Tun

“Tun, mening do‘stim” - “Night, my friend”. This is how the song begins, and there is neither fear nor reproach in these words. Night here is not a punishment for the day that has passed, but a companion who comes when all the words have already been said.

In the Qur’an night is called a covering: “and We made the night a covering”. A covering can be of different kinds. It hides from strangers’ eyes, and it also covers, as one covers someone asleep. At night everything that demands an answer in the daytime grows quiet: tasks, faces, requests. What remains is what lay beneath them all along: breath, the heart, and the silence in which that heart can be heard.

Night has a generosity of its own. It gave me long conversations until dawn, when I did not want to sleep and did not want the morning. It gave me the waiting before a journey, that minute when the heart has already left and you are still at home. It also knew heavier hours, when all I could do was wait. And it never once turned away. It stayed close, asking nothing in return - a quiet, eternal companion.

In Persian Sufi poetry night has many faces: it is a time of meeting and of parting, of concealment and of spiritual sight. In the Qur’an there is an oath by the morning and by the night when it grows dark, and words spoken to one who feared he had been abandoned: your Lord has not forsaken you, nor is He displeased. They do not explain why it is dark. For me these words are a reminder: darkness does not yet mean abandonment.

In the Persian mystical tradition there is the image of black light - a light that itself remains invisible, yet allows us to see. It is associated with the experience of spiritual transformation. I would not claim to have seen it. But when I hear “Qorong‘ulik, nurning onasi” - “Darkness is the mother of light”, I do not think of suffering as the price of happiness. I think of something else: a light we are unable to make out does not yet prove that there is no light.

“Yorug‘lik, qorong‘u. Qorong‘u, nur. Bir xil, birlik” - “Light and darkness. Darkness and light. One, unity”. Night does not wage war on the day. It waits until the day grows tired, and quietly takes it by the hand.