Haqiqat

The mirror gives me back a familiar face: age, tiredness, the traces of the years I have lived. But it knows nothing of what I left unsaid, whom I hurt, what I lost and what I still regret. “Oynaga boqdim, men yo‘q edim. Faqat sening aksing bor edi” - “I looked into the mirror - I was not there. Only Your reflection remained”. For me these lines begin with a simple question: how well do I know the person I am used to calling myself?

I know how to explain my own actions: why I got angry, why I insisted, why I kept silent. The explanations are often true, but not complete. Behind defending what is fair there may be wounded pride; behind care, the wish to decide for someone else. The most unpleasant mirror appears not in the bathroom, but in a conversation with someone close who suddenly shows you a side of your life you would rather not notice.

Many times I have changed cities and jobs and started again. But old grievances moved with me, along with the habit of thinking my own version of events the only true one. A new address does not change the way you see by itself.

The Qur’an tells the believers to stand firm for justice and to bear witness even against themselves, against their parents and those close to them. Hardest of all is to bear witness against your own rightness. And the hadith on ihsan says: worship as though you see Him, and if you do not see Him, He sees you. We do not see ourselves whole. But we can allow that we are being looked upon by a gaze before which there is no need to justify ourselves.

The Sufis called the extinction of the self-sufficient “I” by the word fana. I would not speak of it as someone who has walked that path, and I do not want to disappear: memory, those close to me and responsibility remain with me. A more modest thought is close to me: to stop putting myself at the centre of every event and to see beside me a separate life, someone else’s. Being right brings satisfaction. Understanding sometimes requires giving it up, and then things become not easier, but more honest.

“Bu oxir, bu boshlanish” - “This is the end and this is the beginning”. I do not believe I will ever fully make sense of myself and stop making mistakes. But something else is possible: not to repeat a hurtful phrase, to ask a question instead of passing a sentence, to ask forgiveness with no guarantee that it will be accepted. The mirror will not give a ready answer. It will only remind me that a familiar face does not yet mean the whole truth about me is known.