At-Tawbah 50: If goodness should come upon you, this will sadden them. If a calamity comes upon you, they say; “Fortunately we took our precautions” and turn back arrogantly.

Surah At-Tawbah Verse 50. Allah Almighty (?), addressing the Prophet (peace be upon him), His speech: how beautiful our Lord's style of speaking is! I'm telling you, my daughter, so that you, my daughter-in-law, understand. Verse 50, although it seems addressed to the Prophet, the verse is not addressed to the Prophet; for that time, for the present time and for the future time too it is valid.

What does it say? If some good reaches you, if a grace from Allah reaches you, it grieves them. Whom? The hypocrites, the polytheists. Because they are enemies of Allah and His Messenger, when some good comes to him from Allah they are grieved.

But because of the good that touches him, people may gather around him and leave us alone: that fear. And also, when good touches them, that is, the prophets or the Muslims, they are jealous, they envy.

This grieves them, and if a calamity befalls you, they say: good thing we took our precautions beforehand, and they turn away exulting. Exulting. Yes, we took our precautions earlier, (?). If Allah willed, He could not (?) destroy them. Yes.

So, in whatever way it may be. The verses hold a light before people, and people attain guidance through Allah's verses. There is no person who, without attaining Allah's mercy, reaches guidance, finds the truth, finds peace. Hodja, among the polytheists and disbelievers there are some who live so well, who see so much brightness before them, and are so rich; if you say that, Allah Almighty, in His verse, calls them lying disbelievers, whose hearts are scattered and restless: they are the very people He means. What was it? Their hearts scattered and restless. And they are lying disbelievers. To find peace, they tell every kind of lie.

Lies. Lying has become their mother and father. When they tell the truth, they become heroes. Heroes. So they pass themselves off. In this case their religion and faith is money. In this case, since they can't find peace with this money either, they turn to drink, gambling, vice, to ways Allah does not want, to fornication. In this case, in the swamp they think is life, their lives they spend restless, and they live their lives in a swamp. Restless. To be able to find that peace, so that they can lose the rebellion in their heart, the gloom in their heart, the blackness in their heart, and find the light, they go on journeys, they go sightseeing, that is, they travel as tourists.

Since they live as it occurs to them, they just can't find peace. Then peace is in Islam, as it is said; just as Allah's verses show people the way, just as they become a proof before them and hold a light, if people abide by the verses of Allah Almighty they find the truth. The truth, justice they find. For Allah created man very honourable and dignified. If a person abides by Allah's verses, they are far from lies, far from deceit, far from the evils they would do to people, far from the traps they would set for them, and since they strive for people's benefit and to spread truth and justice on earth, Allah Almighty places peace in their hearts.

They also walk among people with honour and dignity. And people call them trustworthy people. This is how man finds peace. Not with money and riches, not with property and possessions. Yes. How many trillionaires became fodder for hellfire, like Korah, and how many people living in poverty, like Hazrat Uways al-Qarani, found the truth. Yes, that's why peace is not in money and riches, not in property and possessions; peace is in living Allah's verses.

Even though we say peace is in Islam, even though we say it is in Islam, that "even though" has a meaning. Yes, peace is in Islam, but for those who live Islam, those who judge by Allah's verses, those who keep Allah and His Messenger alive in their hearts, those who take their place in the ranks of Allah and His Messenger, there is peace. Not people who say I'm a Muslim and stop at the words of the shahada, absent from their prayer, fasting, hajj, zakat, charity. Who fix their eyes on wealth and property, whose eyes see nothing but worldly desire: people like that. Who strip stark naked and, to satisfy their nafs, shamelessly, brazenly walk the streets: people like that.

Is there peace in these too? these are Muslims too; can these find peace? In constant distress, every day they are in gloom, because the nafs and Satan, those lustful feelings, from here Satan strikes (?) anyway; together with love of the world, Islam they cannot live, so they too, just like the disbelievers, feel the feelings that way of life feels. There's just one difference. One has spoken the shahada. Faith has stayed in his heart like a dot.

But the life is exactly the life of the disbelievers. How he will depart in the end is not certain either. We pray that, God willing, they depart as Muslims. Yes.

So the hypocrites, in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) back then, whether toward the Prophet (peace be upon him), or the noble Companions, or the Muslims of that time, and the same hypocrites in this time, and in the future time too they will think the same: when Islam is touched by harm, they rejoice; when a mercy is written for Islam they grieve.

The hypocrites and polytheists, since the Prophet (peace be upon him) they do not love and do not believe in, if some good from Allah reached the Prophet (peace be upon him), they would be greatly grieved. They want some pain to touch him so that they can mock him. For this reason, the good things that touch the Prophet (peace be upon him) they dislike, and they grieve. What was their grief? We listed it just now. That the people around us would gather around him. Because people are drawn to material things, or because they want to be with people living in mercy, goodness and peace, in that case they gather around him and leave us alone: that fear.

With such talk, by showing that they do not believe in Allah and His Messenger, they hold themselves as witness before those around and before themselves. And by not believing that good and evil come from Allah, since (?) in Allah and the Prophet they don't believe, delighting in a calamity that touches the Prophet (peace be upon him), their hatred of the Messenger of Allah and of Islam they at least somewhat satisfy. Yes. So these are the people of whom it says: O (?), woe to you; these people, for a few hours of this passing world's life, abandon the hereafter; for worldly life, chasing the feelings of the nafs and Satan, to taste the world's pleasure they turn their backs on the hereafter; these people wrong themselves.

A thousand years of this world are like one day of the hereafter. I'm not saying it, my Lord is saying it. A thousand years of this world, which are like one day of the hereafter: if people living in this world's thousand years live fifty or sixty years, relative to the hereafter they live one, one and a half hours. So, Allah Almighty, who creates time within time — these people without sound reason, according to the verses "do you never think, do you never reflect", people unaware of where they came from and where they are going, people who, without thinking that these worlds have a founder, live in pleasure and lustful feelings,

if they abandon the hereafter, the abode of eternal bliss, and buy that endless, unending abode of torment, they have wronged their own selves. And they have not used their reason. Allah Almighty says so anyway. Do you never use your reason? That is, O man, with this reason I have given you, with this knowledge in you, with a technology equipped... in ourselves there is a technology equipped with knowledge. There is knowledge. The One who created the universe, brought it into being from nothing — this world, with each part's course alongside the other's, without its order and harmony being disturbed in any way, moving in unity and togetherness: does this world have no creator?

Did this world come into being by itself? So they had reason and life, and began to protect themselves, and in this way set up an order?

So Allah Almighty calls out to man: O man, reflect at least a little, on the course of these worlds, on the sun, the moon and the earth turning around their own axes and night and day coming about, on how none of the galaxies in the sky collide with one another in their courses; on the creation of so many creatures, on the world's being filtered, on seventeen thousand worlds being created and the world being filtered among seventeen thousand worlds, and on man being created as the noblest of creatures and made the earth's vicegerent: is all this by itself (?) an order? It made itself known within order, it emerged.

So how beautifully Allah Almighty calls out to man. O man! Come to your senses. If you abandon Allah and His Messenger, if you act as though taking revenge on Allah and His Messenger,

according to the verse: even if mankind and jinn gathered, they could not harm Allah.

One must not forget that no created being can step outside Allah's command. It cannot go outside His rule.

In this case no created being can, toward Allah Almighty, (?), nor oppose Him and render Him helpless. In that case, the one who will be rendered helpless is our own self. In the course of this world, when something hurts us a little, we run to doctors, we try to take precautions. In the other world — the pain in the other world is not like the pain in this world. So from here I call out to people like this. As Allah Almighty calls: O people! Reflect at least a little, think of your reason, think with your reason. We are not left to ourselves; we look as if we are left to ourselves, but on our neck there is such a yoke that we are not aware of it.

That yoke is the yoke of responsibility toward Allah Almighty. Whoever steps outside this responsibility has bought the abode of eternal hell, and that person has wronged his own self. yes, these people, since they don't believe in Allah and the Prophet, delighting in a calamity that touches the Prophet (peace be upon him), their hatred of the Messenger of Allah and of Islam at least a little they satisfy. Yes, even though this verse is given as an example concerning the Prophet (peace be upon him), the address of the verses is not only to the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him); the verses speak to the peoples who will come until the Day of Judgement.

The Islamic world, the community of the Prophet (peace be upon him): if some good touches this Islamic world, or a state begins to develop a little, the whole world of disbelief swarms over that Muslim state. Isn't that what happens?

When Islam rises up a little in strength, all the disbelievers gather. (?). They impose an embargo. Yes. If the Islamic world, the community of the Prophet (peace be upon him), is touched by some good, or a state begins to develop a little, the whole world of disbelief swarms over that Muslim state. Because they don't want any good to touch Islam. On the other hand, if evil or calamity reaches the Islamic world, treating them with contempt, in arrogance and pride, making it look as though they are helping, they satisfy their nafs over people. Don't they (?)? Yes, so again I call out to people: O people, will you not use your reason?

Will you not see this course of events?

In the face of these events, how will you evaluate Allah's verses? And how will you yourself, grasping your responsibility toward Allah Almighty, try to be freed of that responsibility, yet Allah's verses you take lightly and live by your own nafs? Then, resembling these very disbelievers, in the end you'll depart either without religion, you'll depart without faith, or, shouldering the burden of sin, having forfeited the hereafter, you'll depart (?).

As our Lord made known earlier (?), I had said that word to you before, let me say it again. People: rather than, among people who don't know themselves, with fame and renown, pride and arrogance, being treated that way, and among those who don't know themselves, fame, renown, pride and such things raising these people up, and then, loaded with the burden of sin, going into Allah's presence, it is better to live like a common person and go into Allah's presence with a load of good deeds. Those boors, those disbelievers, those people who don't know themselves, those bewildered ones, those whose hearts are restless and scattered: if you envy their immoral lives, the verse "whoever is with them is like them" you become subject to, and you wrong your own selves.

Therefore my advice to you: as our Lord commands in His verse, use your reason.