Another Eclipse Is Over | Fethullah Gulen

Описание: There are souls who have never belonged entirely to this world. Even while walking upon its dust, they have kept their gaze fixed upon a horizon that ordinary eyes cannot perceive. They are the travelers to the light — those who have turned away from the shadow of the self and marched, step by devoted step, toward the Source of all illumination. This episode reflects on their luminous journey, and on the profound mercy of the One who meets every inch of their turning with miles of His closeness.

Fethullah Gulen draws a portrait of spiritual nobility that cuts through the fog of an age marked by separation, disorientation, and the gradual dimming of hope. These travelers did not merely endure the darkness — they became a remedy for it. Through the depth of their character and the sincerity of their striving, they transformed what appeared to be insurmountable summits into open roads, and vast, turbulent oceans into streams of clarity. They invited the weary back to their own dignity, reminding them of what it means to be fashioned as the finest of creation.

Yet even as they ascended toward the stations of fana fillah and baqa billah — annihilation in God and subsistence with Him — these blessed souls did not grow proud. On the contrary, the higher they rose, the more deeply they felt their own poverty before the Divine. They wept over their shortcomings. They questioned their own accounts. In this lies one of the most moving paradoxes of the spiritual path: the closer one draws to God, the more acutely one perceives the distance yet to be traveled. Such humility is itself a form of nearness.

Set against this luminous portrait is the shadow of those who have surrendered their lives to lust, power, and domination — souls who, having turned from servanthood to God, have fashioned idols of prestige and control. Gulen reminds us that history is not silent on their fate. Tyrants and the arrogant have always dug the very pits into which they ultimately fall, as the timeless verse of Ibn Kemal warns. Their inner worlds become places of paranoia and ruin even before the outer reckoning arrives.

And yet the radiant souls are undeterred. In the face of oppression, they do not despair. They read difficulty as purification, tribulation as the inheritance of the Prophets, and every dark night as the womb from which a new dawn must emerge. As the poet Rahmi reminds us, the night carries within it both sorrow and joy — and only those who wait with trust behold what the morning brings.

The eclipse, however prolonged, is never permanent. For those whose hearts beat with longing for the infinite, even the darkest passage is simply the corridor to the light that lies beyond.

Highlights

– The portrait of the traveler to the light: one who transcends corporeality and turns wholly toward the Divine
– How these radiant souls became sources of hope and resurrection for exhausted, stranded communities
– The stations of fana fillah and baqa billah, and the profound humility that accompanies spiritual ascent
– The self-criticism and weeping of the blessed seekers, reflecting the depth of their sincerity
– The inevitable fate of tyrants and the arrogant across history, as illustrated through the verse of Ibn Kemal
– The perseverance of the radiant souls through darkness, oppression, and tribulation
– The spiritual reading of night and dawn: every eclipse carries within it the promise of light

Chapters

– Introduction: Who Are the Travelers to the Light
– An Age of Darkness and the Role of the Radiant Souls
– Spiritual Ascent: From Dust and Clay to the Horizons of Fana and Baqa
– Divine Reciprocity: How God Responds to the Sincere Seeker
– The Humility of the Elevated: Tears and Self-Reckoning at the Peak
– The Slaves of Power: Tyranny, Paranoia, and the Pit of One's Own Digging
– The Radiant Souls in the Face of Oppression: Perseverance as a Prophetic Inheritance
– Every Night Has Its Dawn: A Closing Reflection on Hope and Eternity

In an age that has known its share of long nights, this reflection arrives as a quiet but firm reminder: the eclipse is never the end of the story. Those who walk toward the light do not merely survive the darkness — they illuminate it for others. May this episode be a companion to every heart still walking, still hoping, still turning toward the dawn.