Al-Baqarah 155: Verily, We will test you with fear and hunger and with shortening your goods, your lives and crops (so that you will prove yourself). Give glad tidings to those who are being patient.
Contents
Explanation
The misinterpretation
Surely you will find some fear and hunger; We try with some reduction (poverty) from goods, lives and products. (O Prophet) Give good news to those who are patient.
The right translation
Verily, We will test you with fear and hunger and with shortening your goods, your lives and crops (so that you will prove yourself). Give glad tidings to those who are being patient.
Explanation
The word (we test) in this verse has been misinterpreted. Rather, it says: "We will test people according to their behavior in order to keep them as witnesses to themselves". Because Allah knows what people will do until the Day of Resurrection. When you say we will try, you are recognizing people as they are and not knowing what they will change and do later on, which is an attribute of our Lord.
However, it should be said that we will test you (to keep you as witnesses). In short, it is correct to open it as We will test you with a little fear, a little hunger, a little deprivation of goods, lives and fruits to make you witnesses to yourselves. In this case, since our Lord knows what people are, our Lord uses the attribute of Allah. Allah's attribute of Allah is that no one will be able to question Him. Whatever questions people will ask, in return for the questions that will be asked in the worldly realm, the person will have done what kind of a person he or she is with his or her actual deeds and will be cut off from the question. This is why the word trial is false. But people are tested so that they are made to witness what kind of a person they are.
What is said in the video
writings. Also verse one hundred fifty-five, on page twenty-three — verse one hundred fifty-five has also been interpreted wrongly.
What does it say? We're reading the wrong one. "We will surely try you with some fear and hunger, and with a decrease in wealth, lives and produce, with poverty", it says. Just look. Allah couldn't know, so He's going to try it out. Allah couldn't know. What is He going to try out? He's going to try them out with poverty, apparently. That is, Allah Almighty doesn't know what we will do. Man, Allah — to test man, so that he proves what kind of person he is, him, um — where He says "We test you sometimes with your possessions, sometimes with your lives", against the verse "Did you think you would die without proving what kind of person you are?" His putting us to the test to make us witnesses to ourselves, here becomes His trying us out. Look, that's how he understands it.
He'll try me out. He'll see what kind of person I am. Ah, I did a good deed. Ah, this man is good. But I am actually a bad person. Then I'll do evil. Then when you do evil: well, at that time you had done good, but now you're bad. Will He tell him, "Get lost"? It's astonishing. How he fits Allah into his own head and ascribes attributes to Him like this. Whereas: "We will surely test you to make you witnesses to yourselves", it says — test. To show ourselves to ourselves. "By some fear, some hunger, some decrease in wealth, lives and fruits — give glad tidings to those who are patient", it says.
How beautifully it says it. Give glad tidings to those who are patient. Yes. What shall I say? One day I went to visit a friend. He's a factory owner, too.
I saw that he was sweeping the floor, trying to sift some PVC dust. "What are you doing?" I said. He said: I have no money to take bread home, he said. To take bread home. This man still lives in Istanbul.
The mould-maker Nizam Efendi in Bayrampaşa — I'm even saying his name. Well, at one time I had given him a house too. 25 lira — he had given me 25 thousand lira as a deposit. When we called it off, he said: let the twenty-five thousand lira stay with you, I kept you waiting this long, he said. And I put that money in the safe. "You", I said, "really, to go home now", I said, "don't you have any money on you?" I have neither money for the minibus nor money to take even bread home, he said. This, he said, I'll press, he said; I'll press these PVCs in the machine, and if I cut them and make soles, he said, I'll get the money for them and take bread home, he said.
I phoned our son. He took the twenty-five thousand lira from there and came; I gave it to him, and he turned pale as a sheet. Pale as a sheet. "This", he said, "is a friend", he said.
This is how Allah tests us, and we are patient. We don't rebel. Yes.