The Most Bitter Years of My Life
Fethullah Gulen describes the years he has spent away from and longing for Turkey, as the “most bitter years of my life”:
“However, I must admit that this period has been much more, full of hardship for me. I haven’t been able to do anything serious; I haven’t been able to busy myself with my books; I haven’t been able to study and discuss readings from books for 4-5 hours daily, like I used to with my friends. In one sense, 9-10 years of my life have been spent with nothing, have been wasted. Therefore, they have been my most bitter years; they have been years of misery. Like the years that our Prophet (pbuh) had to endure after the departing of his beloved uncle, Abu Talib…” [Bamteli, 06.25.2008]
Dreams of Returning to Turkey
As he lives through this ordeal of longing for home and the desire to reunite with his native land, Fethullah Gulen describes the dreams that he has seen during this period, dreams of returning to Turkey:
“I have seen it in my dreams—if I’m not mistaken—maybe ten different times. As I am advancing towards it, either the hole I must pass through is so narrow that only my arm can get through. I force it a little bit, but I can’t get through. I give up and stand back. Or there are speedy trains passing back and forth right at the point I am going to land as I come through. The trains are so fast; they are like the trains in Japan. This time, again, I give up on passing through. I have seen many things similar to this. In times when mischief and provocation had taken the bit between their teeth, in the dream I saw, everything was being swept away by the water. I saw myself on a boat. I was swimming like this in Izmir and in Istanbul. I had seen myself come out onto the shore with the boat. That shore was possibly the shore that Christopher Columbus had come out on. I saw another dream just recently. I passed through broken bridges and run-down roads but I was on my way. Again I passed through those torn-down bridges; we almost tumbled on over, but without falling we passed over to the other side. I walked for quite a while, turned around to look, only to see that I had come back to the same place I had started off. I drew out a kind of meaning for myself, but these are not objective; they are not decisive factors to base decisions on. However, as my friends, if you were to say to me, “It is better for you to be there during the last phase of your life; if you are to die it is important that you be buried next to your mother and father; in fact, for the sake of morale and spiritual strength it would be helpful that you stand there,” if you were to tell me these things, I may have to look over my thoughts once again. The bridge was broken; the roads were worn-out; it was impossible to reach there; there were floods on the road; none of these would be important. This is our general disposition, like the behavior of the Respected Companions. A small sign, a slight implication, those are enough for us to change places. We get up and go, that’s it. Though our belief is to leave this world, we think, “Through what hole should we pass on to the other side?” It was one of those holes that I was not able to pass through in my dream; I turned back from it. I came back and found myself here. But these are only subjective. It is not right to decide on something based on only this. One should still resort to consultation. If the general opinion tells me, “You should go there,” I can leave my current residence with the greatest of ease and go there. Even right now, as I entered this room, my eyes filled with tears as a longing for home welled up inside me. You wouldn’t know how it is inside me. I bear the longing for even the coffeehouses that stand on the road sides of Turkey. That is a different story. However, being respectful towards that which God Almighty has willed for you from the worlds beyond is a completely different story. You must prefer God’s will over your own will.” [Bamteli, 03.05.2007]
To be continued..
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