Tun

Tun is for me one of the three main compositions of the whole album. I return to it not because night is in itself a beautiful image. What interests me is the moment when darkness stops being only a lack of light. At the beginning of the song I walk at night, there is no moon, and, more important still, “there was no light within me.” Here even the familiar consolation disappears, the idea that outer gloom can always be made up for by inner clarity. No. Sometimes there is no moon, no clarity, no sense of the right direction. And yet the heart knows the way.

This line - “my steps were not searching, but my heart knew the way” - is for me one of the quietest and strongest in the whole cycle. There is no heroism in it. I do not conquer fear, do not declare myself stronger than the darkness, do not receive a sign. I simply keep walking. It is here that night for the first time becomes not an adversary but a presence beside me. I like the old word munis - a close, comforting companion, one whose presence makes loneliness inhabited. I do not call this a strict technical term of Sufism; for me the word helps to feel the intonation of the song. Night is my friend, my quiet munis.

In the Quran night is presented far more richly than simply as “gloom.” In 78:10 it is called a covering, a garment. This image is especially close to me. A covering does not destroy the world - it hides its brightness, softens the contours, gives rest. For myself I call this side of night satr - covering, concealment. Not as a separate dogmatic concept, but as an image of mercy: not everything must be constantly exposed to the light. Sometimes concealment protects too.

But the Islamic image of night does not end with rest. Night is also a time of special wakefulness. Surah 73 speaks of rising at night as a time of greater inner collectedness; the tradition of tahajjud makes night a space of voluntary turning to God; Laylat al-Qadr turns one night into a symbol of utmost spiritual intensity. This double movement matters to me: night at once covers and awakens. The outer world falls silent - and for that reason the inner hearing can become finer.

That is exactly why Sufi and Persian mystical poetry so often loves the night. In love lyric, night becomes the time of one who cannot sleep because of the Beloved, a time of waiting, separation, a secret meeting and a conversation that is impossible in the bustle of day. The Persian ghazal in general taught the mystical language to speak of God in the language of love: with longing, nearness, a hidden tryst, the pain of parting. In such a world night naturally becomes the ally of the lover.

What is especially close to me is that night in this tradition does not have to end in a simple victory of day. In my own song I ask: “the night has passed - will the dawn come? Or will the night remain forever?” This is a question to which I deliberately give no immediate consoling answer. To say “do not be afraid, dawn is soon” would be too easy. Life knows nights in which a person sees no guarantee of dawn - at least for now. For me spiritual maturity begins where friendship with the night does not depend on a promise that it will end in five minutes.

From here is born the line “darkness, mother of light.” I do not mean that evil and good are the same or that distinctions no longer matter. It is about something else: light becomes truly visible precisely against darkness, and inner sight is sometimes born in a period when ordinary sight does not help. In Sufi poetics the very loss of landmarks can become a condition of another nearness. Not every darkness is sacred, but not every darkness is the absence of God.

At the end I set “light and darkness” side by side and say “one - unity.” For me this is not a philosophical formula about the identity of opposites. It is the outcome of a reconciliation. As long as I fight the night, it defines me completely. When I can call it a friend, it ceases to be only a threat. Light then changes too: it is no longer a weapon against darkness. It becomes its hidden possibility.

Tun stands after Nafas, and I hear here an important transition. First the breath teaches me to stay in the moment. Then the night takes away the outer proofs. And what remains - the breath, the heart, a quiet presence. That is why Tun is for me not a song about how to survive the night. It is about how to stop counting the night as a mistake of the path. Sometimes it is precisely the night that walks beside us the longest. A friend, a companion, munis, an eternal quiet companion.