An-Nisa 119: Certainly, I will lead them astray, I will whisper them false hopes, I surely will whisper orders to them so that they will cut the ears of animals (mark them for idols), I surely will whisper orders to them so that they will change that which Allah has created.” Whoever leaves Allah and takes shaytan as a friend, is clearly on a path to be ruined.

It seems to me we'd have stopped.

Look what Satan says: I will surely lead them astray. I will lead them astray. I will certainly drown them in vain fancies. Don't people become like that? Vain fancies.

He keeps imagining and imagining, imagining and imagining. And then he gets into these. As if things had happened, as if he had put them into action, in those depressions he gets caught up in (?). Listen carefully to the verse. I will surely lead them astray. I will certainly drown them in vain fancies. I will definitely command them. I will command them, and they will slit the ears of animals. They will mark them for idols. Surely I will command them, and they will change what Allah has created, he said. Whoever abandons Allah and takes Satan as a friend has surely fallen into manifest loss, says Allah Almighty.

Manifest. Why manifest? Why manifest? O man! You too know that it was Allah who created Satan as well. Because he transgressed against Allah out of his pride and arrogance — to that Allah who created you honored, that Allah informs you of Satan, who is your enemy. Because He loves you. You, however, become an enemy to the One who created you, and make friends with your enemy.

You don't realize that he has struck you in your very heart. You realize it, you realize it, and yet you make good friends with him. The reason: he too rebelled against Allah out of his pride and arrogance. Here you share a common destiny. And your turning on Allah out of your pride and arrogance. Your loving each other together with him arises here. Yes.

Because the accursed Satan is an enemy of Allah, he cannot harm Allah.

Even if men and jinn gathered, they could not harm Allah, it says. They cannot harm Allah. Allah Almighty, from the atom to the globe, all within His own rule, created this universe. Within His own rule.

There is not one atom unaware of His appearance. Had it been so, Allah would be unaware of what He created. And that created thing would suffer injustice. Now the story of Pharaoh, of Pharaoh and Satan, comes to my mind. Satan knocks on Pharaoh's door. Pharaoh says: who is it? Satan calls from outside: What kind of god are you? he says. You couldn't tell who came to your door, he says.

Who are you? he says. Come in, he says. He opens the door and goes in. A god like you, he says, needs a helper like me, he says. A helper. And so Satan tells Pharaoh the traps he will set. He flatters him nicely too. He makes him completely hostile to Allah. And makes him deify himself. So here, because Satan is an enemy of Allah, he cannot harm Allah. There: even if men and jinn gathered, they are not able to harm Allah. So he takes his revenge on the servants Allah created: those who walk on the path Allah has shown and are busy with His worship, he tempts them, wanting to lead them astray from Allah's path.

There was that pride and arrogance, wasn't there — it even made him pass himself off as teacher of the angels — so with that claim of ego, with ego, they wronged their own selves and were cursed. Now I too had a spiritual state, let me tell you. One day I drift off like this and among devils I find myself. They attack me. But how? They try to beat me. Every time I hit them, I knock them over. They can't hit me, for some reason. It passes like a wind, like this. Like a wind. They corner me somewhere, like this. They're going to (?) me somewhere. Immediately they (?) each other. I'll hit — he'll hit.

While they're saying I'll hit, he'll hit, I go in at them from there once more. Now here they show me such a beautiful event. A spiritual event. Their egos. How within those egos they ruined and wrecked themselves. So they had cornered me, and I was stuck in the corner thinking now they're going to beat me. They go at each other. I'll beat him, he'll beat — (?). I go at them once more, (?). And there our Lord shows us a beautiful world: their egos. There: that the ego is this bad and, distancing man from Allah, leads him as far as being cursed. Yes, because Satan is an enemy of Allah, he cannot harm Allah.

So he takes his revenge on the servants Allah created: those who walk on the path Allah has shown and are busy with His worship, he tempts them, wanting to lead them astray from Allah's path. But in a verse Allah Almighty says: to My servant who knows Me, Satan's temptation is ignorant. Satan's temptation is ignorant. So, by taking a place beside the accursed one, who is an enemy of Allah and wants to take revenge on Allah's servants, a person too opposes Allah, and by taking on the burden of sin he does harm to his own self.

If you make friends with the one who is an enemy of Allah, you too become an enemy of Allah. That is, you become an enemy of Allah. Otherwise Allah is not an enemy to any being He created. Enmity would fall under attributing qualities — attributing — like setting an ambush for one you cannot overpower, gathering strength against him and destroying him. Yet such things do not befit the majesty of Allah. Allah is not the enemy of what He created. Look how beautifully the verse says it. My mercy is for everyone in the universe. He is not an enemy; He treats everyone with His mercy. In the hereafter He will treat only the believer, that is, the servants who know their Lord, with His mercy.

From the others He will withdraw His mercy. There they are alone and without anyone, it says. As eternal dwellers of hell, they will enter hell, that place of torment, what an evil bed it is. Yes.

As stated in the verse, Satan's (?) people, drowning them in vain fancies, making people run after dreams that will never come true, is (?) long hopes. By making people nurse long hopes, over these long times giving people depressions, as people fail to reach the (?) they long for, he drags people into disasters. Now look at most people. Most of them.

You say to a young man: why don't you marry? Let me buy a car, let me buy my house, let me buy my house, then set up my home, my furniture, then marry. Do you have a bond in hand? I'll buy a car, I'll buy a house.

Do I have a salary? Am I in a position to support a family? Yes. The most lawful provision, the most lawful. Even a dry morsel, if lawful, is lawful. In the old days our mothers used to say this to our fathers: bring us lawful bread, don't bring us unlawful bread, they used to say. To their husbands, to our fathers, our mothers used to say that.

Our women used to say that to me too. Bring us lawful bread, don't bring us unlawful bread, they used to say. Now which wife says this to her husband? There are some, there are, but they have become rare. Yes, so then, what does this mean? That the woman is obedient to her husband in plenty and in want and in sickness, that she bears everything of his — it shows that. But now, if the man hasn't brought a little money home, when he falls into hardship, the woman's rebellions, her outbursts, out of fear of going hungry not knowing what to do, falling into depression — is this life, is this Islam, is this submission to Allah, is this trust in Allah, is there peace in this? Yes.

Yet just as people don't know how long they will live, they cannot know what Allah has decreed either.

So this person, what did we say? He'll buy his house, buy his car, buy his nice furniture, everything will be perfect, then he'll marry. And when he can't get this, his age passes too. His age passes. This time he falls into depression. What does he do? The order is broken. Forgive me this time. I'm stating plain truths. They consort with prostitutes.

Or they consort with other people's wives. And once they get used to this, they can never marry again. And how beautifully Allah Almighty says it. The man who commits adultery wants to marry a woman who commits adultery. And the woman who commits adultery, it says, wants to marry a man who commits adultery, it says. What an evil state.

Weren't we the noblest of creation? Weren't we created the most honored? Where have Allah's verses gone?

Yes.

As human beings, we will know our place and act according to our place.

We were created the noblest of creation. What does it say? They are like the four-legged ones roaming the earth. They are even more astray in their ways.

"They" means those animals.

And those "even more astray in their ways" are the people. Is this the human being created honored?

So if there are such people, you are obliged to enter among such people, as a human being. If you don't, then on Satan's path, with the temptation he gives, to the place he will go you prepare your place.

Yes.

A person may not have wealth today, he may be in need. But Allah has many unknown doors for people. Meanwhile a person may attain what he longs for. As long as a person (?) in Allah. There: Satan gives people's hearts whisperings with feelings that should not be, and as people get carried away by these feelings and are dragged after the tricks Satan gives, people come to not listen to Allah's commands, and fall into being Satan's laughingstock and a disgrace among people.

Isn't that so? Those who swindle people to reach their goals, who, even to their acquaintances, to take their three pennies, five pennies from their hands, cause them loss with fraudulent dealings — such people lose their worth among people. And become worthless. Why "liar"? Leave him, they say. Leave him. Why leave him? He is a disgrace among people. A liar, they say. Or a swindler, they say. Yes.

Such people are very sinful people. Very sinful. Is there a verse about it? The people of Salih.

Salih says: when you weigh on the scales, weigh correctly, he says. Scales. To take people's goods from their hands you commit evil trickery, he says. But they oppose Salih, the prophet Salih. They don't listen. Then Allah Almighty destroys that people. So, people not taking a lesson from those people of the past — in the verse Allah Almighty says about them, that is, although very little time has passed since those destroyed, how these generations that came in their place have resembled their ancestors, He says. Although very little time has passed. In this case, so as not to resemble them, (?) in Islam we will be bound by the verses.

We will be perfectly upright, perfectly upright.

As Mevlana says: either be as you appear, or appear as you are. I told you a proverb, you know. The story of the fox and the snake. As the fox is crossing the stream, the snake says: brother fox, take me across too. The fox says to the snake: I'd take you across, but you'll play a trick on me, he says. No, he says. I won't do anything to you. Promise, he says. So (?) on my back, he says. Just as the fox's feet cross the stream and start touching the ground, the fox is done for. There — slowly the snake starts to climb out. The fox says to the snake: didn't I tell you that you'd play a trick on me, he says. The snake squeezes a little more.

Do you know why I took you across? he says. Why? he says to the snake. Why did you take me across? I admire your eyes, says the fox. You'll kill me anyway, let me see those eyes of yours once more, he says. With that pride the snake turns. As it fixes its eyes on the fox's eyes, the fox at once goes for its throat, tears it apart, takes it out and lays it out perfectly straight, like this. I don't understand crooked like that, he says, but like this it's straight.

Yes. We too will be perfectly upright, perfectly upright. No crookedness. On Allah's paths there is no crookedness at all. What if there is? Then aren't we (?)? Won't we do crooked things? Those crooked things — if we repent of the sins we committed knowingly, saying "I did it," that works. And if we don't part from the friends of Allah, from people who love Allah, do you know what happens? On that path we carry each other on our backs.

The one who has strength puts the one who has none on his back, and on that path, on the same path, in that friendship they go forward on the path. Yes.

There, there: Satan gives people's hearts whisperings with feelings that should not be, and as people get carried away by these feelings and are dragged after the tricks Satan gives, people come to not listen to Allah's commands, and fall into being Satan's laughingstock and a disgrace among people. Yes. The underside of this is sticky, I suppose. In the world of the hereafter, too, because such people follow Satan's trail, they are left to the torment of hell, what an evil place of return, and such people will have done harm to their own selves.

I will command them, and they will slit the ears of animals, they will mark them for idols. That is, they slaughter animals for those idols, don't they; he comes and says: this sheep, or cut this animal's ear, this one belongs to that. There: what Allah has made unlawful — pork, carrion, blood, and animals not slaughtered in Allah's name, in Allah's name. Our people sometimes misunderstand this. The animals slaughtered by non-Muslims — if they slaughter normally, of course, like the normal Islamic conditions, these, he says — they were not slaughtered in Allah's name, they cannot be eaten, they say.

Their — deeds depend on intention. Why do they slaughter? They slaughter for meat. Meat. What is a sacrifice not slaughtered in Allah's name? Those dedicated to idols. Those cannot be eaten. Yes. Not slaughtered in Allah's name. That is, the meat of animals slaughtered for those idols, associating partners with Allah as if Allah existed in them, cannot be eaten.

Otherwise, today meat slaughtered by non-Muslims comes from abroad, meat keeps coming, and we eat it.

And they don't say the basmala, he says. Let them not say it while slaughtering. When you eat, do you say Bismillahirrahmanirrahim? You do. When we sit at the table we say Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. When we (?) to the food, we say Bismillah. There, we said "in Allah's name." In Allah's name. Bismillah. That is, when saying, not Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Rahman and Rahim (?). Bismillah. With the name of Allah.

Allah Almighty made those animals lawful for us. But although He made them lawful, the animals slaughtered marked for idols He made unlawful for us. Those cannot be eaten. We must comprehend these points well. We must understand them well. One must not give fatwas with short minds. One must know the verses well. Yes.

Now: I will command them, and they will slit the ears of animals, they will mark them for idols. With the temptation he gives such people, Satan drags them along after him into torment. In fact, in the first barzakh, at the "Am I not your Lord," upon the covenants people made, people themselves follow after Satan. If a person's wish is not to do evil, since Satan has no power over people, these will have followed Satan of their own accord. Because

their thoughts and deeds are the same and they are of the same mindset. Over those who worship Allah, who walk on Allah's path, the temptations Satan gives have no power, because to the servant who knows Allah, Satan's temptation is ignorant. So who follows Satan? Those who are Satan's laughingstock. "Dragging these along after him into torment," we said. Satan — here something is missing. Let's correct that. Yes. "With the temptation he gives such people, Satan drags them along after him into torment," we said. Drag — yes, drags. Correct. Drags. "In fact, in the first barzakh, at the 'Am I not your Lord,' upon the covenants people made, people themselves follow after Satan." This is correct too. "If a person's wish is not to do evil, not to do, since Satan has no power over people, these will have followed Satan of their own accord." Here there's something.

Sir, "if a person's wish is not to do evil, since Satan has no power over people, these will have followed Satan of their own accord," we say — it should be "will not follow." These do not follow Satan of their own accord. Yes. We're correcting this.

"Because their thoughts and deeds are the same and they are of the same mindset." Then let's correct this part a bit more. There's a wrong sentence here.

"At the 'Am I not your Lord,' upon the covenants people made, people themselves follow after Satan. If a person's wish is not to do evil" — not "not to do," it should be "to do." This will be corrected. Yes. "If it is to do evil, since Satan has no power over people, these follow Satan of their own accord." Yes. Now it's correct. "Because their thoughts and deeds are the same and they are of the same mindset." It's fixed. The sentence is fixed. Now we read: "In fact, in the first barzakh, at the 'Am I not your Lord,' upon the covenants people made, people themselves follow after Satan." Upon the covenants they made there.

Because they made their covenant in a state of rebellion against Allah Almighty. They did not acknowledge Him, out of pride and arrogance. Although every person knows he was created by a Lord, because Allah Almighty created man close to His essence, man, out of pride and arrogance, did not accept the one created close to himself as the Creator over him. He waited for the Lord of his own imagination. The verse "they will not see their Lord" is against this too. With the verse "Had We willed, We would have created you as one ummah." The verses "We (?) made prostrate." All because of these people's pride and arrogance, because of their creation close to Allah, out of the being in themselves they rebelled against Allah.

Yes. "If a person's wish is to do evil, since Satan has no power over people, these follow Satan of their own accord." Yes. "Because their thoughts and deeds are the same and they are of the same mindset. Over those who worship Allah, who walk on Allah's path, the temptations Satan gives have no power. Because to the servant who knows Allah, Satan's temptation is ignorant.

Allah creates events for the deeds each person will do according to his nature. So that these evil people, the enemies of Allah, can bring out their own nature, Allah Almighty creates events through causes. And Satan has been made a means for the people who will do evil. With the temptation he gives people, those who will do this evil, who will do evil, immediately follow Satan. They even do such evil that even Satan is left ignorant beside them." Even Satan is left ignorant beside them. Let's give an example of this too. In (?) times, Satan tries to deceive a man who had taken refuge in a cave on a mountaintop, worshipping Allah.

He just can't deceive him.

Finally he comes to a woman and says: if you deceive this man, I will give you red shoes, he says. A pair of red shoes. The woman, her head covered, fully covered, looking utterly wronged, takes refuge with the man. The man accepts her. Slowly, slowly she uncovers. And she seduces the man. She marries him. Then, she had a stepson, it seems. She has him kill that stepson too, and after leading the man completely into unbelief and sin, she says to Satan: keep your promise, give me my shoes. Satan holds out the red shoes on the tip of a stick: and keep away from me, he says.

There: "they even do such evil," it says, "that even Satan is left ignorant beside them." Such people who do not know Allah and His Messenger, the polytheist men and women, attaching themselves to idols, try to adorn them. Those who (?) their gods as they please, according to their reason — cutting the ears of animals, pulling out their teeth, cutting their horns, they hang these on their gods and worship. Their teeth, their horns — they adorn their gods. They worship them. What a (?) thing: man, created the noblest among created beings and the vicegerent of the earth, although by his reason he is above the created beings — what these polytheist men and women make with their hands and worship as god, even animals do not do. No animal worships anything as a god.

Even it knows its Lord. Every animal does its duty according to the nature it was created with, every animal. According to the verse "The heavens and the earth and what is between them have known the remembrance of their Lord." Although the animal remembers its Lord in a language peculiar to it that we cannot know, O man! With this reason given to you, being the noblest of creation, with your partial will, you could not know your Lord. In a verse Allah Almighty says: they are like the four-legged ones roaming the earth, even more astray in their ways. If Satan were of any benefit to himself, he would make himself loved by Allah and attain Allah's mercy.

Driven from Allah's mercy, turning his back on Allah out of stubbornness and arrogance, the accursed one will of course drag you along after him too and take his revenge on you. He will take revenge on you. Because he is your enemy. So, O man, if you follow Satan, who is a manifest enemy, you too will be deprived of Allah's mercy, and because you did not use your reason while in the world of property, you bring loss and injustice upon the eternal world of the hereafter, and do harm to your own self.