Al-Hajj 45: There were many nations that We destroyed while (the people) they were committing oppression. Now, all that remains of them are collapsed structures, crashed roofs, many unused wells, and great mansions that are empty and deserted.

We read verse 45 of Surah Al-Hajj in translation. How many a town there was, says Allah Almighty, which, while its people were doing wrong, We destroyed. Like the people of Salih.

They took in full when receiving and gave short when giving. Sir, some, sir, just as Pharaoh oppressed the people of the Children of Israel. Peoples who went far in oppression. Now in those lands the walls have collapsed, fallen upon their roofs. There are many wells fallen into disuse and grand palaces left deserted. Yes. Now if a person

reads such a verse and does not reflect on it, you cannot easily grasp the meanings in it.

Here a sadness comes over a person, a sadness.

Like what? Just as an earthquake of magnitude (?) struck Izmit. Houses collapsed. Right? Bolu was hit by disaster. Adapazarı collapsed like that. When I went there and looked, it was in ruins. The ruins brought a sadness over a person. From that lively, splendid place to a ruin. A sadness. What did this? You say the earthquake did it. Isn't it the earthquake? When you imagine in this way the peoples that Allah Almighty destroyed and bring the existence of our Lord outwardly, through such manifestations, before your eyes to life, a sadness comes over a person, a fear comes over him. The existence of Allah stamps its seal on your heart.

Yes.

That the sovereignty of dominion belongs to Allah Almighty alone, He Himself makes plainly known to us with this verse. Indeed so. Is there another god besides Him? Did you run wild? Did you go too far? You will surely see the recompense. We did not come to this world to busy ourselves with things that please our unbridled nafs. We came to prove what kind of person we are. Doesn't Allah Almighty say so in the verse too? Did you think you would die without proving what kind of person you are? So Allah, who is free of deficient attributes, although He knows what we will do, the sole reason for sending us to (?) world is that He is free of deficient attributes.

So that you may not say: My Allah, I saw You here like (?). That is, I saw You like a human. I could not believe in You. Why are You throwing me into hell?

If You sent me to the world, an unseen realm, sent me prophets, scholars, sent me books, I would obey You, he says. In verse 17 of Surah Al-Qasas, in verse 47, and it is in Surah Ta-Ha too. Now, in this situation, Allah Almighty, us to these worlds, sending us to these worlds and also telling us through His verses why He sent us, and despite that, destroying people who do not mend their ways like this, before their very eyes, and as a lesson to other people displaying them — Allah Almighty's ruling over the worlds and there being no god other than Him, everything from the atom to the globe being His creation, isn't that what it means?

Yes. What does it say anyway? That the sovereignty of dominion belongs to Allah Almighty alone, with this verse He makes plainly known to us. Among the peoples, those who forgot Allah, who thought themselves unaccountable and that by no one would they be called to account, those who trusted in their wealth and property, who said nothing would happen to them, who, thinking that if Allah exists and paradise exists, paradise is their right, fell for Satan's deceptions — these people occupied with their nafs, while engaged in oppressing people, built up many lands and dug many wells, wanting to display their strength and their civilization.

They built many palaces and many mansions. In these palaces and mansions, amid their pleasures and revelry, as if they would never die, they went on with their lives. Isn't it still like that?

The nafs. That is, a man asks a non-Muslim. Does Allah exist, he says. They tell me so, but I don't believe it, he says.

I don't believe it, he says. Now can you call this man intelligent?

Allah Almighty: do you never use your reason? Do you not reflect? According to the verse in which He says this.

When he says, they say Allah exists but I don't believe it, if that person reflected on himself: he is equipped with an immense knowledge, immense, and since this knowledge cannot possibly have come about by itself, (?) that there is a creator, a person signifies. Yes.

They did not recognize the rights and law of Allah, they reached the peak of their immorality. Allah Almighty seized them in the peak they had plunged into and destroyed them.

Now in place of these lands the walls have collapsed, and the roofs have perished upon these walls and are gone. The water of many wells has receded; they left their towns from thirst, and these towns turned into ruins. So Allah, in whose hand is the sovereignty of dominion, is the possessor of absolute power.

What He created, from the atom to the globe, belongs to Allah. In the dominion, too, He alone holds the right to dispose of what He created. In this case, in existence and in non-existence, the duty falling to a person is to grasp the purpose of creation. So the duty falling to us, since there is no god but Allah, is to submit to Allah and, to win the hereafter, to hold fast to Allah's steel-firm rulings. May Allah Almighty grant all of us a good understanding and the ability to see the truth. Amen. Yes.