Nur

There is a light that needs no sun. Everything around stays the same: unfinished work, worries, tomorrow’s cares. But suddenly Galina’s voice carries the calm I had been waiting for, and the most ordinary conversation feels like a return to life. “Quyosh yo‘q, lekin yorug‘” - “There is no sun, yet it is light”. It is not the day outside the window that changes. What changes is what I am able to feel in it.

I know this difference well from my work. When you are filling and smoothing a ceiling, light shows the surface best if you direct it along it, at a sharp angle. An unevenness that a minute ago seemed not to exist suddenly shows through. The light did not create it. It only made it visible.

The same happens with people. You can look at someone close to you for years and see your own expectations instead of them. “Ko‘zlar ochiq, lekin ko‘rman” - “My eyes are open, but I am blind”. The Qur’an says it briefly: it is not the eyes that go blind, but the hearts within the breasts. It is hard for me to admit such blindness in myself. I can be sure I am doing everything that is needed, and fail to hear a request spoken almost in a whisper.

Rumi has a parable about two groups of craftsmen whom a king set to work on opposite walls of a hall. One group covered their wall with paintings. The others only polished theirs until it became a mirror. When the curtain between the walls was drawn back, the mirror reflected the paintings opposite, and they shone even brighter. This, says Rumi, is how the heart works: not adding new colours, but scouring away the rust so that what is there can be reflected in it.

Light here is not a reward and not proof that I am right. It leaves the possibility of noticing a mistake and acting differently. In a hadith related by Abu Dawud it is said: the believer is a mirror to the believer. I often think how much I myself need someone else’s eyes to see what I have missed.

“Nur, bu men. Nur, bu sen” - “Light is me. Light is you”. I am not speaking of my own greatness, nor claiming that a person becomes the Divine Light. I am speaking of the ability to be close. Sometimes another person helps you see what you missed. Sometimes their calm voice is enough to feel the ground under your feet again. Such light cannot be held on to or owned. It can be received, and one day passed on.