The Dazzling Darkness : Mushtaque B Barq

The Dazzling Darkness 

Mushtaque B Barq

The crimson on the horizon was about to bid farewell when a shabby old man rushed into the maqtab, his frayed gown trailing across the stone floor. As the veil slipped from his face, the lamps along the walls guttered and died, as though breath itself had been withdrawn from them. The Dervish sat unmoved upon his throne. Around him, his disciples, who moments earlier had been reciting sacred verses from memory, stared at their volumes in disbelief as the words began to fade, thinning like mist beneath a rising sun.

Beyond the library lay the prayer hall, empty and vast. The old man crossed into it and stationed himself in its far corner. With each step he took into that vacant space, the darkness thickened, not as an absence, but as a presence. It pressed inward, settling into lungs and pulse, claiming breath itself. Light did not vanish at once. It retreated.

The Dervish did not rise. This was his seat, his territory. 

“A king is king only upon his throne,” he muttered, his voice low but firm. “Once he steps away, the throne becomes a mere chair, desolate timber.”

From the shadows, the old man answered calmly, “A throne is only another way of accepting defeat. A worn patch of jute is enough to please the Lord.”

Anger flared. The Dervish raised his voice and summoned his disciples, but his command dissolved before it reached them. He called again, straining his lungs, yet the darkness absorbed every sound. 

“Have you all turned deaf?” he roared. “To deny your master is to defy the Sacred Covenant!”

No one responded. Silence had already taken authority.

Then, to the widening vision of the disciples, the old man began to expand. His presence unfurled as though a veil had been torn from the world itself. What had been a fragile body grew immense, no longer merely flesh but a descent of incandescent clarity. Fire gathered in his eyes, a gaze capable of dissolving resolve and marrow alike. The radiance revealed everything it touched. Every knot in the carpet stood distinct, even the slow pilgrimage of an ant across the stone floor. Yet the Dervish, still gripping his throne, appeared reduced, a carved idol presiding over an absence.

The old man swept his gaze across the hall. It pierced through eyelids and thought alike, widening the pupils of the disciples toward something unbounded. A single drop of that vision seized their sight and pressed back the borders of understanding. They crossed mysteries without words.

Behind them, the Dervish remained fixed, brooding over the elaborate poultry of his own conceit, hoarding illusions for a future without dawn. What had once been mere recitation has long been transformed into a vibration, taking hold of every breath, making it move like a wave, at times randomly yet involuntarily following a rhyme. The verses were no longer alphabetical rush of expressions but pulse, no longer memory but mercy. Each syllable breathed and felt by the heart that had undergone transformation. 

Moved by love for his former master, one disciple stepped forward, his voice trembling.

“O Holy One,” he pleaded, “may I call my master here, that he too might find refuge in this light?”

The old man smiled, warmth passing briefly across his face.

“You are faithful,” he said. “Go. Call him.”

As the disciple departed, the old man’s gentleness sharpened.

“Why did none of you plead for him?” his voice asked, firm now. “Have his years of guidance vanished so quickly from your hearts? How easily the hand that led you here was forgotten.”

No one answered. Heads bowed. Necks bent beneath the quiet weight of their shame.

Then the old man drew his gown close. His radiance receded, thinning until he appeared once more as a fragile skeleton folded into shadow. Darkness returned, not as punishment, but as withdrawal.

“I am losing my way” one of the disciple shouted.

“I am tumbling down” another shouted

I am not able to see anything, it is pitch dark” the third one responded.

There was a chaos around, they all felt is if they were pushed through a tunnel of darkness with no way to escape.

As their unrest grew heavier, the cries reverberated against the silence hanging on the walls, ushering in a profound shift. The vertigo of fall ceased; it was as if the earth had regained its silent and slow movement after a tremor. The vibrations of the silence, amidst this strange buoyancy, harmonized their state and station. And once again, they found their master anchoring their wobbling boats.

The brief sun of revelation had passed, leaving the disciples unsettled, more aware of loss than of ignorance. When the disciple returned with the Dervish, he halted in astonishment. All the disciples stood and parted, forming a silent path toward the old man. Seeing this, the Dervish raised his hands and prayed. 

“O Lord, grant every saint such disciples.”

He lowered himself to the floor, leaving the throne untouched. Darkness gathered around him. There was a pause. A held breath. “Amen,” the old man replied.

“The other end of the tunnel appeared as a dot of light, with every pulse, it broadened its scope till they all found a way to come out of it, with their master at the mouth of it receiving them all. The intensity of the light almost shattered their mind; they fell like chocking masses.

 The master realised their unrest and suggested: 

"Close your eyes, and the light will stop blinding you."

Then his gaze entered the Dervish like a constellation striking a mirror. The reflection fractured. In that breaking, the Dervish opened. The disciples watched as their master was undone and reformed, not in elevation, but in truth. When darkness settled again, it no longer mattered. Another light had taken root, quiet and enduring, within every heart.

“Light,” the old man said, “is not what the sun gives, but what escapes through the cracks of a broken heart.”

The maqtab stirred, not with flame, but with devotion. The disciples turned inward, away from spectacle and shadow, toward the inner chambers of their own souls. There they found love, the steady blaze of the old man, and the restored image of their master. The walls, the throne, the shelves loosened their hold. When the disciples reached for their books, they found only blankness. The ink had fled the page and settled instead within the heart of the Dervish. He had become the Book.

The old man rose.

“The library is closed,” he announced. “The Book is open. Go, and read it by the light of love.”

Maqtab looked like a mystified sanctuary. The silence was more than calmness, but a sacred stillness.

“ Every pulse is a book that requires an egoless mind to read, read, read and read….” the old man kept muttering. 

As he turned to depart, the chandelier burst into brilliance, washing the hall of shadow. In that sudden clarity, everything was visible, except the old man himself. He had gathered his dazzling darkness into the folds of his gown and vanished, leaving the hall transformed and the master reborn.