An-Nisa 149: If you proclaim or hide a good deed, or if you forgive an evil deed, then indeed, Allah is much Pardoning (Afuww) and All-Powerful (Qadeer).

If you disclose or conceal a good deed, verse 149: if you disclose or conceal a good deed, or do not disclose an evil but pardon it, surely Allah is exceedingly forgiving and powerful, He says.

If you disclose or conceal a good deed, He says.

If, in order to show people the truth, a good deed you did, from a human angle, to stir those people's feelings, their feelings of mercy, you mention it for that, there is no harm. You may tell it and you also earn reward. But if a good deed you did, stirring your own carnal feelings, to make yourself high among people, or saying 'this is how I am', you set out to show off, you get sin.

In this case, he tells no one about a good deed he did. In a way that won't embarrass the person, when he gives, he grants it to him; if you forgive, Allah too forgives all your sins. Yes. That's exactly what He says. If you do not disclose an evil but pardon it, surely Allah is exceedingly forgiving and powerful, He says. How beautiful. Forgiving and powerful. So if we apply this verse to our nafs, or reconcile it with our nafs, we attain Allah's mercy. When we do someone a good deed, let's not spread it to everyone. But if you tell people about a good deed to stir people's feelings, their feelings of mercy, to stir them, if you tell it without bringing whims to your own nafs, that is an exception. If you set out to advance your own nafs, to give yourself pride and arrogance, a status, then you fall into sin.

Like what, you'd ask, like what? Look, may Allah protect us from riya, showing off. I'll tell you something that happened now. It happened to me in Diyarbakır.

Tell me a (?).

Yes, I'm in Diyarbakır. A fellow was posted across from my house, he came, the fellow, a good man.

A few months passed.

The fellow is nowhere to be seen.

Our neighbor's wife came over from across the street.

And her son is sick at home. Her son is about ten, eleven.

My husband, she said, didn't come home, she said. Would you look for him, she said. There's also a friend of his who was posted together with him. They were posted at the same time. To the same place. The petroleum office, I mean the Soil Products Office. They were posted there, these two. Together with him, with that friend, we searched high and low, nothing. Diyarbakır is a small place.

Anyway. We're coming home. We saw him coming up from below, staggering.

His friend immediately ran and slapped him. I stopped him. Hold on, I said. This man must have some trouble. Why are you slapping him? Instead of asking your friend about his trouble. Where do you get this arrogance from, I said. I took him aside. And he says: there's this side too. The one who got the beating, the slap. No, I said. Come on, tell me. What's wrong with you? He said: I stood guarantor for someone. Guarantor. I'm the guarantor, he said. He didn't pay the money.

In the end, he said, I paid this money, he said. I paid. It's over. And I'm finished, he said. How are you finished, I said. The butcher, he said, wants his money, what will I give him, he said, I have no money; from the baker, he said, I took bread on credit, I have no money; from the grocer, he said, I took vegetables on credit, I have no money; what will I give them, he said. I said: are you worrying about these, I said. What else should I do but worry about them, he said. I drove myself to suicide, he said. I went to the Tigris, he said. Let me throw myself off over the river, he said. I couldn't do it, he said.

My son, he said. My child came before my eyes, he said. I turned back from there, he said. I came. I said: you have no debt to the butcher. You have no debt to the grocer either. No debt to the bakery either. How would I know? How come, he said, there isn't? I paid them, I said. I paid. Don't say! Yes, I said. I'll get it from you, I said. And if you pay me, you pay; if you don't, you don't. No matter, I said. I got up, went to the butcher. I sent him home. I gave him some more pocket money in his pocket. The butcher won't take the money. Son, why won't you take it? You're beating him, aren't you? What's it to you, he said. It turns out he had his eye on his daughter. He wants his daughter. Look at that, the easy way.

They know me very well too; he held back (?), took the money from me. On the other side there's the grocer, Keleş. I went to him. His name is Keleş. I paid his money; may Allah be pleased with you, he said. He's a Muslim man. The baker likewise; I cleared this man's debts. I came home, and then there was a knock at the door. What is it, I said. The boy, she said, is burning with fever. To take him to the doctor, there's no money, she said. Money of those days, she asked for another fifty lira. I gave that too. May Allah grant him well-being, the man came back to life. He was saved. But he still gave his daughter to that man. They asked, and they gave her to them. But there's giving as a debtor, and there's giving like this. Now, this too is a good deed;

look, if you tell people about it to stir their feelings of mercy, it's good, but if you tell it in a way that brings whims to your nafs, Allah protect us. You see, we are brothers; we will protect each other like this. If we protect each other like this, our Lord protects us too. yes

So if you disclose or conceal a good deed, or do not disclose an evil but pardon it, surely Allah is exceedingly forgiving and powerful, He says. That is, powerful over everything. His saying 'powerful':

is there anyone to question Him?

He waits for His servant to do a good deed like this, so that He (?) him from there and saves him. To save him. Is there anyone who will oppose Him? That is Qadir, the Powerful. He is powerful over everything. In this case, the moment a person, without hurting the person facing him, gives him from what Allah has given, Allah Almighty also forgives his sins, and he sees Allah as much-forgiving.

The good deeds and kindnesses people do, people, showing off and riyayap riyayapsa: something is misspelled here.

Showing off and riya, riyaya saplanmadan: not wrong, it has just been run together here. Let's separate that. Yes.

It is better that people do their good deeds and kindnesses without sinking into showing off and riya, for the sake of Allah's pleasure. Allah's pleasure. Since every person carries a nafs, one discloses to people a good deed one has done. If he exposes the person he did good to before people, the person who was helped is hurt. Why? Oh, I helped so-and-so. Oh, is he a man? Whereas the man had taken it from him out of (?). (?) Or else: I helped him the other day too. Well, I sometimes help such people anyway, that kind of thing; giving whims to his nafs, showing three or five pennies as a big sum, hurting people, he, uh, presents himself among people as if he were the head wrestler. As if he were the head wrestler of helping.

These are of the same kind as Korah. Korah too would appear before his people, you know,

I got this wealth through my own mind, he would say. He would show off to people. And the Jews would say, if only we were like Korah. One day, when Allah Almighty buried him with his palace into the depths of the earth, how good, they say, that we were not in Korah's place. Yes.

The reward of the good deed done also decreases. Allah Almighty, according to people's intentions, the good deeds done, the good deeds done, He evaluates according to intentions. One for three, five, seven, seventy, even an ear of grain; that ear, He says, put forth seven shoots, in each shoot a hundred grains. Seven shoots on one ear, one wheat grain, seven shoots, in each shoot a hundred grains, He says. That's the verse. That is, 700. Allah is merciful to His servant. Just make your intention, as one who protects the servants Allah created and earns Allah's mercy, to help. Help seeking (?) pleasure.

Who gave you that wealth? Allah gave it. Whose are the goods and property? Allah's. Are there verses? Of course. Every soul will taste death, the inheritance of the heavens and the earth will remain to Allah, He says. Everything is Allah's. Only if we give to Allah what Allah gave, if we give charity, do we carry (?) this property to the hereafter. Yes.

For a good deed done, Allah Almighty, one for three, five, seven, seventy and more, increasing it in His presence, as a return to the person who does good, gives reward. Alongside the output a factory gets running at full efficiency, at full capacity, while you need this output, would you stop the factory's machines and run it at low capacity? The factory: let's say I have six machines, or I have ten machines. You can't keep up with the output of these ten machines; you give, but it keeps giving. That is, in return for your good deeds Allah keeps showering on you. Well, you (?) those products. Oh, I might need them, let me not give these, you say.

You give charity little by little. That is, you run it at low capacity. Well, now what happened? The profit you would get from your sales decreased through carnal feelings. The devil drove you to stinginess. Yes

or, right when you are about to do business, would you close the factory for no reason and want to end up in need? He says. To end up in need. When Allah had given to you, if only you had given to people too. When Allah had given to you, if only you had given your zakat. When Allah had given to you, if only you had given thanks for that wealth. Do We ever diminish the wealth of the one who gives thanks? According to that verse, would Allah have diminished your wealth? Yes. So this is how one discloses a good deed too. If you hurt the person facing you, you fall into the state of a person running at low capacity or closing his factory.

You know there's one for three, five, seven, seventy, a hundred, seven hundred; you tell no one. Let's say you got seven hundred rewards. The devil, by Allah, nudges you. Say it, he says, say it, tell. Tell. You can't bear it, you tell it. Seven hundred rewards go, one reward remains. Only one remains. Yes. Would you want to fall into this state, he says, with the factory's output. We're giving an example like this. In contrast, to encourage people to do good, you can mention the good you'll do, without bringing whims to your nafs, for the sake of Allah's pleasure, or you can encourage. (?) Yes.

Besides this, when you see an evil people have done, to mention it: if the person who did the evil expresses his regret, gives you his word that he won't do it again, and you forgive him, may Allah also forgive your sins. one person, one person spoke behind another person's back. He gossiped. He came and told you. If you tell his words to someone else, a fight will break out. A fight will break out. He'll kill him, or he'll kill him. Or he will (?). So if you don't tell this, you let what that person said be lost within you. If you forgive him. Look, you told me this. Don't tell anyone else. Then this will be bad for you, he says.

If you show him the right way with advice, if you forgive him, Allah forgives you too. Yes.

You forgive him. And Allah forgives your sins. Because the human nafs, before it reaches perfection, is inclined to evil. To gossip, to backbiting, to lies, to hypocrisy, it is fond of its own interest. Where no one sees, it usurps people's rights, more or less. Because the nafs is not in perfection. In this case a person lives through his period of ignorance. Even if he has faith. From these, disaster begins. He struggles with such things, you see. If he brings himself on Allah's path into a state Allah will be pleased with, if he turns away from his nafs, he earns Allah's mercy.

Because the human nafs, before it reaches perfection, is inclined to evil. And Allah, those of you who commit errors and then, because of the errors they made, repent, when they return to Allah, these persons, since they have broken the bad sides of their nafs, become good people. How many bad people we see. Bad people. And then you see they've become people of the path, or a fine person. And every person has a period of ignorance. This doesn't depend on age. Look, what does Allah Almighty say? Do not mock any people. That is, do not ridicule. That is, don't point out his wrongdoing saying he's like this, like that.

It may be, He says, that those people are better than you. That is, when he repents, perhaps he'll attain a rank above you. He'll attain such faith. Can you know this, He says. That's one. Second, in a second sense, when you bring out that person's wrongdoing, if he in turn listed your wrongdoing, would you consent to that? As if you were a perfect person? Did Allah create people free of error? Look what He says: if you had not committed errors, He says, We would destroy you and create servants who commit errors, He says. So, thinking about this, you won't tell his error either. In another sense: did Allah Almighty create people without error?

That is, saying, my Allah, couldn't You create a perfectly upright person, You created such a faulty person, you'd unknowingly be poking at Allah's will. That's why you'll let people's bad sides be lost within you. You won't tell their errors. You can tell him himself that he is in error. But you won't tell anyone else. You won't expose him.

Because people don't know themselves and other people, Allah's servants are exposed by them for the errors they made.

These are not good things, of course. If they present them badly to people, who knows, perhaps that person will in future become a very virtuous person. Can you know people's destiny?

If today, Allah forbid, we were to say, oh, what a bad man so-and-so is, can he ever become a decent man, perhaps tomorrow he'll reach a state above mine; can you know this? La gaybillah. Allah knows everyone's destiny; a person can't even know what his own destiny is. In this case a person, a person, toward the creatures Allah created, will be pardoning, forgiving, merciful. Merciful. So that a person with other people, gently and mildly, in dialogue and at peace, may live. Yes.

In a verse Allah Almighty says: do not mock any people. It may be that those people are better than you. Its meaning: do not ridicule any person. Don't make fun of him. Don't look down on him for the evils he did. Tomorrow he may regret the evils he did with a repentance. If he asks Allah for forgiveness, who knows, perhaps it yields a human being more virtuous than us. So we forgive such evils of people. Those who become a means for them to become good people, in Allah's sight too, as atonement for their own errors, attain Allah's forgiveness. Because, as Allah says in this verse, Allah is exceedingly forgiving and powerful. Who could be as forgiving as Allah?

That is impossible. That is impossible. Because how does the Creator love His servants? Think of a mother, how tender she is toward her child. She (?) herself into fire for her child. Think: Allah the Creator, that feeling of mercy He gave to that mother, perhaps one percent; even though the Prophet was born on earth as the most merciful person, He sent one percent of His mercy down to earth; ninety-nine percent I kept for Myself, He says. Yes. If a person exposes the bad sides of the servants created by Allah, who has such mercy, he also breaks Allah's heart. So never speak of anyone's evils. Except, He says, except if someone comes to you and says: I am going to do business with so-and-so.

What kind of man is he, if he asks, then, He says, you may tell him that person's situation. So that the person is not harmed, He says. This much is permitted. This much is permitted.

Allah (?) over all His creatures, and holding them under His rule, is the One who knows what they do (?).