An-Nisa 47: Oh people of the Book! Before We erase faces and turn them backward, or before We curse them as (We had cursed) the People of the Sabbath, believe in what We have sent down to confirm what has come to you. Allah’s commandment will surely take place.

O People of the Book, before We wipe out certain faces, flatten them and turn them backwards, or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers, act first and believe in the Book We have sent down confirming what came to you. The command of Allah will surely be carried out. That is, in the words of a verse too: We have never cursed or destroyed any people without sending men among them, or without sending prophets, without making the truth heard to them, He says. We do not call anyone to account for what We have not made heard, He says. So what does He say? O People of the Book. That is, those who judge by the Book I sent; 'ehl-i kitab', the most competent of books is written by Allah.

The most competent of books. Because it is complete and flawless. People write too, but in people's books there are errors. There are flaws. In this respect, 'ehl-i kitab', that is, by saying 'ehl-i kitab' Allah Himself means His own Being. Who is it that writes the most competent of books, or sends the most competent of books? Allah. Otherwise people write books too, but in the books they have written there are deficiencies. In this case, O People of the Book, that is, the people to whom it was sent by Me, commanded to you by your Lord; He is addressing that people. O People of the Book, that is, those who judge by it: before We wipe out certain faces and flatten them, turn them backwards, that is, if you do not listen to My command and rebel against Me, We will punish you as is due.

We will turn your faces backwards. That is, We will turn you from a human form into another form.

He gives an example after that: or before We curse them as the Sabbath-breakers were cursed, that is, before We turn them into apes; yes, act first, He says. Acting before this, to confirm what came to you, We will first make it known to you, He says. Believe in the Book We sent down confirming what came to you, He says. Otherwise your state is bad. That is, We will curse you like this, He says. After that, since He lifted destruction, We, He says, give them two or three calamities a year, He says. Today we see the state of the world.

All over the world Allah Almighty gives calamities town by town or state by state. State by state. Two or three calamities. (?) so that they do not say: O Allah, if You had given us a calamity, in that helpless calamity we would have turned to You, so that they do not say that. So that they do not say that. He gives an example. When you travel on a ship, He says, in that pitch darkness, among waves like mountains, when you are seized by fear and panic, you remember Allah, and when you reach land you say you will turn to Allah. But when your foot reaches land you turn away from Allah, He says. So to those who do not travel by sea He gives calamities on land.

So that they turn to Allah. So, before giving this calamity, He says, We send among you people who make the truth heard. Yes. We never do these things without making them known to you, He says. Today those who have not heard of Islam (?). Yes. Even at the poles the noble Companions lie buried, at the poles. Yes.

O people who are People of the Book!

Hodja, if Allah sent that Book, and if they are people of this Book, how do they become unbelievers? People of the Book. Does Allah Almighty not say? We went through it in the verse above, they, for three or five pennies of gain, changed the verses of Allah. Their own ideologies, their own ideologies; according to their ideologies they changed the verses. One; the worst, even worse than this: although Allah sent the last Holy Quran and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as a mercy to the worlds, they denied them.

Although the originals of the books in their hands, the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel, are in the Quran, when Allah commanded them to judge by the truth and by reality, they, (?) their mouths, (?), the one whom He created (?) from His spirit, the Beloved of the Almighty, (?) the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), they denied his origin and turned their backs on Allah. They turned their backs on the One who created them.

So, however much You sent them a Book, He says, they changed that too. O people, He says now, O people, before We turn your faces backwards, that is, before We kill them and bring them to a state where no trace of them remains in the world; according to the verse 'I hold no one responsible for what I have not made heard', without warning you, without making the truth known, or the Jews of the Sabbath who lived by the seashore, as a test, yes: do not fish on the Sabbath, fish as much as you like on the other days; against this command they resorted to a legal trick, built a breakwater, trapped inside the fish that came on the Sabbath and caught them; in return they were cursed, their forms were changed into apes.

These are an example for you; before you too come to this state, surely without sending a messenger confirming the books that came to you, without saying 'believe in the Book sent down with a prophet and in the Messenger sent', Allah does not wish injustice for people. In this case, obey Allah and His Messenger and the Book sent with him, the Holy Quran. The people of the Sabbath go through a test. Allah Almighty makes His command known to them. You will not fish on the Sabbath. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday you will fish. Six days a week fishing is free. But, He says, you will not fish on the Sabbath.

They see that on six days of the week there is not a single fish in the sea. On the Sabbath the sea teems with fish. Our Lord is going to test them. In this way, according to one narration, the accursed one appears in human form and says: shall I give you an idea? Build a breakwater, he says. A breakwater. When the fish gather here on the Sabbath, close off both ends of the sea, he says. That way you do not fish on the Sabbath. Fish on the other days, he says. They like this idea. They start building a breakwater.

Their priests, that is, their scholars, warn them: what you are doing is a trick. Give it up. Although they say this is a test from our Lord, no one listens to these scholars, these priests. While they carry on with the breakwater, their priests start to build a wall between themselves and them. A wall. People who see this say to the priests: these people do not listen to your advice. Why do you keep coming and advising them? they say. The priests give them this answer. We are obliged to make the truth heard. Whether they listen or not. To be free of responsibility we are obliged to tell them this, they say.

To be free of responsibility we are obliged to tell them. Tomorrow (?) our Lord will ask us, and since we did not tell them, we too will deserve the punishment given to them, they say. We are also building a wall between us and them, so that if Allah gives them a calamity we will be outside that wall. They complete the breakwater. They complete the breakwater. When they start fishing on the other days, Allah Almighty changes their forms into apes. And that poor man called Darwin shouts: I found it. What did you find? The human skeleton comes from the ape; that man who takes pride in an ancestor of his being an animal is like the four-legged beasts that walk the earth, the verse says, and that man, being its counterpart, proves it anyway.

My ancestor was an ape, he says. What you found, He says, the Holy Quran already wrote one thousand four hundred and some years earlier, He says. Yes.

So when their forms were turned into apes, again those monks, those priests, when they go down to the town to advise them, they see that in the town apes are wandering about. When those apes see their priests, they see tears flowing from their eyes. According to one narration they live three more days and then perish. So Allah does not call anyone to account for what He has not made heard. O man!

You have power over nothing. You are helpless. You need what your Lord created.

With what power and with what will do you turn your back on your Lord, with pride, glory, fame, arrogance, ego, and try to lay claim to what Allah created?

With that partial mind, with your tiny mind, you try to fit Allah into your head and, seeing yourself as something, as if you had created the worlds, God forbid, you are in a state of grandeur. Break this nafs of yours. Know your helplessness. Turn to your Lord so that you find life. Allah Almighty says this to David. O David, how do you know Me? My Lord, he says, I know You as the Creator and my own self as helpless. Now you have known Me, He says. So if my Lord created you as His addressee, if He gave you from His spirit, if He created you as the noblest of creation, and this power too within creation, how can you oppose the Creator? And how (?) with these (?)?

How (?) Allah to your own head? In ignorance, outside knowledge, you set out to ascribe attributes to Allah. Or you oppose His commands. Or, deifying your nafs, although you know what is right, you cannot give up the way your nafs shows you. Within this worldly life in this tiny prison. Use your logic a little, use your reason a little, and reflect a little. In the verse, do you never use your reason? says Allah Almighty. Do you never think? He says. Think a little, think a little; this passing, mortal world, over the hereafter, do not prefer it. Yes.

These are an example for you. Before you too come to this state, surely, without sending a messenger confirming the books that came to you, without saying 'believe in the Book sent down with a prophet and in the Messenger sent', Allah does not wish injustice for people. In this case, to Allah and His Messenger and the Book sent with him, the Holy Quran, be obedient. Obey Allah. Allah Almighty did not create people for injustice. (?) 'suffer injustice'. Allah is not unjust. Allah, who is compassionate and merciful towards His creation, created people for the bliss of eternal life, guiding them by their knowing His Being.

what is it? He did not say: enjoy yourselves in this world, eat, drink and lie about; He did not send us for that; He created us so that His Being would be known, so that His Being would be known; He gave us a spirit, a part from His Being, close to His Being, for the bliss of eternal life He willed to be known through man, that is, He willed His Being to be known through His Being; rather, let us say it with words they cannot grasp, with words some tiny (?) cannot grasp.

He willed His Being to be known through His Being. In this respect He gave man from His spirit and willed His Being to be known through man. In this respect He created man, making him an heir of the abode of eternal bliss and willing to be known through them. So our Lord sent us to this world so that every person, in this world, in a realm where our Lord is not seen, would make himself a witness of what kind of person he is to himself, to those around him and to Allah. So again, we call out to people from here. O man, while you were created so noble, if you exchange this eternal life of bliss for this passing worldly life, serving what kind of reason do you take on these superstitions, fit Allah into your mind and say 'this is this', limit Him, or turn your back on His religion and prefer the worldly realm?

In the end no one can do anyone harm as much as the harm a person does to himself. You wrong your own nafs.

Shall I tell you an example with a verse? Shall we tell with a verse that a person wrongs his own nafs? When Jonah fled from his people, he fell onto the back of the fish. La ilaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu minaz-zalimin, he says. O Allah, Lord of the worlds, O Allah besides whom there is no god, he says, I have understood that I wronged my own self, forgive me, he says. O Allah. Yes.

Even if the two worlds came together, no one could do the wrong a person does to his own nafs. So be wise. However much torment and suffering you are in, this worldly realm will one day end. This life will one day come to an end. And the verse will come true. Every soul will taste death. Finally your return is to Me, He said. The verse will come true.

So the torment and suffering of the world will end, and so will its pleasures. But in the realm of the hereafter neither the torment and suffering nor the pleasures will end. Because Allah, our Lord, says they are eternal there. Eternal. So think a little, reflect. Turn to the truth and reality, turn to Allah and His Messenger, judge by the Quran and the rulings of the Sharia; do not be anyone's satellite; listen to people, do not decide without listening; with that reason Allah has given you a mind that can tell truth and reality apart; seeing these truths, however much you love that person, do not love him more than Allah.

Turn to what Allah says. Keep that person's love in your heart if you like, but do not exchange your Lord's verse for that person's love.

Shall I tell you a verse for this as well? Thank you. The verse. My beloved, even if they are those you love, you cannot make the deaf hear, He says. Yes.

Gentlemen, everything I say is the counterpart of a verse. If I were to give the verse for all of them; anyway, when the time comes I say it. Yes.

Allah Almighty did not create people for injustice. Allah, who is compassionate and merciful towards His creation, created people, guiding them by their knowing His Being, for the bliss of eternal life. But because of their ego, grandeur and pride, people rebel against Allah and His Messenger and turn their own eternal life of bliss into injustice. Into injustice.

Hodja, you wrote the translation from the Diyanet. I found it. And she says: I will look and search for which book you wrote this from. If she finds these words written in one of those books of theirs, I always say this: I will come and kiss her hands. These words are not the words of the people of this time. This is the truth itself, the very words that lead people to Allah and His Messenger, that make people love Allah and the Messenger. Words purified of superstitions. Yes. Never think that this man is praising himself. I am a man who takes pride in the verses of Allah. You too take pride in the verses of Allah.

Be together with them, live them. Yes.

The command of Allah Almighty will surely be carried out. That people in the material world do not keep Allah's command, do not obey Allah, cannot be taken to mean that His command was not carried out; that they do not obey Allah cannot be taken to mean that His command was not carried out. Allah's command: whoever does what I say, I will reward him, that is, I will let him attain My mercy and bring him into My Paradise; and whoever does not carry out My command, I will punish him for what he did and bring him into Hell, prepared as a place of punishment, He says.

There is a sentence here. Either this sentence was written wrongly or I read it wrongly. That they do not obey Allah, it says. That people in the material world do not keep Allah's command, do not obey Allah, cannot be taken to mean that His command was not carried out. That they obey, what are we saying? That they do not keep Allah's command, do not obey Allah, cannot be taken to mean that His command was not carried out. Allah's command: whoever does what I say, I will reward him, that is, I will let him attain My mercy and bring him into My Paradise; and whoever does not carry out My command, I will punish him for what he did and bring him into Hell, prepared as a place of punishment, He says, it says, we say. That they do not keep Allah's command, do not obey Allah, cannot be taken to mean that His command was not carried out; here it was written with a certain feeling, and since that feeling was not carried over here, this part has remained somewhat incomplete.

Now we will complete it. Now we will complete it.

There are Muslims who have faith like that. In the nafs al-ammara, in the nafs al-ammara, but he does not carry out Allah's command. He does not leave the religion either. He does not leave the religion either. In this case he is not an unbeliever. He is still a Muslim. He is a person who is called to account with the rewards and sins he has done. Whoever denies Allah's command, that is, the religion of Islam, then he has not carried out His command. If he denies the religion of Islam. Allah's command is first: enter the religion of Islam. That is, recognise Allah and His Prophet's Book. After recognising it, whether one carries out His command or not is the counterpart of the degree of the covenant that person gave Allah Almighty.

For example, he is a Muslim; there is the nafs al-ammara, the nafs al-lawwama, the nafs al-mulhima, the nafs al-mutma'inna, the nafs ar-radiya, the nafs al-mardiyya, the nafs as-safiya. This is the degree of faith. The Muslim in the nafs al-ammara drinks alcohol, gambles, commits adultery. People who do things that are not Allah's command, that is, things He did not command, what do they do? As long as he does not leave Islam, as long as he does not deny Allah, as long as he does not deliberately deny a verse of the Quran, as long as he does not deny the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), with all the deeds he did following his own desires, with the sins he took on through them, he is called to account.

Yes. The command of Allah Almighty will surely come about. That is, those who carry out His command He will reward with Paradise. Paradise is for those whose rewards are more. Sins and rewards will be weighed against each other. In this case, if their rewards are more, they will attain His Paradise. In Paradises, degree by degree. There are seven Paradises. The eighth Paradise is Maqam Mahmud, a Paradise given to the Prophet. People cannot even imagine it, He says. This is Allah's command. And no one can escape it. I will escape Allah's command. The person who says 'Allah's rule does not apply to me', to prove his words must first be free from his own death and be in a state where he can protect his own life; that is necessary. Indeed: Allah's command does not apply to me, I, let me say, will escape His command; the person who says that, who will say it?

Now I will tell you the verse for this. They will not be able to see their Lord. So those who wait for the Lord they imagined in their own fantasy, who do not accept Allah as Allah and wait for the Lord in their fantasy; even when they enter Hell the Lord in their fantasy will still come, save them from there, and they will take revenge on Allah. Because their characters do not change in these feelings, they are eternally people of Hell. In this case, because they still do not believe in Allah: O Malik, tell your Lord to lighten the punishment on us a little, say those unjust people; yes, what verses these are, the words written as the counterpart of the verses. So save your own life from death, save your own life; according to the verse 'every soul will taste death', since the world was founded and since our father Adam honoured the material world with his coming, every soul has tasted death and no one has escaped death.

In this case, when people are resurrected on the Day of Judgement and see that the Day of Reckoning is true and that Allah's command has been carried out, regret will be of no use. Their regret will be of no use to them. Yes. Those who do not believe in Allah, who turn their backs on Allah, who say the punishment in Hell will not touch us for more than two or three days, who say we are the close ones of Allah, to them Allah Almighty, since our father Adam, has been calling out. Who is the one calling out? Allah, the Owner, the Creator, the Lord of the worlds calls out. He calls out in our time too.

If there is no other who calls out, and those who said 'I too am a god' have also tasted death,

if there is no god other than Allah, if He created these worlds and calls out to those who will come until the Day of Judgement, can one step outside the command of that Allah? Can they (?) to a god other than that Allah? And can you step outside the command of that Allah and consider yourself one of Allah's close ones? Can you say the punishment will not touch me for more than two or three days? So, trusting in that Allah, to those who say the punishment will not touch me for more than two or three days, if Allah, the Owner of the worlds, calls out to him like this: do they have some proof in their hands? He says.

If He says that, serving what kind of reason do you say this? What do you rely on?

Yes. Yes. The One who created these worlds, who has called out to mankind ever since our father Adam, (?) before that too He calls out, of course, to His creation. The Owner of all these worlds, the Creator and Lord of His creation, Allah, the One, in this whole universe, to every person of sound mind calls out. I am your Lord, so obey Me. Obey Me. Allah, the Owner of the worlds, calls out like this. And after that He calls out to man like this. O man, you were created in helplessness. You were created in helplessness. You were created from a despised fluid. What is this pride, glory, fame, ego, grandeur in you?

Not you; even if mankind and jinn gathered, they could not harm Allah, He says.

Before these verses, what kind of strength do you see in yourself, what kind of nafs is this, what kind of mind is this, that you still do not accept the truth and bow to your Lord? Yes.

In this case, when people are resurrected on the Day of Judgement, when they see that the Day of Reckoning is true and that Allah's command has been carried out, regret will be of no use, we say; for this too we bring a verse: in this world His mercy is for everyone, in the hereafter only for the believer. There they are without anyone and alone, He says. So the people from whom Allah Almighty lifts His mercy on the Day of Judgement, there truly, even if it were his father or his mother, or a father his child, a child seeing them like that, seeing the mercy lifted from them, no one will be able to intercede for him.

Illallah. And on that day judgement belongs to Allah alone, He says; at the Great Court, Alaysallahu bi-ahkamil-hakimin, the Judge of judges, our Lord, with no one wronged in the least, with the deeds they did, reckoning and sin, with their rewards and sins, in full He will show their accounts and their places and give their reward or punishment. There you have no way of escape. You are in no position to hope for any benefit from anyone. For what I just said there are verses too. Even if there were this world and another world like this one and you gave it to Allah as ransom, you would say 'I will be saved, if only I were saved', He says.

Yes. So Allah does not ask this world of you; He does not change a single atom of the world. It is all His. He asks you to know your Lord and obey Him. The chance is in hand. The soul is in this body. So say 'one Allah' and that is enough. Say Allah. Know the One who created you and bow to Him. Break your nafs. Try to judge by Allah's Sharia rulings so that you build up the realm of the hereafter.