Ali 'Imran 130: Oh you who believe! Do not consume interest (usury) by increasing and multiplying. Fear Allah so that you will find salvation.

What does it say? O you who believe, do not consume usury doubled and redoubled; fear Allah so that you may prosper. So Allah Almighty, as we always say, loves people very much. He doesn't want any harm or injury to come to people. Even the afflictions He gives people are for people's good. And if those people are patient and accept what comes from Allah, He raises their ranks.

He bestows great favors on them. He makes them heirs to the Gardens He promised.

Therefore, our Lord wants people in worldly life to live together like brothers, to be aware of each other's state and help each other; through the institution of usury, people exploiting with manifold interest another's property and life is not lawful for any Muslim. Thus, if people keep consuming usury, on Allah and His Messenger they have declared war.

There is no power in the universe that against Allah and His Messenger can stand. Therefore, people who say "I fear Allah" or people who say "I am honored with the religion of Islam", we see that with usury, sir, with the institution of usury they work, and people's blood they exploit, they suck. Such people, I think, these people, at hazelnut time in the Black Sea region. In the Black Sea region at hazelnut time. Before the hazelnuts come in, the man is in need. From the man who buys his hazelnuts, five thousand lira, three thousand, eight thousand, whatever, as a loan he takes.

Even if he gives his hazelnuts, he can't clear the money.

He remains in debt. When that remaining debt carries over to the next year, even if he sees two hazelnut payments, (?) he can't pay. And finally, for that three thousand, five thousand lira he borrowed, his hazelnut field slips out of his hands. The field, this field is gone. Because manifold interest accrued; the five thousand lira the man took became forty-five thousand lira, fifty-five thousand lira. The field slips out of his hands. If these people feared Allah, if they said "we have faith, we are Muslims" — which they do say — they wouldn't deal with these things, they'd give them up. Now we come across some who deal in these things, like this.

Right now I have no work to do.

After I earn some money, I'll give up this business, he says. As if he held a deed in his hand, he thinks he'll then receive Allah's pardon. Or he thinks he'll find in himself the strength for a repentance that will be forgiven. And he carries on with this business with Satan's (?) and the nafs's whims.

In the verse: O you who believe, do not consume usury doubled and redoubled; fear Allah so that you may prosper, it says. A person may need another person. Not may — he will. He will. Allah Almighty created people in need. They will help each other, and through this help people with each other will earn reward. They will prove what kind of person they are. In that case, instead of helping a person, instead of helping your brother, this thing that will exploit his blood, suck it, his wife and children it will drag (?), and his future into darkness it will push, maybe even cost him his life — sir, if this usury institution on him you operate, will there be in you the trace of Allah's love, or in you, of that light Allah in the heart has placed, any sign?

That heart is now filled with injustice. With injustice. In that case, if you don't give this up, what you gave being halal to you (?), if you forgive the rest, give it — not even forgive, but give it to the person, then you'll prosper, you'll be saved. Otherwise you can't bear this. Yes. O people! Observe Islam's (?) prohibitions, commands and Sharia rulings. Do not take manifold interest on the money you lend people. Do not destroy the good and fine deeds you have done. Not thinking of the families of the people before you, their rights do not take over for yourselves. Take refuge in Allah from resorting to such usury, so that you may prosper.

Trampling those people's rights and laws, pushing them into poverty and misery, the morsel you yourself eat, as fire do you know you eat it? Fire — do you know it's fire in your belly? If you regard that brother as yourself and help him, Allah Almighty will open His unknown doors to you. These are Allah's treasuries; you can't know from where He'll give to you. Yes.

Allah invites you to good and to Paradise. What does Allah Almighty do? He invites us to good and to Paradise. What does He say? Who is as true to his word as Allah? Who is as true to his word as Allah? So what does Allah Almighty say? Those who buy Paradise with their lives and their wealth. In the verse. With their lives: the martyrs. With their wealth: those who strive in jihad for Allah. Those who help the stranded traveler, the orphan, the parentless, the poor, the needy; those who give to charitable institutions; yes, those who, from what Allah Almighty has given them of wealth and property, give charity for Allah.

So Allah invites people to good. But the institution of usury, Satan and the nafs, to the fire invite man. To the fire. Yes. Acting against His command, if you turn away from Allah, follow Satan and your nafs, they will invite you to fire and torment. If, as Allah's creatures, people, the help to each other for Allah's sake, cutting off that help, turn to manifold interest, and what they do pleases them, and they usurp others' rights, on Allah and His Messenger they will have declared war. Moreover, you, the bonds of Islamic love and brotherhood among you breaking, separate from each other and become prey to your enemies.

When the bonds of brotherhood dissolve, when unity and togetherness are gone, you become the enemy's prey. Because there is strength in unity and togetherness. Yes.

There is no power that can stand against Allah and His Messenger. What does Allah Almighty say? What comes through usury, We destroy, He says, He says, and if you say: Hodja, what you say is nonsense, look how much I'm consuming, an affliction Allah Almighty gives you, an unrest, a misery — that wealth you took, that you saw as profit, in the end you'll sink into nothingness. You'll bring it to nothing.

I'm well along in years. I've seen many people. And I've also seen the end of such people. Misery never let go of them. Because what does Allah Almighty say in the verse? Whoever continues consuming usury has declared war on Allah and His Messenger, it says.

Those who lend to people at interest have spread on earth injustice and unjust gain. What will he do? He'll say: so-and-so already does this, what if I do too? Whereas Allah Almighty — you spread truth and justice on earth. Instead of being an example to people, an example in truth and justice, pushing the limits Allah doesn't want and going outside those limits — the people who do, by the deeds they've done, other people take them as an example, taking them so, and today they too do whatever they want. Today, of someone who says "I'm a tradesman", his tradesmanship we doubt. We give a job to have something done.

OK, I'll give it to you on such-and-such day, he says, takes the money, and the man is nowhere to be found. Even if you don't give the money, he doesn't bring it to you anyway. What does he do? Well, you were going to bring it on that day — this happened and that happened, you couldn't do this or that and so on. I mean, how do these tradesmen earn money? How do they trust each other anymore? How they support their families, I can't understand. They're finished, really. They're finished because they aren't true to their word.

What does the Prophet say in a hadith? Adopt the character of Allah. On another (?): O Messenger of Allah, how many of them do I have? When he asked: in you, he says, either six or seven are missing, he says. He had taken on Allah's character to that degree. Well, how many did the Prophet have? When Aisha was asked what the Prophet's character was, one minute, wait, she says — after he had passed to the hereafter. She brings the Quran. This, she says, was the Prophet's character. She shows the Quran. According to the verse "he does not speak idly", Allah Almighty proves to us that the Prophet took on our Lord's character.

For he had come as a mercy to the worlds. Sir, in that case, Allah Almighty had raised him. (?): my Lord educated me, and educated me well, he says. The Prophet — in this case, the usurer's manifold increased interest on lent money has no value before Allah, that war is declared on Allah and His Messenger, clearly Allah Almighty declares.

Yes.

Those who lend to people at interest have spread on earth injustice and unjust gain — so they have. Many families have been ruined by this usury; many families, in the claws of this usury monster, moan in misery and agony. Is this humanity now? You — that person came to you in distress, asks you for three pennies, you make three pennies five, five pennies seven; the man pays, still interest; he pays, still interest. Something like this happened to me. I was going to buy an apartment. An apartment. The man said sixty thousand lira. We liked the apartment, I said okay.

The next day we'd close the deal. Our brother-in-law calls me: dear brother-in-law, what's up? Don't buy that apartment. Why, my son? Just don't, he said. Fine, we went to the realtor the next day. But he phones the man who's selling to me.

The man talks a bit unpleasantly, I mean, evasively. I ask the man: what's the reason? And I learn that the apartment owner, from this man who's a hazelnut trader, took 45 thousand lira. Forty-five thousand lira. Give it to me for two months, he'd said. For two months. Two months passed, it became sixty thousand lira. Sixty thousand lira. He's selling the man's apartment for sixty thousand lira so he gets his money.

And the man's apartment was valuable. I didn't know the prices there back then.

The man finds a loan. From here and there. He gives the man sixty thousand lira instead of forty-five thousand and takes his apartment back from the man. When we learned this, we went to the man and said: brother, why didn't you tell me this from the start? You go to the man and tell him the situation. Right? If you'd told me this, we'd have found a way. We'd either have paid the man's money and the house would stay in your name, and you'd pay me back. We'd have lent to you. Or we'd have found some way out of this. Sir, he'd told our relative, and the relative tells me. But he doesn't reveal the inside story.

I said, after learning this: does the property of one who weeps bring good to one who laughs? I mean, in two months 45 thousand lira becomes 60 thousand lira. Look at this world. If the man hadn't paid a bit more — may Allah's safety be upon him — he'd have made him a debtor too. He'd owe the forty-five thousand lira he spoke of as well. And he'd take more from him besides.

God forbid. May Allah protect people from such evils. May He protect people from the hands of such usurers and loan sharks. And the whole ummah of Muhammad. Yes.

Does Allah, through the religion of Islam, command this injustice on people? Through the religion of Islam? You say you're a Muslim, and you also do these things. You'll say you're a Muslim, and yet, going against Allah's commands, you won't refrain from wronging Allah's creatures. O people who consume usury — I'm calling to them now, those who consume usury: know that whoever consumes usury and then doesn't repent — if to Allah you don't return, you'll have declared war on Allah and His Messenger. O my Muslim brothers, if you know Allah as Allah and realize that against Him no strength or might will suffice, if you recognize and know Allah as absolute power and ruler, do not continue with usury, so that you may prosper. For you cannot stand against Allah's power.

Yes, do not prefer this world of yours to the hereafter — don't. Deceived by the world's pleasures, carried away by your nafs's whims, don't follow the tracks of taghut and Satan. Turn to Allah. Do what Allah says, so that you prosper. In this transient worldly life, even if you're crushed between two millstones, the hereafter you'll have made flourishing. Yes.