An-Nisa 117: They (the idolaters) leave Allah and pray to some females (idols with female names); in reality, their prayer is only to the rebellious and stubborn Satan (Iblees).

Although with the mind Allah gave him he knows that he himself was created, out of obstinacy and following every obstinate devil, as if taking revenge on Allah, they worship what they made with their hands as their creators and expect help from them. Yes. What does it say now? And following every obstinate devil, as if taking revenge on Allah. They are enemies of Allah. At that address Alastu bi-Rabbikum, because our Lord gave man of His spirit, because He created him close to His Essence, man could not believe in his Lord who created him. He waited for the Lord in his own imagination. That is why Allah Almighty says they will not be able to see their Lord, you know.

He says it according to this verse. He says it accordingly. They waited for the Lord in their own imagination. In this respect, toward our Lord who says I am your Lord, out of arrogance and pride and grandeur they turned their backs. And as if taking revenge on Him, right there, out of that pride and arrogance, because they did not accept Him, because they did not accept Allah, they had their destiny written that way. And in Hell, does he not say: Malik, O Malik, tell your Lord to lighten the punishment on us a little. He cannot say it to our Lord. If he said it to our Lord, Allah Almighty's grace and mercy are abundant.

After he has burned there as much as his sin, after he has served his punishment, He takes him out of there. They are still waiting for the Lord in their imagination. That Lord in their imagination will come. He will save them from there. They will take revenge on the Lord of the worlds who put them there. In these feelings they are eternal people of Hell. Eternal. Because their characters are like that, they cannot change those characters. In this respect, Allah Almighty's verse: if We do not will, you cannot will, there is that verse, you know; because He left every person free in his own will, in his own will.

In this case, because of the value He gave man, He wrote for each person the fulfilment of his desire and wish as his destiny. If He had wished, what does He say anyway: had We wished, We would have created you as one single ummah. That is, We would have programmed you Ourselves. And you could not have stepped outside that program. Like the angels, or like the other animals He created.

Now the value of man is understood, I suppose. He has put his will in his own hands; he will govern himself and, by the judgments he himself makes, earn reward and sin.

The greatness of man lies right here. In this case, man, way back at the beginning, in (?), in that Al-A'raf Surah, verse 172: what is it? Allah Almighty: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. With those who would emerge from the offspring of the children of Adam We made a covenant and said, We are your Lord, it says. So those who did not recognize Him as Lord, though He created them close to His Essence, because they waited for the Lord in their own imagination, out of that pride and arrogance became enemies of Allah. And because their desires and wishes were also worked into them as character, in this case it is not possible for them to change that character themselves.

What does Allah Almighty say in the verse? If We do not will, you cannot will. What is this willing? With Us is a Book, preserved in the Preserved Tablet. After that, neither an addition nor a reduction is made, it says. And in this case, He who writes and pours it out has sent us His Book, of which He says neither a reduction nor an addition is made, the Holy Quran; the wet and the dry are in it; in it, people's destinies too; only within our Lord's power He has written people's destinies according to their desires and wishes, bestowed their characters on them, on themselves, given them. In this case, if there is one single power that can change this, it is Allah Almighty.

But what does He say? A word has gone forth from Us. What is that word? Paradise and Hell. Those who (?) and those who do not. Because We wrote the desires and wishes of the people to whom We gave their own will as their destiny, We, it says, do not remove their will and use Our own will over them. Is there such a verse? Yes. Today, it says. Today. What each has earned, as the return for his own two hands, will be given to him in full, without any injustice done to him, it says. In full. And what does He say? Fa man ya'mal mithqala dharratin khayran yarah: the atom's weight he has done I will write, He says. Wa man ya'mal mithqala dharratin sharran yarah: an atom's weight of evil too I will write, He says. Although this partial will is in man's own hands, by the judgments man makes, within this judgment, man using his own will, without anyone's pressure and coercion, the acts he has done with his free thought are his own reward and sin.

The events, the acts that his own (?) earned and for which reward and sin are written for him. So everyone comes into this world to prove what kind of person he is. In fact, there, (?), the matter was settled according to those covenants. But so that man may not say to Allah Almighty: O my Lord, You throw me into Hell, You punish me, but You created me according to Yourself. In my imagination I pictured a different kind of god. How was I to know You were the Lord: so that he may not say this, He sends you, it says, to a world where My Essence is not seen, that is, hidden, an outward world, the material world.

There He makes His existence known to us, unseen, our Lord making His existence known without being seen. Come on then, He says now; now He makes it known. Here you are, an unseen world. That is, a world where His Essence is not seen. Now He makes Me known. He makes His Essence known too. Through whom? Through the prophets. Through the books He gave them. Then? After them, through the scholars who are their heirs. He makes His Essence known. Yes. So man, by the acts he does, by the judgments he himself makes, becomes subject to reward and sin. Allah Almighty is free of deficient attributes. No one will be able to question Allah Almighty.

The reason is Allah Almighty's attribute of being God. What is this attribute of His being God? In this whole universe, according to the desires and wishes of all these living beings, He creates causes; through those causes people do their acts, and through these acts they have done they themselves are cut off from the questions they would ask. So Allah has the attribute of being God. Our minds cannot grasp this. That power of His, that. His power within His knowledge. Yes. What do we say? They worship what they made with their hands as their creators and expect help from them. People created as the noblest of creation and very honored, with the temptation Satan gives, keeping them far from Allah, those who worship objects they made with their hands, which reason and logic do not accept, giving them female names.

Those who beg help from them make even Satan, the enemy of man and Allah, laugh. They make Satan laugh too. What does it say? They make even Satan, enemy of man and Allah, laugh. Now, in Mecca the Honored, Satan appears to those leading idolaters in human guise. He says: Muhammad is preparing a great army. It will come against you.

They too prepare a great army. The army, and Satan at its head, at the very front. Of course he appears to them as a frail old man. They set out toward Badr. When he approaches Badr, Satan says this. By Allah and by Allah, he swears in Allah's name. Today, he says, I see what you do not see. Today I am not here, he says. He turns back and leaves.

What did he see? Rank upon rank, by the thousands, he sees five thousand angels ready there. Yes. Now in Hell, Satan will also say to people: Allah promised you and I promised you. But my promises came to nothing, he will say. You should not have come, he will say. Had you followed Allah's promise, he will say. There he will defend himself like this. Yes. That is, against people. People follow Satan by their own desires and wishes. Otherwise Satan cannot put a halter on our necks and, by force, unseen as he is, say come over here. If he could say it, he would say it to all people. He would draw all those Muslims Allah created onto his path too.

That is his aim anyway. But what does Allah Almighty say? Satan's temptation of My servant who knows Me is (?), He says. Yes.

As for Satan, since he said to Allah Almighty, I will take a share of Your servants, such people's following Satan makes Satan proud against Allah Almighty and increases his arrogance. To Allah Almighty he says: You gave me this permission, and I will set traps before Your servants who come to man, I will keep them from coming to You, he says. And Allah Almighty says: O (?) Satan, if they follow you, take them, I have given them to you, He says. Let them be yours. Anyway, He has created Paradise (?) Hell, you know; in this case someone who will show Allah's servants the truth will certainly appear.

Allah's... the people who are enemies of Allah too must have someone to show them the bad path. So in this case, although Allah Almighty, to His servants who will come to Him, sent prophets and books, although He sent scholars, although out of His mercy He sent them to all people, those people, because they rebel against Allah within their own will, follow Satan, who will show them the bad path. Although he hears Allah's command, although he is a servant created by Allah, although he turns to Him, he turns his back on Allah. Because of his rebellion, out of the vain desire of his nafs: have you not seen the one who deifies his nafs, the people of whom He says this, by tagging along behind Satan, these servants Allah created, making concessions on Allah, take Satan as their guide.

In this case, these people in the hereafter: what does Allah Almighty say? My mercy in the universe is for everyone. Why for everyone? Because He sent everyone to this world. Did you think you would die without proving what kind of person you are? According to the verse, we prove what kind of people we are. In the end, in the end, every soul shall taste death, and finally, according to the verse where He says your return is to Me, (?), at the second trumpet, when we see ourselves at the gathering, at that great tribunal, where He says judgment on that day belongs to Allah alone, before Him who is Alaysallahu bi-ahkami'l-hakimin, the Judge of judges, we will give account.

So if you are taken in by the world and take Satan as your guide, if you take gods other than Allah, if you worship idols they (?) with their hands, although you too actually know these are a fantasy, purely out of your own nafs's pride and arrogance, its grandeur, because it is an enemy of Allah, because it has turned its back on Allah: if only you could know what you have left your own nafs subject to; what an evil destination, it says; that Hell, what an evil destination, that place of punishment: if only you could think that you have left it subject to it. But your pride and arrogance consent to that Hell, to Hell; they consent to burning. Yet breaking that pride and arrogance, bowing your neck and to Allah surrendering seems heavy to you.

So what does Allah Almighty say in Ya-Sin too? We have put lales on their necks. Do you know what a lale is? You know, they put it on the neck of these shepherd dogs, with nails like this, so that when it fights with wolves, a wolf won't seize the dog and strangle it, so that it won't seize it from its (?), they put such lales on it; they call them lales. So such lales have been put on people's necks too; the person with that pride and arrogance cannot bow his neck, break that pride and arrogance, and submit to any person. Yes.

O man, be wise and collect your wits, think it over well. Think it over well. Since you were created as the most excellent of created beings, so that you may take your place among them, although your mind shows you what is right, why are you, following every obstinate devil, dragging yourself to ruin? What is the reason? The reason? One single point. At that address Alastu bi-Rabbikum, seeing Allah Almighty as like yourself, out of the pride and arrogance in your nafs, so as not to believe that Allah is Allah. Because he waited for the Lord in his own imagination. So in a verse Allah Almighty says this to you: Had We wished, He says. Had We wished, We would have come down from the sky among the clouds with angels and prostrated to you, He says. What does this mean? It means how great a value Allah Almighty gives man, and He leaves man free in his own will. Without pressuring man in any way, without programming him Himself, in his own will, in that free will, He leaves him free: the greatness of man. And what does Abdulqadir Gilani say? If man had known his place in Allah's sight, he would say this, he says: La mulka illa al-yawma li, today the dominion is mine alone, he would say, he says; isn't that so?

Are you not the vicegerent in the dominion? Did Allah Almighty not put what He created at your command? Did He not put these things He created under your disposal? Does this not show your greatness in the world? Does it not show that you are the noblest among created beings? Yes. So out of your obstinacy, out of the vain desire of your nafs, out of the trap Satan set before you, out of desire for this swamp of a world Allah created, this rubbish heap, you abandon the One who created you. Deceived by the pleasures of this transient world, a realm of a few hours, its pleasures and delights, you leave your hereafter subject to punishment.

Well, now, are you wise? Can you be called wise? So use your mind. Always use your mind. Do not mortgage your mind to anyone's opinion. Yes. If you are going to (?) your mind, (?) it to Allah's verses. So that you may find the truth, find what is right. Yes.

What do we say now? O man, be wise and collect your wits, think it over well, think it over well. That is: who am I? You are a human being. Where did I come from? You did not come from an ape, as that Darwin said. Well, (?) you came from an ape. Where did the ape come from?

From stone, from earth. Where did that stone, that earth come from? Nothing comes into being from nothing. Nothing comes into being from nothing, nor does what exists become nothing. So, since what exists does not become nothing, Allah Almighty, the Owner of that existence, only when He wills it, says Kun, that is, Be, be, and it He creates. So that Creator created you in the most beautiful form and gave you of His spirit. How do we know, Hodja, that He gave of His spirit? Look what it says. We created Adam from dry clay. Yes. Then into shaped mud We breathed of Our spirit, it says. For Jesus, He creates him without a father and We breathed into him of Our spirit, it says.

The meanings of these are deep.

So these show that Allah Almighty Himself created man as man, that man is not from the ape, but rather that some of the people He turned from human form into apes: Allah Almighty, among the people of the Sabbath, that is, the people of Saturday, when He said do not fish on Saturday, fish on the other days; on the other days the seas teem with fish. Well, no fish at all, no fish at all. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, no fish at all. On Saturday the fish teem. They are being tested, you see; they will be tested. The accursed one comes in human guise and says: Shall I give you an idea, he says; like this, they say. Build a breakwater, a breakwater. On Saturday, he says, when the fish come, close it; fish on the other days, he says.

They start building a breakwater. And their rabbis tell them: these are legal tricks, they say, don't do it. While they build that breakwater, the rabbis build a wall between them.

They complete the breakwater. When they start fishing on Saturdays, Allah Almighty changes their forms into apes. In the Holy Quran, among the people of the Sabbath; (?) says I found, found. When he says man comes from the ape, what he calls I found, 1400-some years earlier Allah Almighty declares in the Holy Quran. Yes, so He who created seventeen thousand worlds in such a way as to filter the world, who sees that with the lack of one of them the world's filth or balance is disturbed: these mindless idolaters still say that came from this, this came from that, and try to keep this world's balance going. They themselves don't believe in what they (?).

Well, if these aren't liars, what are they?

Being outside the religion of Islam, if not lying unbelievers, what are they?

Can one believe their word and follow them? Well, aren't these people human? Human. Don't you pity them? By Allah and by Allah, I pity them. Why do you pity them? Tomorrow, when they suffer punishment in eternal Hell: when I prick myself with the tip of a needle like this, I wince. How will they bear it? Well, while you are so merciful, is Allah so cruel to them? I think about these things too.

But think of this:

Take a person from when he is small, feed him constantly, feed him constantly, feed him constantly. Provide him with all means, provide every kind of means. Then let that man put the dagger to your heart and kill you. What would you say? Like when they killed Caesar, (?) Brutus from you. So, just as Allah Almighty offers those people so many of His blessings, should that person rise up and commit shirk against Allah, deny the One who created him and drown everything in corruption, shed the blood of the oppressed, eat without regard for halal and haram, and Allah, with His justice, should watch them and agree with them?

Now in this case, that they are eternal people of Hell, and just as they will never return to Allah, since they have those characters, in this case, if He put them, with those characters unchanged, into Paradise, they would drown Paradise in corruption too. And Allah would have committed injustice. In this respect, they are eternal people of Hell. So we say, we give advice while you are in the world; we don't just wish you well. Look what we say: O man, be wise, look, be wise and collect your wits, think it over well, think it over well. Since you were created as the most excellent of created beings, so that you may take your place among them, although your mind shows you what is right, why are you, following an obstinate devil, dragging yourself to ruin?

Yes, we advise, that is: why? Yes, or why, by comparing the crooked and the straight with your mind, using your mind, do you not want to see what is right? Is your mind not enough to see what is right? By Allah and by Allah, it is. Hodja, why do you swear? How do you know he isn't seeing what is right? No. Allah does not commit injustice. Allah gave every person a mind, in a state able to distinguish crooked from straight. If He had not given us this mind, in a state unable to distinguish crooked from straight, attributes would be ascribed to Allah Almighty. What would happen? Attributes would be ascribed to Allah Almighty.

Because of that attribute, Allah would have committed a deficiency. Yet Allah Almighty is free of all deficiencies.

If we know the verses well, very well; we become one with all the verses like this, we become one. Yes.

If there is anyone to make a wish to and to ask with open palms, that is Allah. That is, it is Allah Almighty, the absolute Owner of this universe. Because we were created. Allah Almighty has the attribute Al-Hayy. All the worlds are in need of Allah. Allah, however, is free of the worlds, the Giver of life. To all He created, Allah Almighty's attribute Al-Khaliq. Yes. If there is anyone to make a wish to or to ask with open hands, that is Allah. Whoever takes friends other than Allah, those friends can never benefit them. Because the whole universe is perishable. The universe. Perishable. Allah, however, is everlasting.

Allah Allah is the Owner of the universe and the Owner of absolute power. Owner of absolute power. If a person does not use his mind and expects help from other than Allah, he has wronged his own self.

People sometimes, looking at events the wrong way round, will suffer the punishment. Am I not...? What's it to you? they say.

What business of yours is what I do? What share do you have in it? These words, with their rebellion against Allah, show that they are unaware of themselves.

Of course what each soul does belongs to itself. Allah, however, is free of deficient attributes. Out of mercy to His servants, by making His verses heard, Allah completes His duty over people (?).

You enjoin what is right, it says. Allah Almighty again in a verse: We do not call anyone to account for anything We have not made heard, He says. In this case, and at the poles, in the most remote corner of the world, Companions of the Prophet lie buried too. And there are those who know Islam there too. But every person, with his own free will, within his own will, chooses his own religion and culture himself.

After this, the path a person takes by his own will belongs to himself. That is, our Lord will make it heard; according to the verse We do not call anyone to account for anything We have not made heard, our Lord will make it heard. Through whom? Through the prophets. Through whom? Through the scholars who are their heirs He will make it heard. So even if you say, what's it to you, Hodja Efendi, I'll do as I like, we are obliged to carry out Allah's command; we will tell. Ha, again, what's it to me, do as you like again, again do as you like. But tomorrow at the Resurrection don't say: My Allah, this servant of Yours knew You.

Why? He did not warn us. Look, this too He cuts off from you. This remark of yours, these words you would say, He cuts off from you too. Allah is free of deficient attributes. He has it made heard. You, if you wish, do it; if you wish, don't. Those on duty will tell. They will fulfil their duty. They will follow not your words but Allah's Word. Yes.

Allah's command, as for it, is enjoining what is right. Allah's servants, those who love Allah, according to this verse, fulfil their duty and convey the truth. Leaving the judgment to the people before them, every person, within his own free will, determines his path according to the covenant he gave, and at the end of his life, with the good and bad deeds he has done, on that day of reckoning they give their account to Allah. Yes. What does Allah Almighty say? Allah is sufficient for you today as Reckoner, He says. Yes.