Ali 'Imran 103: Hold firmly to Allah’s rope (Islam) altogether and do not separate (from each other). Remember the blessings of Allah upon you. You were once enemies towards each other, and Allah had reconciled your hearts and by Allah’s blessing, you became brothers. And when you were on the edge of a pit of fire, Allah saved you. This is how Allah explains Allah’s verses to you so that you will find the right path.

What does Allah Almighty say in Surah Al-Imran, verse 103? All together, to the rope of Allah, to Islam, hold fast, it says. Cling to it. Now, reading this verse like this, what comes to my mind? At our Kerem Efendi's place in Karnıca, from one end of the street to the other they stretched a rope. This is the rope of Allah. Hold fast to it.

They'd stretch the rope, calling it the rope of Allah. They'd hold it, saying this is the rope of Allah. All right, I've held fast to the rope of Allah. I've grabbed it, they'd say.

What days we've come to!

Can there be ignorance like this? Can Islam be like this? (?) Can the religion of Islam work like this?

You stretch a rope from one end of the street to the other, and when He says hold fast to the rope of Allah, you say this is the rope of Allah, hold it, say I've held fast to the rope of Allah. May Allah give them some awareness, may Allah give them reason and understanding, may Allah grant them a sense of fearing Allah, of being ashamed before His Messenger — may He grant it to them. What is the rope of Allah? The rope of Allah is His Sharia; Sharia is law. Hold fast to that Sharia: to its prayer, its fasting, its ablution, to the lawful and the forbidden, to zakat if you have money, to the Hajj if you have money, find a way and your health allows, and, removing from your heart everything other than Allah, to helping people, by placing Allah's light in that heart; to removing hostilities, grudges and spite from your heart and placing the feeling of mercy in that heart.

These are the ropes of Allah.

Hold fast to these, to these. If you hold fast to these, you find life.

Yes.

Do not be divided. If you separate from the rope of Allah, you are torn apart — of course, if you separate.

If prayer feels heavy to you, if covering yourself (?) your nafs, (?) your nafs, if the (?) of Satan, outside Allah's command, pleases you, with this weakness of faith the doings of the disbelievers look gilded to you, and if you start envying them, you may well fall away from your brother in Islam.

These — hostility to Islam also starts among these. What does he say? The headscarf, he says, is not just a matter, he says. Under the headscarf, he says, there is the Republic going away. There is Sharia coming, he says.

Fool, I say. What is Sharia? In English it's whatever, in German whatever; in Turkish it's law, in Arabic too it means law. Sharia. Law. This law protects you. It restores to you your human dignity, honor and self-respect. And it wants to let you live peacefully in this world and, having created you most beautifully as the most excellent of created beings, to make you the sultan of the Hereafter too. But you, from that tiny brain of yours, saying Sharia will come, you act as Allah's enemy; (?), you take on both the disgrace and the unrest of this world, and in the Hereafter, that soul you love so much, you leave (?) to punishment.

And there you are left alone, with no one. Are you the clever one? Now I ask you: are you the clever one?

Use your reason. Think. Think a little. It is you who are at the edge of the cliff. Allah addresses you here. To those at the edge of the cliff; those who were saved got away safely. Look, that's what it says now. We'll explain it here.

Remember Allah's blessing upon you, it says. What is Allah's blessing upon us? He sends us prophets. He sends us books. He sends us scholars. Well, why? Well, the world will pass anyway. Here you will die anyway. Come, He says, know Me, and in the Hereafter I'll give you an abode of eternal bliss, He says. Who is truer to his word than Allah? He says. Allah draws you to Himself. And you still persist in your rebellion. Still in your stubbornness. You follow every stubborn devil. Yes. Remember when you were enemies to one another. Look how nicely it says it — they were enemies to one another. Because there was no peace among them.

They had blood feuds. They had feuds to destroy each other over worldly desires. Enemies to one another.

He had united your hearts. With what? With love of Allah. And by showing the truths.

And by His blessing you had become brothers, it says. Of course, you became bound to one another.

Again, while you were right at the edge of a pit of fire, right at the edge of a pit of fire, that is, just as those idolaters worshipped idols, just as they turned their backs on Allah, you too were almost leaning toward them. you were falling into that pit of fire.

He had saved you from there too, it says. From what? With His prophets, with His scholars, with His verses He showed you the truth, showed man the truth, and saved them from inside that pit of fire. Whom? Those who would turn to Allah.

Thus Allah makes His verses clear to you so that you may find the right path, it says. How beautifully Allah Almighty says it. This clear, it says. Those who oppose the headscarf, who argue the headscarf case, who don't embrace covering, who call the Muslim who lives covered a reactionary — in fact the reactionary is they themselves, and that Muslim's honor, dignity, self-respect — in the face of it, they, as its opposite, live — they too the opposite — and who torment their own selves, for the world the Hereafter trading — people beside that pit of fire. 'Hodja, why don't you call them people of the fire?' He hasn't died yet.

Perhaps he'll turn back. La gaybıyla Allah (?). What does Allah Almighty say? Do not mock any people. Do not ridicule them. It may be that those people are better than you. You may see that at the edge of that pit of fire Allah grants him guidance, or it is in his own makeup, in his nature. He sees the truth and turns to Allah. That's why: at the edge of the pit of fire. But very close.

O you who believe, all together hold fast to Allah's religion, to Islam, so that you find salvation; that you not fall into division and be torn apart. In unity and togetherness, live. If you fall into division, you are torn apart by the enemies of Islam; after your faith you will have turned to disbelief; you will have wronged your own selves. (?), the Turks would attack China wave after wave. The Chinese were so worn down by the Turkish raids that they built the Great Wall. And they said: we will break you into groups, piece by piece, we will swallow you bite by bite. Whoever separates from the religion of Islam, falls into division, falls to pieces and, wronging his own self, is swallowed by others as a morsel.

Remember the blessings of Allah Almighty upon you. What is this blessing? Our creation as the noblest of creatures. First this — our creation as human beings, then our being vicegerents on earth, then our being commanders of ourselves — our making our own decisions.

Before Islam you were peoples hostile to one another, to one another, hostile peoples. You considered each other's lives and property lawful for yourselves. You drove each other out of your homelands. Through Islam Allah gave affection to each other's hearts. That is, He strengthened them. That is, He brought you closer to each other, made you love each other. Thus each other's life, property and honor were made forbidden to one another.

And you became safe from one another. You found peace, you became brothers to one another. Yes.

You were at the edge of a fire. In your life before Islam you were in disbelief and rebellion. By sending you the Quran, Allah placed the light of faith in your hearts, and you turned back from that cliff — that is, by entering Islam, when with the light of Islam you looked at the past and around you, when you compared your state before Islam with after entering Islam, you saw that you — living in darkness, in shirk and rebellion, rebelling against Allah, unjust in your selves in those dark times — were in the fire, and that with the light Allah sent you came to life, and you understood the truth.

You realized that this too was a blessing from Allah to people. Yes, this too is a blessing. We do not have the power to count Allah's blessings. Why not? Well, in Surah Ar-Rahman, in 33 places Allah Almighty says: which of Allah's blessings do you deny?

Which of Allah's blessings do you deny, He says. He counts and counts them — which of His blessings will you deny? Impossible. The Creator created it, created the realm in good order, firmly, and placed the needs of all people in that realm, and giving them great worth, made them His addressees. Which of His blessings will you deny? He brought you into being from nothing and put all the blessings of this realm at your command. Yes.

Thus Allah makes His verses clear to you so that you may find the right path. If every person, using his reason, is bound by the verses of Allah Almighty, realizing that in times when he was not honored with Islam his self did not reach perfection, he holds fast to the religion of guidance Allah sent to people, that is, to Islam.

In terms of protecting his life, in terms of protecting his honor and dignity, in terms of being taken by the hand when he falls — well, this — you can't finish counting the beautiful sides of Islam. What does Allah Almighty say? For a Muslim, a Muslim's life, property, blood — that is, life, blood, honor — are forbidden, He says. Forbidden. So in that case you are safe from your brothers. It has you give zakat. To help the needy. When you fall, your other brother comes right away: do you need something, what do you need? No. He meets your need, takes you from your home and lifts you up. When you're in distress, he backs you up.

These are the beautiful sides of Islam. You can't finish counting their blessings. If we live Islam, of course.

Realizing that in times when he was not honored with Islam his self did not reach perfection, he holds fast to the religion of guidance Allah sent to people, that is, to Islam. In the hearts of people who obey Allah's command, Allah places His light; the person reaches perfection, tells apart the crooked and the straight, truth and falsehood, and thus the person finds the truth.

Because Allah Almighty loves people and His creatures so much, with His verses He holds a light before them and invites them to guidance and salvation. Whoever is bound by Allah's command — these are the ones who attain salvation.

The world will pass anyway.

I always say: I'm 72, and not even a year has passed yet. (?) Hodja, so you're 72? In fact I'm always 18.

But as children in the neighborhood we used to play tip-cat like this. When I look back, it's as if it were a single breath. 72 years have passed, 70 years have passed. The future — the self and Satan make the future look very long to a person. And when he looks back, that past time — just as, you know, some people smoke, (?) — that cigarette smoke, they see it disperse before their eyes — that's how the past seems. The moment of death will be like that too. When the soul reaches the throat, when our Lord shows you those realms, by then you have understood death. The doors of repentance have closed too.

All you've lived since childhood will come before your eyes in an instant like this and disperse. Yes. Like a second. A second. Like seconds.

How? In the Hereafter, when we are resurrected, to each other, it says — they will ask each other: How long did we stay under the ground? Some will say: one day. And the sensible ones will say: a little less than a day. You, it says — the count of how long you stayed under that ground, ask the noble angels on duty, it says. (?) a day, or if we stayed something like a little less than a day, then at this moment of death too, our time from childhood till now will pass before our eyes like seconds. So if we went to this realm alone and without anyone, 'alas' is worth nothing. Look, the blessing of life — for I call life a blessing — is a blessing to a person.

You can use this blessing for good, or use it for evil. If you use it for evil, you waste that life, and within that life you wrong your own self.