THE ART OF REVERSE READING

A FEW days ago, I witnessed a car hit a kitten while I was sitting on the balcony, in fact it smashed the kitten. When I saw it lingering, I could only say “My Allah (God), you know better”. Inadvertently, I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t look any further. The kitten wanted to show its love for its mother which was coming towards it, made its move but the car struck it at that instant. The mother cat sniffed its dead kitten several times, stepped back and watched it for a long time. I was affected by this scene very much. I remember crying. I was even happy for the kitten for it didn’t linger too much before it is dead. I saw that event to the finest detail. But why did that happen? I returned from the balcony with a question for which I didn’t have an answer, disgruntled.

Soon after, I was in front of the television. In the breaking news, it was being mentioned about an event in a country of southern America. Security officers got someone and laid him down. An officer was handcuffing the man who was accused to be a thief. Another officer came from behind, pointed his gun down on the man and shot him from his head. I remember shouting loudly: “Don’t! Stop!”. Despite of the event which was happened just a few minutes ago, this event was happened maybe a few days or hours ago but this couldn’t prevent my objections echoing in the room. Why did they kill a man who was caught for “whatever” guilt and handcuffed, without even questioning? I felt something inside me was breaking down.

I (We) really had problems with death. The events I witnessed were horrible contradictions. The conflict of abstract conceptions surrounded me. My logic and emotions were never telling me “Death in spite of life”. I noticed that I had no feeling reminded by death that I could send into oblivion. Death was hidden within life and persecution within justice.

What were we really doing in an environment where a marvellous reality like life is surrounded by death and a most basic reality like justice is ruined with persecutions? The first man, Adam (pbuh) had been created in heaven, a heaven where there are no means for evil and persecution. If we had stayed in that beautiful place where we firstly created, at least we wouldn’t have to witness such persecutions. Death wouldn’t find a way into our lives. Yet in this place where all kinds of evils are displayed, we had to witness the evil and we were conducing death, even by mistakes.

How did Adam (pbuh) solve all those events at first sight? How did he conclude his dispatch from heaven to earth with repentance while many things -which could lead him to a rebellion- were happening around him? As a necessity of being an owner of the genetic information inherited from Adam (pbuh), I feel compelled to learn the events that I have hard times to comprehend at the first look, by getting Adam’s (pbuh) ways of solutions.

The heart of human is respondent to three things without cause, it loves those three things without reason: Cemal (apparent and internal beauty), Kemal (being mature, competent and intact in terms of knowledge and merit) and Ihsan (benefaction, well being and giving without waiting something in return). We cannot be indifferent towards beauty, perfection and unrequited benefaction even if the owner of these properties is our enemy. All those orientations are revealed with making comparisons. Beauty is revealed when it is compared with awful. Light can be noticed within the existence of darkness so the goodness within the existence of evil. Illness can be known with healthiness so as wealth with poverty. Something is precisely extant with only the existence of its opposite. If not, beauty and order are actuality of the universe. The observable awful is for comparison. It exist to make beauty understandable.

Cenab-ı Hak (The One whose existence never changes, the One who never disappears, the One who is true and real) created human’s comprehension so that it can only apprehend with oppositions. Therefore, apprehension becomes clearer if the contrast of the opposites is stronger. For example, faith is the opposite of blasphemy as obedience is the opposite of rebelliousness and eventually earth is the opposite of the beyond.

No doubt that Adam (pbuh) was the one who knew the meaning of the heaven without the earth and the earth without the heaven better than anyone else. When Adam (pbuh) became aware of the difference between these two things, he discovered how he can apprehend both his own existence and the Allah (cc). It was two different things to know Allah (cc) and to know the essence of Allah (cc). He understood the point after he became aware of the difference. Although Adam (pbuh) and Eve (pbuh) were perfectly created quality humans, they were tempted by the only forbidden thing in the heaven just because they weren’t aware of the heaven and could not recognize the beauties.

When Adam (pbuh) came to earth, he understood that this is a place where opposites are met. He was surrounded with fena(transient and discontinuous) and fani (mortal and deteriorative) oppositions. He saw that every creation have stamped with “fena”. He was coiled by “fena”. Maybe it was the first time that he was aware of himself and his creator Rabb (The higest One, the Educator of all) that much. Changing conditions did not formed “Adam”, on the contrary they revealed what was inside of him. He got the opportunity to learn the names in a non-transparent universe. As he recognised the ways which could decipher the secrets of ahsen-i takvim (being created in best way and appearance) on him, he also differed that he got some properties which could lead him to esfel-i safiline (lowest level of creation). Now the universe was a trap for his emotions.

In a finite medium he was asked to understand and perceive the infinite, moreover with a siege which gives him no rest and no pause. In between the inner-self, corporeal and carnal woven levels of himself, he was asked to save himself off this trap by differing the oppositions which he could not give any meaning to, in the beginning. When he happened to contradictions, he needed to learn how to read reverse to be able to comprehend the meanings beyond the visible. Even he was helpless against results, indigent of the beyond, he had to do this. He started to understand what is beauty, perfection and courtesy when he was taken from the life of heaven without oppositions and full of absolute beauties but a life in which he himself weren’t aware of those beauties, and left to the life of earth where good and evil is mixed together.

Iblis (the devil) was denying benefactions of his Rabb (cc) on him, therefore Adam (pbuh) saw this world of contradictions as a courtesy. He understood that even sinners love the one who loves them. From that time on, he was loving his Rabb (cc) with a knowing beyond knowledge. He exactly understood that the levels of hot with intervention of cold as well as the levels of beauty with the intervention of bad were courtesies as well. One of the judgements he derived in the beginning was that the mercy was hidden within difficulty. He perceived the existence of his health with illnesses as well as the existence of life with the passing on of his son Habil (pbuh). Especially, when Kabil killed Habil, he stand in bewilderment, witnessing what is to shed blood and how man can turn into a monster. His son Habil was killed by his other son Kabil. He feared for the mankind to come after him. An adventurous life was awaiting his line.

Adam (pbuh) was now learning the names one by one. When he met a hurting and suffocating symptom like death, maybe he apprehended that he was blessed with universe’s only truth called life by a blessing coming from beyond the universes. Yet he had found the life next to him whenever he opened his eyes. Now he was recognizing this. Life was so real that it was being given without any reason.

Even when he brought all known and unknown reasons together, he couldn’t get even a little result about life. To apprehend the nature of this beyond-realms, he understand that he needed to be folded together with the vast disappearance called death because the demands of Adam (pbuh) and requests of the death from him was overlapping. The eternity was expressed with temporary concerns of the “fena”. The existence of the infinity and the unlimited were articulated by the interventions of death and the end. Therefore, he recognized that an education like “bringing to maturity within oppositions” was a heavenly law branched throughout the universe. We were interacting with countless entities and every kind of beauties with the ranks which are appeared through dialectic collision. This was being brought to maturity with comparisons. He discovered what is “being in temper” in an environment where contradictions are included. He dealt with “Cemal” in his life of heaven and “Celal” (fury, wrath) in his life of earth. Allah (cc) was gazing upon Adam (pbuh) in a way that he could understand and apprehend. Within a finite universe, Adam (pbuh) apprehended an infinite and all-encompassing truth who is “Zat-ı (the essence of) Rahmanirrahim (the All-Merciful and the All-Compassionate). He started to understand the closeness of Cenab-ı Hakk and the infinite relationship of everything with the Creator as much as his weaknesses, his helplessness and his poverty were appeared. He knew Allah’s (cc) extent of greatness by bringing all those opposite things together. He (cc) was Zül Celal-i ve'l ikram (The Lord of Majesty and Generosity) who was Kadir (The Supreme), Kahhar (The Subduer), Cebbar (The Compeller), Aziz (The Almighty, Invulnerable, Honorable) and Azim (the Magnificent). Again, He (cc) was Zül Cemal (The Owner of apparent and internal beauty) who was Rahman (the All-Merciful), Rahim (The All-Compassionate), Rezzak (The Provider), Vedud (The Loving), Hannan (The Charitable One), Mennan (The Generous) and Cemil(The Virtuous). He reached to kemal which was the temper of maturity by comparing all those names in his own existence. To understand this he required to apprehend the revelation of those names in different ranks. In this way, Adam (pbuh) recognised the meaning of cemal, kemal and ihsan which were flowing from the depths of the unknown to finest detail. He learned all this by coming to the world of opposites. Opposite of the opposite of something was the thing itself. From this point of view, he saw the opposites he encountered as stairs delivering him to his Rabb (cc). He understood that it won’t matter how steep the stairs are as they were delivering him to the most beautiful. Now he was aware of the beauty, the justice, the perfection, the love in other words, the difference. He was feeling this to the skin. He learned that hate by love, jealousy by solidarity, vulgarity by virtue, slavery by freedom and unruliness by submission can be defeated. Those were the truth which were impossible to be known by Adam (pbuh) before. As opposite of something taught the comparable properties of that thing, he saw the knowledge within the matter and the meaning within the knowledge. Now, Adam (pbuh) was knowing with a knowledge beyond the knowledge.

Just like Adam (pbuh), his line also reached the truth by learning what is wrong. They obtained the knowledge and produced technology through the mix and the interference of the opposites. They advanced in science through the fact that a phenomenon is falsifiable. With the interference of contradictions, they set forth the most beautiful behaviour possible. In other words, they questioned the events they encountered by asking “Why?” so that marvellous realities in the background are unveiled and the truth is revealed. For example, they learned the meaning of freedom from someone who just got his freedom. They witnessed an occupied nation who tried every way –including death- to reach their freedom. They saw people climbing mountains of ignorance who live based on the strength of their minds. At pinnacle of their adventure, at the moment of taking the last step to the uppermost rock, they witnessed the welcoming of friends of Allah who were sitting there for centuries.

Just like their father Adam (pbuh), mankind ran after the moments when hidden truths showed their faces and became visible. They tried to catch the only moments which are maturing the human, making him virtuous and most importantly those which make him interlocutor to his creator. They knew that the sincerely desired arguments which belong to the genuine homeland were hidden within themselves.


Translated by Ömer Özyaşlı / omer.ozyasli@gmail.com

  06.03.2011

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