One evening, Kemal had a vivid dream. He found himself on a vast, misty plain. In the distance stood his father, but the man was not an old spirit; he was a young, terrified soul trying to lift a massive, frayed rope. Every time he pulled, the rope snapped.
Confused, Kemal woke and rushed to the lodge of Rumi. He found the poet not in a mosque, but in a garden, watching a rosebush shed its petals.
His father looked up, his eyes hollow. "Son, your words are like arrows shot into the dark. I hear the echo, but I cannot catch them. You recite 'There is no god but God' with your tongue, but your heart recites, 'I hope my father is saved.' That hope is a veil. You are still clinging to me —to my name, my body, my past. You have not yet said the true tahlil ." tahlil arwah rumi
Kemal obeyed. That night, he did not count beads or names. He sat in utter silence until his ego crumbled like dry earth. Then, from that emptiness, the phrase La ilaha illallah arose—not as his voice, but as the very breath of the universe.
"Nothing," said Kemal. "The river absorbs it." One evening, Kemal had a vivid dream
"Exactly," said Rumi. "Your father's soul is no longer a clay pot—a collection of sins and virtues. It has returned to the River of Oneness. When you recite tahlil thinking, 'I am a good son sending a package to a dead man,' you are throwing stones at the river. But when you recite La ilaha illallah as a state of your own annihilation—when you forget the sender, the sent, and the one you are sending to—that is not a stone. That is a raindrop returning to the ocean. And that raindrop becomes the ocean."
Rumi placed a hand on his heart. "Your father’s suffering is not his sin. It is your knot. He is trapped because you still see him as a separate 'someone' who failed. To free him, you must free yourself from the illusion of separation." Every time he pulled, the rope snapped
In that moment, he saw a vision: his father was no longer struggling with a rope. He was sitting beneath a tree, laughing. The frayed rope had turned into a garland of light around his neck.