40 in Turkish Culture

In the cyclical motion beneath the celestial dome, humanity forever stands at a threshold, awaiting perfection. This threshold is sometimes the end of an era, sometimes the peace of patience, and sometimes the destination of a journey. In the memory of ancient civilizations, this destination bears the name of the most mystical of numbers—the seal of waiting and completion: “forty.”

Numbers, freed from the mathematical coldness of time and space, carry within them the warmth of spirit and culture, bearing traces from a nation’s faith to its geography. The number forty belongs to this lineage—it is the symbol of waiting, preparation, trial, and ultimately, the completion of transformation.

This number, filtered through the seven-day cycles of the seven planets in Babylon, once shone in the ancient Mesopotamian sky as the emblem of storm gods and abundance. The mandatory forty-day quarantine period, from which the word “quarantine” in Western languages derives, is not merely a means of protecting the body from illness but also a path to purifying the soul from chaos. Just as the forty days of rain in the Flood of Noah cleansed and washed away the world, the forty years spent in the desert carried the Children of Israel from slavery to freedom, from immaturity to maturity. This unshakable bond with the divine has served as humanity’s “waiting room,” from Hz. Moses’ seclusion on Mount Tur to Hz. Jesus’ spiritual struggle in the wilderness.

In Islamic culture, forty is not merely a custom but the sacred age at which the soul, after the utterance of “be,” attains maturity in its earthly journey. Indeed, the fact that prophethood came to Hz. Muhammad at the age of forty, and that the letter “mim” in his name holds a numerical value of forty, has elevated this number to the foremost position in Islamic tradition.

In Turkish cultural heritage, forty is an order, a threshold, a trial, a purification, and a maturation. In the misty and solemn mornings of our epics, the children of the steppe have always sought refuge beneath the shadow of this number to attain perfection.

In the Oğuz Kağan Epic, the hero’s might is heralded by a speed that transcends time: “to walk for forty days, to speak for forty days.” This is certainly not ordinary growth. The one destined to bear the fate of a nation must meet his innate nature at the fortieth step of time.

Dede Korkut’s words describe “forty slender-waisted girls” and “forty heroes” standing on either side of Bayındır Han’s council—not a chaotic crowd, but the unshakable hierarchy of a state and the completeness of a leader. Likewise, Manas’s loyal companions, the “forty çora,” are the embodiment of loyalty and unity crystallized into number.

When we pass through the enchanted portal of our folktales, “forty” greets us like a guardian of the threshold. The “forty-roomed palace” that appears before the hero is, in truth, a trial of the soul and curiosity. That final door—the fortieth room—is either the key to a great secret or the beginning of an irrevocable path. The “forty days and forty nights” of wedding rituals undertaken to attain a goal are, in essence, the appointed time for the divine reward that follows patience and effort.

The blessing drawn from Köroğlu’s “Makam of the Forties” becomes his spiritual armor against Bolu Bey, while the “forty outlaws” in folktales whisper that even the dark forces opposing order require their own wholeness—a forty.

In the everyday language and beliefs of the people, forty is a “shield of protection” and a “water of purification.” The water poured over a newborn to help it adjust to the world, the “forty sprinklings,” is in fact a ritual of purification woven from the abundance of earth and water. The “forty stones” cast into the forty-bowl water imprint the healing power of nature upon the child’s soul. The prayers recited on the “fortieth day” after death serve as the formal record of the soul’s departure from this world and its migration to its true homeland.

The tradition of “erbain” (forty days), passed down from shamanism to Islamic culture, merges with the phrase “to complete the trial” to symbolize humanity’s transition from immaturity to maturity. In Bektashism, the “Assembly of the Forties” is regarded as the highest station of unity and togetherness, where it is proclaimed, “One of us is our forty, our forty is one of us,” celebrating the dissolution of the self within the collective.

In our proverbs and idioms, forty sometimes expresses impossibility, sometimes unshakable resolve. When we say, “A cup of coffee has forty years of memory,” we erect an ancient bridge that proclaims friendship’s endurance against time. Yet, when we say, “after forty, the call to prayer is sung by the weak,” we issue a warning to one who has crossed this sacred threshold yet still has not attained perfection. “To bring water from forty rivers” speaks of futile exhaustion; “forty knots” reminds us that every word must pass through the sieve of reason before leaving the throat.

According to our belief, the “forty storehouses” symbolize abundance; the “forty branches” represent illumination; and it is believed that repeating a wish for “forty days” carries a magical power. For the saying, “Say something forty times and it will come true” points to the critical threshold where the utterance of the tongue transforms into the affirmation of the heart.

In Turkish culture, forty is not an endpoint but the spark of rebirth each time. The openness of the steppe washed by the “forty rains,” the first flame in the wick of the forty-branched candelabrum, the great secret behind the door of the forty-winged gate—all call to us. The patience of the hunter who for forty years ate only the meat of the hoof, then one day feasted on game, is the same as the dervish who for forty years pursued knowledge and was illuminated in a single moment of insight. This number is a gathering that unites fragmentation, a bridge that binds the few to the many. Here, at this word, let us close with the key to the fortieth room: May every word that has passed through the forty knots carry forty years of memory and forty-onefold abundance in the heart’s chamber. If we have erred, forgive us for the sake of the faces of the forties.