey like eagles, which, similarly to the public health officials of the earth are charged with the duty of removing the carcasses of nomadic animals, are informed through that impulse of divine determining, that inspiration of the sense of premonition, that divine drive, of animal remains a day’s distance away, and they go and find them.



Also, a young bee newly come into the world, flies a day’s distance when only a day old without losing its way, and through that drive of divine determining and inspiring impulse, returns to its hive.


Also, it happens frequently to everyone that while speaking of someone, the door opens and totally unexpectedly the same person enters. There is even a saying in Kurdish which goes: “Talk of the wolf and ready your gun, for it’s bound to appear.” That is to say, through a premonition, that dominical subtle faculty perceives the person’s arrival in summary fashion. But since the conscious mind does not comprehend it, it prompts him to speak of it, not intentionally but involuntarily. Intuitive people sometimes say that someone is coming, almost miraculously. At one time I myself, even, was acutely sensitive in this way. I wanted to incorporate the condition into a principle, but was unable to adapt it and couldn’t. However, in righteous people, and particularly the people of sainthood, premonition develops to a high degree, showing its effects wondrously.


Thus, ordinary people even may manifest a sort of sainthood by virtue of which in true dreams, they dream of things appertaining to the Unseen and the future like the saints. Yes, for ordinary people, in respect of true dreams sleep may resemble a degree of sainthood. So too, it is for everyone a splendid dominical cinema. However, those with good morals think good thoughts, and someone who has good thoughts dreams of good things. But since those with bad morals think bad thoughts, they dream of bad things. Furthermore, for everyone, true dreams are windows in the Manifest World that look onto the World of the Unseen. For restricted, ephemeral human beings, they are also an arena of infinite proportions manifesting a sort of eternity, and a place for gazing on the past and the future as though they were the present. They are also a resting-place for beings with spirits, crushed as they are beneath the responsibilities of life and who suffer great hardship. It is for reasons similar to these that with verses like: “And We made your sleep for rest,”(78:9) the All-Wise Qur’an teaches about sleep (hakikat-i nevmiye), giving it importance.


The Sixth and Most Important


 Having experienced them numerous times, true dreams have become for me decisive proofs at the degree of absolute certainty (hakkalyakîn) that divine determining encompasses all things. Especially the last few years, these dreams have reached such a degree that they have made me certain that the most insignificant events and unimportant dealings and even the most commonplace conversations I will have the following day are written and ordained before they occur, and that by dreaming of them the night before, I have read them not with my tongue but with my eyes. Not once, not a hundred times, but perhaps a thousand times, the things I have said in my dreams or the people I have dreamt of at night, although I had not thought of them at all, have turned out exactly or with little interpretation the following day. It means that the most trivial things are both recorded and written before they happen. That is to say, there is no chance or coincidence, events do not occur haphazardly, they are not without order.

The Seventh


Your beautiful, blessed, and auspicious dream was very good for the Qur’an and for us. Also, time has interpreted it and is interpreting it; there is no need for me to do so. Its partial interpretation also turned out well. If you study it carefully, you will understand. I shall point out only one or two aspects. That is, I shall explain a truth (hakikat). The visions you have had, which are like the true meanings (hakikat) of dreams, are the representations of those true meanings. It is like this:


That vast field was the world of Islam. The mosque at its end was the province of Isparta. The muddy water around it was the swamp of the dissoluteness, idleness, and innovations of the present time. Your swiftly reaching the mosque safely and without being contaminated by the mud was a sign that you took up the lights of the Qur’an before everyone else, and had remained unspoilt with your heart uncorrupted. The small congregation in the mosque consisted of some of the people who have taken the Words upon themselves, like Hakkı, Hulûsi, Sabri, Süleyman, Rüştü, Bekir, Mustafa, Ali, Zühtü, Lûtfi, Husrev, and Re’fet. As for the small platform, it was a small village like Barla. The loud voice was an allusion to the power and rapid spread of the Words. The place assigned to you in the first row, was that vacated for you by Abdurrahman. The indication and fact that the congregation, as though wireless receivers, wanted to make the whole world hear its teachings, will turn out at a later date, God willing. If the people now are like small seeds, with divine assistance, in the future they will all be like tall trees and telegraph offices. As for the turbanned youth, he is someone who will work together with Hulûsi, or even surpass him; he is destined to become one of the students and those who disseminate the Words. I can think of some of them, but I cannot say definitely. The youth is someone who will come into prominence through the power of sainthood. You can interpret the remaining points instead of me.


Speaking with friends like you is both agreeable and acceptable, so I have spoken at length about this brief matter, and perhaps I have been prodigal. But since I began with the intention of showing a way of expounding the Qur’an’s verses about sleep, God willing, my prodigality will be forgiven, or not be prodigality even.


 

1 Imam Rabbani, al-Maktubat, i, 124 (No: 130). (Go back🠑)

2 Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, Mathnawi, 10. (Go back🠑)

3 al-Haythami, Majma’ al-Zawa’id, x, 415; Daylami, Musnad al-Firdaws, iv, 309. (Go back🠑)

4 Bukhari, Ta’bir, 2, 4, 10, 26; Muslim, Ru’ya, 6-9; Abu Da’ud, Adab, 88; Tirmidhi, Ru’ya, 1, 2, 6, 10; Ibn Maja, Ru’ya, 1, 3, 6, 9; Darimi, Ru’ya, 2; Muwatta’, Ru’ya, 1, 3; Musnad, ii, 18, 50, 219; iv, 10- 13; v, 316, 319. (Go back🠑)

5 Muslim, Ru’ya&, 6; Abu Da’ud, Adab, 88; Tirmidhi, Ru’ya, 6; Musnad, ii, 269. (Go back🠑)

 6 Bukhari, Badi’ al-Wahy, 3; Tafsir Sura, 96:1; Ta’bir, 1; Muslim, Iman, 252; Tirmidhi, Manaqib, 6; Musnad, vi, 153, 232 (Go back🠑)


 

The Second Part, which is the Second Matter

The Third Piece, which is the Third Matter

The Fourth Matter, which is the Fourth Part

The Fifth Matter, which is the Fifth Part

The Sixth Matter, which is the Sixth Part

The Seventh Matter, which is the Seventh Part

The Eighth Matter, which is the Eighth Part







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