Dervish Hasan suddenly stopped. With his dirty, torn sleeves he wiped the sweat from his forehead. A hot June sun was scorching and roasting the world like a gratuitous affliction. Since morning he had been walking for four hours without stopping. He looked around: he was at the edge of a forest with sparse, scrawny trees. In the distance, layered mountains painted with a light sour-colored mist could be seen. Nothing resembling a village or town caught his eye. He turned to the trees on the upper side of the road.
“If I could rest a bit…” he thought. Indeed, to lie down in those dappled shadows and have a comfortable sleep… wasn’t bad at all. But his stomach was growling. He had left the shepherd’s hut where he’d spent the night hungry, with the hope that “I’ll come across a village before noon.” He must walk, must reach a village as soon as possible! But which village?…
Dervish Hasan never knew this, never thought about it, never brought it to mind. For thirty years, with his begging bowl on his shoulder, his cloak on his back, resignation in his heart, he had passed through roads not knowing where he was going, had stayed as a guest in villages whose names he never learned. Everywhere they would give him food and drink. The doors of Anatolian tekkes were open wide. He would enter saying “Huuu…” and stay for weeks, months if he wished… until he got bored. Could mountains, stones, rivers, lakes, forests have proper names? In his opinion, there was no need for the names of villages, towns, cities either. They all meant “the world.” Just as fish swim freely in the sea, subject to no particular law, he too wandered freely in his world. Springs, autumns, summers, winters were nature’s legends. Government, law, family, religion, morality—in short, everything—were in his view a bunch of meaningless fabricated jokes. The body was a dream. Life was a mirage. Only fools were deceived by this dream and mirage, and grieved in vain. The truth was “one.” And that was “love.” One who comprehended love had attained the great truth, had understood the meaning of the external and internal universe, of the divine.
Dervish Hasan was one of these enlightened ones. His large head with a big cap and much hair on his broad, dry shoulders, his sunburnt face with a white beard, his deep, large, black eyes gave him a strange majesty. He lived as if in a fog over “the world” whose nature he paid no attention to, seeing nothing at all. Love, God, truth, happiness, purpose were in his soul. Things outside of love were a mass of illusory clouds gathered around him. There was no “body.” But involuntarily he said, “Oof, my knees…”
Hunger, heat, old age had descended on his back like a three-thousand-oke burden. Now, for a moment, he was forgetting his love, seeming to sense the existence of his body crushed under this heavy load. His head ached to the point of cracking, his feet trembled, and whenever he breathed, his constricted chest hurt. He looked again at the road ahead and behind where he had stopped. There was no one coming or going… When he lowered his eyes to the ground, he saw various animal and cart tracks. Surely nearby, in the direction these tracks went, there must be a village, a town. This assumption consoled him, made him happy. He drew a deep “huuu.” He clasped his hands behind his back. Again immersing himself in the truth of his love, again fogging his surroundings, seeing nothing, he began to walk. He went and went. But this road covered with hopeful tracks, hot as hell, dusty as a desert, did not end. His breath, arms, knees were giving out, the pains of his “non-existent” body were oppressing his “existing” soul. For the first time in his life he thought of a carriage. How comfortable the soft, silk-cushioned interior of such a carriage must be.
Slowly he said, “Ah, if only there were a carriage…” Then he brought before his eyes a horse with a gold-embroidered saddle. If he rode such a horse, he could reach the farthest village he saw on the horizon in half an hour. Camel caravans, mule trains passed through his imagination. From hunger, heat, old age he was now in such an exhausted state that… He smiled.
“I’d be content with even a lame donkey…” he said. The heat was intensifying, the road becoming more shapeless, dust multiplying, faint lizards appearing among the stones. He looked at himself. The age of his sandals covered with dust was not apparent, muddy sweat was dripping from his hairy chest. Effort was necessary. He remembered the advice: “The traveler must be on his way…” He walked. He walked. He walked. He walked. He walked for hours. The sun had begun to descend from directly overhead toward the horizon again. Dervish Hasan now thought of the rich, comfort-loving ascetics in the cities who were busy refreshing their ablutions for afternoon prayer at comfortable fountains in cool shade with crystal-clear water too precious to drink. Compared to their souls that were always disturbed by the torment of hell and the greed for paradise, how happy, how comfortable their bodies were… He walked. He walked. The tracks on the road he was walking were becoming increasingly mixed. He raised his eyes. He looked ahead. He had come before a small hill at the bend in the road. At the bend there were two or three plane trees and a dried-up fountain. He didn’t stop. He walked. When he rounded the foot of this hill, he saw such a steep, such a precipitous slope that the road climbed and crossed…
“By God, I cannot climb this!” he cried out. He immediately squatted down. Hunger, heat, old age were about to make Dervish Hasan, who had been walking without stopping since morning, rebel a bit more. The terrible hopelessness he felt before this steep slope darkened his enlightened soul. He bent his neck, which had never bowed until now, like a self-interested, withdrawn, calculating ascetic. From his eyes the smoke of love that covered the image of the external world, from his lips the smile of enlightenment vanished. For the first time in his life he began to plead with the deity of the ascetics.
“My God, have mercy on me,” he said, “I’m hungry, I’m old! I cannot climb this slope you’ve put before me. Send me ‘something to ride.’ Let me just get over this slope. I won’t trouble you about the other side.”
Then, dragging himself, he went to the shade of the plane trees by the dried-up fountain.
“I don’t want a horse, I don’t want a carriage. Something poor to ride… Let it be a lame donkey, my God, mercy, mercy…” he moaned. While moaning thus, suddenly he was ashamed of his helplessness, of his impudence toward God. He rebelled.
“My God, you created my body. You save it from its sufferings too. I’m begging you. You will definitely send me ‘something to ride,’ upon which I’ll load your creation. If you don’t send it… I won’t be able to carry your heavy, your wretched creation. I’ll collapse and lie down here. Out of spite toward you, I’ll die from hunger, thirst, heat. You are the seer, the knower, the hearer.”
The skies are the eye, the universe the mind, nothingness the ear. Hear, and know that if you don’t send me ‘something to ride,’ I won’t budge from here to anywhere. I’ll perish. You’ll see the crows eating my carcass. If you don’t send ‘something to ride,’ my God, I absolutely will not climb this slope. I won’t go back either…
With the silence of a rebel who had cried out his right, proudly, he fell silent. Slowly he closed his eyes. Yes, God would definitely send “something to ride.” This was the foremost duty of the merciful God who loved his creation.
Poor Dervish Hasan was so tired from hunger, heat, old age that… he fell asleep immediately. He began to see a dream that lasted as long as a hundred years; he was becoming the governor of a city. Palaces, concubines, slaves… Gardens with great trees whose neat shadows fell on marble pools, pavilions embroidered with gold, tulips, hyacinths, roses… reeds, nightingales, wines, cupbearers, beloved youths… In the midst of all this, a delicate, graceful horse with golden trappings, white, transparent as if created from amber, was neighing, stamping, rearing up. Dervish Hasan, with beloved youths on one arm, concubines on the other, young slaves behind him, among violet and jasmine scents, reed and flute sounds, was walking toward this thoroughbred, trying to mount. The beloved youths were holding the stirrups, the concubines making a step with their hands, the slaves lifting him by his armpits. Just as he was about to mount, the thoroughbred suddenly turned; it kicked him in the head so hard that… beloved youths, concubines, slaves became mixed together. Everything around him was destroyed.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a large Yörük standing over him like a demon: “Get up, dervish father, isn’t this much sleep enough?”
“God bless you, son, good thing you woke me.”
He smiled. With the still-unfaded taste of the dream he’d seen, he stretched and sat up. A little beyond the fountain, many loaded and unloaded horses and mules were standing. So God, who sees, hears, knows everything, had sent what was wanted. And not just one, but a herd…
He asked the Yörük: “Where are you going, my child?”
“To Mount Ida.”
“I’m going there too…”
Undoubtedly these Yörüks would give him a horse. He looked at the Yörük standing over him with a grin. He turned and looked again at the fountain. There were many empty, saddled animals. Just as he was about to open his mouth, the Yörük said: “Dervish father, you’re going to help us.”
“How?”
“Right here one of our mares gave birth. The newborn foal can’t walk yet. We’re very tired too. You’ve slept, you’ve rested. Come on, for the sake of good deeds, take this foal in your arms and carry it to the top of the slope.”
Dervish Hasan opened his eyes wide as saucers. “What?” he cried out. The Yörük said, “It’s not heavy, just born, comes to five or six okes at most,” he said, “and just to the top of the slope… Come on, for the sake of good deeds…”
“I don’t want any good deeds.”
“Don’t be treacherous, dervish father, we’re all Muslims, don’t do it, have pity on your brothers in faith…”
Dervish Hasan, who was about to explode from anger, pointed in the direction he’d come from and said, “I’m not going to Mount Ida. My way is in that direction…” But the Yörük didn’t seem to understand.
“No harm, dervish father. You carry the foal to the top of the slope, then you come back down and go that way.”
Dervish Hasan seemed to go mad with anger. He began to curse good deeds, Muslims, brothers in faith. The Yörük called his companions. These were not the type to let mouth-talk slide. They swarmed around Dervish Hasan. Kicking and punching, beating him, they lifted him up. They forcibly put the newborn foal in his arms and drove him forward. Under the kicks he received on his back, waist, and thighs, Dervish Hasan, completely dazed, unable even to say “God bless…” climbed the slope gasping for breath. He was only wrinkling his face, smelling the sour, sharp odor of the newly born, wet “thing to ride.” When he reached the top, tired more from the weight of the foal than from hunger, heat, and old age, he collapsed to the ground. He fixed his eyes on the sky, on God’s great eye that sees everything. In the infinite gaze of this blue eye there was a mockery that said “Did you like the ride I sent?” Dervish Hasan made no sound. He closed his eyes again. Surely it was the most rightful wisdom of God, who had been troubled by so much worship, so many requests from worldly ascetics for thousands of years, to give now “as He wished” not “as was wished.” He understood that the fault was in himself! He regretted his earlier rebellion. Now he was hearing the bell sounds of the Yörük animals moving away, growing deeper and deeper, and matching his voice that wouldn’t come out to these monotonous bells, saying “repentance, repentance, repentance” to “asking for anything again” from the one who “gives as He wishes.”
