Al-Baqarah 188: Do not consume property from each other unjustly. Do not give part of the possessions of people to judges to take possession of them by illegitimate means while you know about it.

Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 188, the verse. What does it say? Do not consume your wealth among yourselves by unjust means.

Yes. Setting your eyes on Ahmet's, Mehmet's property, finding his weak spot, and bribing judges, do not take those people's property from their hands, it says.

While you know full well, do not give that wealth to judges so that you may consume part of people's wealth by unlawful means, it says. How beautifully He says it. Give that wealth to the judges. You know it too. You have no right over this, that is, over this property. You know this. But you bring evidence from Ahmet, from Mehmet, from Hasan, from Hüseyin. You bring evidence. With false witnesses, or else you explain the situation to the judge. If you do it this way, if you fit it to the law, I'll give you this much as well, a share. Whether he gave from that property or gave some money equal to the value of that property, it makes no difference at all.

These are violations of people's rights. With this violation a person, his own unbelief, by (?) over people, incurs Allah's wrath. Such people. Because Allah Almighty says this in His verse. Spread truth and justice on the earth, He says. If, against this verse, you commit injustice, violate a person's right, if what is not your right, with false evidence, with false witnesses, with bribes to judges, you turn in your own favour, you will receive the curse of that wronged one, such that, when you receive the curse of that wronged one, may you never prosper. Both in this world and in the hereafter.

What does it say? One sigh cuts off the oppressor's oppression. Those who cut off sustenance, Allah cuts off their sustenance, it says. Yes. So never unjustly violate anyone's right. Even, if necessary, give up something of your own. So that you draw those people close to you. That is, warm them to you. By living the religion of Islam, be good examples to them, and let them compare your character with their characters, and when they see that you are a good person, admiring you, perhaps the one before you, if his faith is weak, will regret what he did, will regret what he is going to do. If he is a non-Muslim, perhaps in the face of your good character he will become a Muslim, and you will have saved a soul.

Yes, (?).

The human nafs is selfish by creation.

Allah Almighty has placed these traits in the human nafs. I listed them a moment ago: it will eat, drink, have intercourse, that is, it will walk and be in motion, that is, it will be able to change place, it will be attached to the world, it will love life, it will protect the life in the human nafs. A nafs having these traits will of course be selfish; this nafs's selfishness can be prevented by one thing alone, the light of faith found in Islam. Those who cannot possess the light of faith cannot master their nafs.

Yes. Here we put the light of faith in the foreground. Why did we put it there? If there were no faith, today in the world non-Muslims, running after carnal states even more than Muslims, they, sir, living their own character, living that destiny in their covenant, outside the religion of Islam, sir, like a shining covenant, (?), they go along properly. (?) properly. If he is a Muslim, he is again bound to his covenant, but the stronger his faith, the more he obeys Allah. That is, he masters his nafs. People who fear Allah, if they adapt themselves to the Islamic way of life, if they pay attention to lawful and unlawful, if they try to reform their nafs with fasting and certain acts of worship, such people's nafs reach perfection.

Anyway, what was fasting? Why was fasting made obligatory?

So that a person reforms his nafs, and so by fasting we bring about the greatest event, and we don't realise it. What is this greatest event? So that on the Day of Judgement you cannot say to Allah Almighty, You created us weak, we were not masters of our nafs, we couldn't be: on the days you fasted, did you pray? Did you not approach your wife? Did you cut yourself off from all your desires? Did you eat during this time until evening? Which trait (?)? I created you weak, He will say. With which trait did I create you weak? Which burden you could not bear, let me say, did I load on your back, He will say.

So you did this out of your own stubbornness, He will say. Look how precious fasting is. What does Allah have us prove about ourselves with it? What does He have us prove? You have no loophole at all. So pay attention to fasting. To fasting.

People who fear Allah, if they adapt themselves to the Islamic way of life, if they pay attention to lawful and unlawful, if they try to reform their nafs with fasting and certain acts of worship, such people's nafs reach perfection. So Allah Almighty strengthens the traits in securing mastery over that nafs, so that people guard themselves against sins. Look, do you see? So if you want, you don't do it. So if you want, you don't consume what is unlawful. So if you want, you don't say bad words to others. What do you say? I am fasting today, you say. You keep away from it. Then why, on the other days, do you follow the whims of your nafs and abandon Allah's commands?

So what does fasting make us prove? Look, it makes us hold ourselves as witnesses to ourselves. So be very careful about this. Very careful.

Their hearts fill with the fear of Allah. In every task they do, they act seeking Allah's pleasure, so that these people's conduct makes them people who respect human rights and are trustworthy. In this way a person masters his nafs. Fasting brings this about.

Those outside of this, those who are those outside of it? Those outside this fasting, those who don't fast, even if they present themselves as trustworthy, that is, a person who does not fast, even if he presents himself as a very trustworthy, reliable person, where there are no people, at times when he gets the chance, without regard for lawful or unlawful, as if he would never die, he loads the world's goods onto his back as a burden.

What kind of reliable person are you? If you turn your back on what Allah said, if you eat and drink during the fast He made obligatory on you for thirty days, while your health is fine, if you don't fulfil your Lord's command, if you don't fear the One who created you, how can I trust you?

You wouldn't fear me at all. Where you had the power, you would even hammer a nail into my head. Where you had the power, when I sank into the mud, you would even trample on me. To sink me even deeper into the swamp.

That is why you cannot call these reliable people either.

He behaves as if on the Day of Judgement he will not give account before Allah Almighty, and leads a person's hereafter to ruin. That is, people outside of this, people who don't fast, even if they present themselves as a trustworthy person, even if they present themselves as a trustworthy person, where there are no people, at times when they get the chance, without regard for lawful or unlawful, as if they would never die, load the world's goods onto their backs as a burden. They behave as if on the Day of Judgement they will not give account before Allah Almighty, and lead a person's hereafter to ruin.

And in this way they set an example for one another. They even count this as heroism. Look at the nafs, look what kind of temptation Satan gives to this one. He counts that as heroism too. He counts this as progressive. These are progressives. Enlightened people. Whereas they are people swimming in dark swamps. Those are the enlightened ones. Who are these? Reactionaries. They call Islam reactionary, don't they? In fact they are pitiful people who are outside the peace of Islam and, finding an excuse to call Islam reactionary, cannot grasp that they themselves are the reaction. The believer acts as a mirror to him and proves to him that he is the reaction.

And this person, although he knows his own degradation, his own unease, his own depression, his own stress, in order to escape such things, resorts to satanic ways and turns to things like alcohol, gambling, adultery. He lives intertwined with laws Allah does not want, and saying it's a pleasure for my eyes, he strips women. Before the Prophet (peace be upon him) came into the world, those who made their mothers and sisters dance at drinking tables, who, ashamed of their daughters, buried them alive, those who envy them are the reactionaries. These are the reaction, they are reviving the old.

(?), that is, what we call a Muslim, values his women, makes them the crown of his head. He protects their honour and dignity, their chastity and virtue. He keeps them safe from every kind of evil as far as he can. Now compare the two. Who is the reactionary? Who is the reaction?

So Allah Almighty's laws give a person life. So such people, because they live intertwined with laws Allah does not want, sell their own souls in exchange for the punishment in the hereafter.

So Allah Almighty commands that people get along well with one another in dialogue together, and not sever the bonds of closeness, indeed the bonds of brotherhood of Islam. With what? By fasting He secures our unity and togetherness. With the same mindset, to the same Lord, to our Lord, besides whom there is no other god,

placing our foreheads in the same prostration to the Most Merciful, together, in unity, His commanding us to shoulder each other's good and bad states, in the life of this world, is to ensure that people on earth live in a festive atmosphere. Yes.

He commands that they not sever the bonds of brotherhood of Islam. That they not consume each other's wealth unjustly, not separate from one another, that they respect people's rights and laws, He explains with His verse, the verse. Your wealth among you by unjust means do not consume. Do not consume your wealth among yourselves by unjust means. Fear Allah. Tomorrow, in the divine presence, the Day of Reckoning, do not forget it. If you go outside what I said, says Allah Almighty, and you set your eyes on your brother's property and push him into poverty, and for your own worldly pleasure, his (?), if you try to rule over him, having your nafs cleansed, governed by commands your Lord does not want, if you live in pleasure on earth, tomorrow in the Great Court, before Allah Almighty, how will you give account?

So, do not forget that Day of Reckoning; do not put out of your minds that each person's good deeds of an atom's weight, and likewise the evil of an atom's weight they did, will be written down, and on the Day of Judgement, the Day of Reckoning, you will be called to account for the deeds you performed. If I stretch my hand out to something that is not my right, I stretched my hand out to something that is not my right, that is, to the unlawful, that is, if I stretched my hand out to seize the property by which my Muslim brother earns his living, then let me say this: you did not stretch your hand out to that property but to fire; that hand is in the fire.

If you can bear it when you put your hand into fire in this world, you will bear it there. So if you know it this way, if you know it this way, you will bow to your Lord's verses. If not, if you form a partnership with these three enemies of yours, the whim of Satan, the whim of the nafs, and the world's rosy appearance to you, woe has come upon you. While you know full well, that is, that it is unlawful, that this property is his Muslim brother's property, while you know full well, do not give that wealth to judges so that you may consume part of people's wealth by unlawful means, it says.

Every person knows, more or less, whether what he is doing is right or not. Unjustly violating a person's property and putting the person before you in a wronged position, taking his property from him and consuming it, means filling one's belly with fire. As I said a moment ago, when he stretches out his hand to that property, he is stretching out his hand not to that property but to fire. Yes, if you take hold of the fire and send it down to your stomach in the world as matter, on the Day of Judgement you will send it down as fire. Yes.

Knowingly, by colluding with judges or by offering a bribe to the judge before them, people who take a person's property onto their own backs are people who do not fear Allah Almighty. If such people are Muslims, they are people in whom the light of faith has weakened and remained in the heart like a dot. A dot can vanish in an instant too. Because these work in partnership with the world, Satan and the nafs, these people, since they always side with their own nafs and are attached to the world, with that whim of the nafs and the pride and arrogance Satan gives them, drift away from their religion too. That is the wrong of that dot.

He cannot bear the slightest affliction and makes himself rebel against Allah.

The state of such people is dangerous. People who incline to the world and do not care about their hereafter do not give shape and order to their lives; if they continue to spend their lives that way, the outcome of such people is unknown. Allah knows best, they may even go to the hereafter as non-Muslims. So Allah Almighty, by explaining His verses to us, commands that people respect one another, respect each other's rights and laws, and by showing the ways for people to get along well on earth, that they not commit sins. Our Lord.

Yes.