An-Nisa 103: When you finish prayer, remember Allah while standing, sitting, or lying on your sides; and when you feel secure, establish the prayer fully. Indeed, the prayer is an obligation on the believers (mu’min) at determined times.

We have come to verse one hundred and three. When you have finished the prayer, standing, sitting and lying on your sides, remember Allah. When you are at ease, perform the prayer properly. For prayer is an obligation upon the believers at fixed times, it says. Upon the believers. An obligation at fixed times. Yes. Let us read verse 103 of Surah An-Nisa. Here, let us see how the word 'believer' occurs. An-Nisa, verse 103, let us see it here.

Yes. 104. This is 103. Yes, 'believers' – mü'minîne kitâben mevkûtâ. Now: an obligation upon the believers. Isn't it an obligation upon Muslims?

Yes.

When it said 'obligatory upon the believers' here, I read it, wondering whether they had written the translation correctly. Yes. 'Finish the prayer, and standing and sitting and lying on your side, lying, remember Allah; when you are at ease, perform the prayer properly. For prayer is an obligation upon the believers at fixed times,' it says.

Allah Almighty says something tremendous here. For one who understands, of course, a mosquito is music; for one who doesn't, even drum and zurna are too little. Isn't it obligatory for a Muslim? It is obligatory for a Muslim too. So why does it say only 'believer'? He knows who will be a Muslim and yet not pray. How many pillars does a Muslim have? Five pillars. What are they? Saying the shahada, praying, fasting, going on pilgrimage, giving zakat. Of these five pillars, one: he did not fast – nothing. He did not pray – nothing. He did not pray either. Well, he did not go on pilgrimage – again nothing.

He did not give zakat – again nothing. If he does not say the shahada, he becomes a disbeliever. If he says the shahada and does not do these four, and goes to the hereafter as a Muslim – if he goes as a Muslim, of course – if there is a punishment, he serves his punishment in Hell, because he did not fulfil Allah's command, and still goes to Paradise. Still goes to Paradise. But when Allah Almighty says 'obligatory upon the believers', the believer never abandons his prayer. The believer never abandons his prayer. Whether in the air or on the ground, if he has no ablution, he performs tayammum.

From the right, from the left, he performs tayammum and prays his prayer on time. Who was the believer? In Surah Al-Fajr, verses twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, 'O soul that has found rest! Your Lord pleased with you, and you pleased with your Lord, enter among My servants, enter My Paradise' – those were the people He said this to. Which state of the nafs were they? The fourth state of the nafs. What is the fourth state? The first state is ammara, the second lawwama, the third mulhima, the fourth mutmainna. That is the soul at rest. That is, people who have come to know Allah Almighty's spiritual manifestations and for whom there is no going back. Upon them, it says, it is obligatory; they do not turn back.

If He had said 'ya eyyühellezine amenü', if He had said 'upon those who believe it is obligatory', anyone who does not pray would be a disbeliever. Just as in Surah An-Nisa, as He addresses the Muslim woman: 'you', He says, 'put on your headscarves.' Mu'minat. He addresses the believing women. 'Draw your headscarves down over your collars.' 'Except for what shows, cover up to your wrists, up to your shinbones.' Yes. Why does He not say it to the Muslim? Allah Almighty knows the Muslim will go about openly exposed like this. His mercy is abundant, you see. Abundant, but His punishment is abundant too.

He also knows she will bare her head and her backside and walk by. He also knows she will have her body (?). Of course, if she goes to the hereafter as a Muslim. After suffering the punishment in Hell – for the passing worldly life, for a few hours, a few hours, because a thousand years here are like one day of the hereafter, within his lifetime, a life of one, one and a half hours, this person who works to profit from the world's greatest blessings, who recognises no notion of honour, against Allah's verses – not giving up his faith, but having made his nafs a god, with the yoke Satan has put on his neck – the person who follows Satan will go to the hereafter as the very poorest. Except those who go bankrupt.

Bankruptcy – if he leaves faith, that is bankruptcy. If he leaves faith, he has gone bankrupt. And if he goes with faith, of course – that too is doubtful – he will be the poorest, the blessed one. In the world, in this way, to a yacht, a mansion, a palace, to every comfort, well, to obtain comfort, every notion of honour disregarding, disregarding Allah's verses, turning your back, so that you attain these – for this (?), for this immorality, in the hereafter, in the home of eternal bliss, what will you do, I wonder? What will you do? Do you never think of that place?

Consider it like this. You are in the world.

Say you live in a city.

They tell you: 'In the end, you will move away from here, on condition you never come back here; your real place is in such-and-such a city. No more coming here.'

Well then, in that city, the real city where your real place is, wouldn't you want to save money and own a home there? You are going to leave here. What do you do? You put that real place you are going to behind you. You don't care about it. (?) Is life this place? 'Whatever I do here – over there, Allah knows best. Whatever happens there.' Look, you will live here for a few hours. So prepare for there. No. Now, is your mind a mind? Is the path you have taken a path? Leaving Allah, leaving His Messenger, leaving the verses, although you say they are the truth, to turn your back – is that what reason would do?

Yes. That is why, it says, prayers are obligatory upon the believer. Be a believer, a believer. Be a believer. Do not leave your prayers, do not abandon them. Yes.

After performing the prayer of each time, you, O people, do not return to your evil deeds after the prayer. If you have done an evil deed, the Messenger of Allah says, do a good deed after it so that it wipes it away.

As if Allah needed prayer, performing it and saying 'I have performed the time's prayer', do not return to the state of your nafs. The Prophet says in a hadith: 'If prayer does not keep you from evil, it is (?) for you,' he says. Yes, so after the prayers, remember Allah and make dhikr, so that, behaving as if you were before Allah's oneness and justice, giving up your evil (?), you reform your nafs, and by reforming your nafs, among those Allah loves you may enter. In a verse Allah Almighty says: I have such servants that neither buying and selling nor trade keeps them from My remembrance. When you attain such a state, through reforming the nafs, recipients of your Lord's manifestation you remain.

O people, perform your prayer properly, pay attention to the middle prayer. According to the verse, that in the divine presence you are praying right before Him do not forget. And while performing your prayers, in the bazaar and the market, buying and selling, do not wander about. This world is a treasure that does not come into people's hands. It is a lodging place and a guesthouse. A stage where each plays out his own covenant according to the covenant given; the place of gain for the life of eternal bliss. Prayer is an obligation upon the believers at fixed times. The prayer times: five times a day, as the morning, noon, afternoon, evening and night prayers.

Their times: one, the morning prayer, from imsak to the time of sunrise it lasts. From sunrise until the sun has risen a spear's, a spear's length, the morning prayer is not prayed. This corresponds to forty, forty-five minutes. This period is a disliked time. The sun – sun worshippers at this time bow down to the sun. After the sun has risen a spear's length, that is, after 40-45 minutes, those who have not performed the morning prayer may pray it until noon. It does not count as a make-up prayer, but in reward it does not equal a prayer performed on time in reward. Two: the noon prayer time – according to Imam Abu Hanifa, from fay' al-zawal, when the shadow falls at the object's own foot, the sun's rays moving from east to west strike the object, and from the start of its movement eastward until the object's shadow is twice its length, is its time. 3. The afternoon prayer time.

The shadow of everything – it begins at the moment it is twice its own object. It lasts until the sun sets. Here too there is a disliked time. When a spear's length remains before sunset, the disliked time begins. This too corresponds to 40-45 minutes. People should not leave their prayers to this disliked time. But a person who for some reason has left his prayer to the disliked time cannot, saying 'it is the disliked time', fail to pray it. One time does not go out before the next one comes in. But in terms of reward it is very low. And the judgement of that belongs to Allah alone. 4. The evening prayer time: from sunset until the time the twilight disappears. Twilight, according to Imam Abu Hanifa, is the whiteness that appears in the evening after the horizon has turned red.

According to the Imameyn and the three imams, it is the redness that appears on the horizon – the evening time. The night prayer time: the time of the night prayer begins when twilight disappears and lasts until the time of imsak. The witr prayer, although it is a night prayer, is a prayer prayed after the night prayer. Because Allah Almighty told the Prophet (peace be upon him), 'In part of the night, or when it has advanced a little, pray', for his community too this night prayer became wajib. So the Prophet (peace be upon him), because his community would not be able to pray this night prayer, attached it after the night prayer, and this was called the wajib witr.

The tarawih prayer, according to one view, after the night prayer until imsak is a prayer to be prayed.

May Allah Almighty, for all of us – those who perform the prayer as it should be, who, taking delight in the prayers they pray, fulfil the duty of servanthood to Allah, who do not make much of their worship, who ask their Lord for forgiveness, who live by Allah's command and never step outside it – among these servants of His, include us too. Amen. Yes.