When Light Unveils (2024) 绘画 由 Meryem Günana

In the Metochion of the Hagios Georgios Church (Metrology - Hızır İlyas - Aya Yorgi Church), which is affiliated with the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, monks from the Mar Saba Monastery in Palestine erased Archimedes' hitherto unknown book on mathematical theory—a palimpsest—and wrote the Bible over it. This book was stolen from the library of the Fener Metrology Church and surfaced through an auction, first in Paris and then in America. The palimpsest was scanned with UV rays, allowing Archimedes' original text to be deciphered.

The text attempts to describe this indifference of the clergy towards science during that era as a "slumber of heedlessness" or "gaflet" (negligence).

The monks used as a representation in the artwork actually depict an entire society and a whole mindset that was in a state of "slumber of heedlessness."

The word "gaflet" is a noun meaning "to abandon, to disregard" and "absent-mindedness, carelessness, error, neglect." It carries the connotation of "failing to grasp something's necessity despite its obvious presence."

Gaflet is the state of refusing to observe the manifestation of truth in the mirror of truth. It is the act of narrowing or shortening the gaze directed towards the realm of existence. Gaflet is an accident (araz), meaning it is an added part to existence, something that can be removed. Hawari describes gaflet as "the greatest misfortune and gloom." According to him, the deepest sleep is the slumber of gaflet. This was referred to in the old language as "hab-ı gaflet" (slumber of heedlessness).

Nesîmî says of gaflet:

You've lost Jamshid's goblet, wake up from your sleep, oh heedless one!
What did you gain from sleep, what did you achieve from slumber?

(Wake up from sleep, oh heedless one! You have lost Jamshid's goblet!
What good did sleep do you, what else did you do but sleep?)

Nigârî also says:

Meaning, the cherished beloved's abode won't be reached by merely sleeping,
What ease is this, what heedlessness, what is this, oh fresh enthusiast?

(Oh fresh enthusiast! With this comfort and this heedlessness, that precious beloved's abode, that cherished sight, will not be attained.)

Şem’î expresses this state in his poem:

One who sleeps the slumber of heedlessness won't wake until the dawn of resurrection,
Unless the sun of divine grace awakens them.

(One who has fallen into the slumber of heedlessness will sleep until the dawn of the Day of Judgment.
They might only wake if perhaps a person of insight comes and awakens them with the sun of divine aid.)

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MemoryErasure / InscriptionTruthPalimpsestHeedlessness