Al-Isra 78: Establish the prayer (on certain times) from when the sun turns until darkness of the night sets. And the morning prayer. Because, the morning prayer is witnessed.

From the sun of the day, from the sun's turning until the darkness of night covers all, perform the prayer at a set time, and also the morning prayer, for the morning prayer is witnessed, it says.

This, when it says the morning prayer is witnessed, if we are to explain this here in depth, my old children, since they have a bit of knowledge, will grasp it. but many people may be mistaken here. But however much they may be mistaken, here we will try to open this up a little. Now, when it says the morning prayer is witnessed, people or else these people called scholars, what do they say? The angels that hand over the night, that hand over the day, the angels that hand over night and day are present together, so it is witnessed. I have no need at all for my angel to bear witness for me. An angel cannot bear witness for me.

I repeat. Angels cannot bear witness for me. Now pay attention. We will prove it with (?) verses. That angels do not bear witness.

First, at the Resurrection, when (?) another heaven, and the earth another earth, in the world (?) when we are brought forth, (?), it says. Fine. Everyone will be gathered at the place of assembly. Is that so? Then at the Great Tribunal everyone will be called to account in the presence of Allah Almighty. What does it say? When you come into My presence with a driver, when you come into My presence with a driver, that is, when body and soul go together before our Lord, We will silence your mouths.

We will make your hands speak and make your feet bear witness, it says. What does it say? We will silence your mouths, make your hands speak, make your feet bear witness. Well then, if my feet and my hands bear witness about me, why does the angel not come to bear witness for me? The angel would have to come too. Since the angel does not bear witness for me, since my body, my physical self, bears witness for me, I have no need at all for the angel's testimony. An angel cannot bear witness for me. Yes. Why can it not bear witness? Why, we were created honored above the worlds. For one created from the Prophet's light, created from the Prophet's soul, can it bear witness for such a one?

Can it bear witness for a soul created from his light? Or can it rise to that level? Is this possible? In that case, in that case, witnessing is left to one single being. That is Allah. Well, Hodja, in a universe this big, in a universe this big, Allah Almighty will bear witness for which of us?

Now, a caller, it says, calls out at a certain time of the night. That is, an hour before morning, an hour or an hour and twenty minutes before imsak: is there no one, it says, who performs the tahajjud prayer? Allah Almighty has the caller call out. I will give whoever asks what he asks, He says. When He is closest to the world, it says; I will open these points up a little.

We are entering it like this at the start. When He is closest to the world: those who rise for the tahajjud prayer. Then: is there no one, it says, who performs the morning prayer? And the morning prayer, if he does not perform it: O idle ones, after sunrise, O idle ones, get up, it says. Now then, in this whole universe, how is it that Allah Almighty is nearest to the earth at a certain time, and how does He watch over every person like this? There are many ways, many ways. Now let us take it from below. The heavens, or whatever is between the two, know the remembrance of their Lord, says Allah Almighty; He makes this whole universe, every cell of it, remember His Being.

We said that in the cells of all substances, magnetic or antimagnetic, in their atoms there are positive and negative protons; in the electrons and nuclei there are positive and negative nuclei. Electric nuclei. By spinning around their own axes, these produce sound. Even if we don't hear it, every spinning substance produces a sound. In our ears, within a frequency range. They don't hear every sound that comes. So it remembers Allah. Its remembering, its remembering Allah, that there is no god but Allah: just as a person produces a product and takes out a patent on it, Allah Almighty too, by making all beings remember His Being, proves throughout the world that the world, the universe has a single Creator, in this way.

All these positive and negative nuclei, while spinning around their own axes, emit a signal. And this signal is programmed to the universal receiver. So if at any point of the universe, in any particle, a movement or any event occurs, Allah Almighty knows of it. This is the first.

Allah Almighty, from His Being, a particle, as a particle He created man. Man invents a camera. A camera. He films all the views of the house, the outside. On camera. From where he sits he sees all of it like this. He keeps the whole house under control. What came in where, what went out. Well, there are the MOBESE surveillance cameras. You see them everywhere. Can't Allah Almighty likewise program every part of the universe, down to its particles, to Himself and see it? If we can see a house, or a neighborhood, a city, if from a satellite we can capture any place, any part of the whole world, down to its particles, can't Allah Almighty see this in this realm?

In the universe. This is the second. Third: Allah Almighty gave a particle of His soul to the Prophet. From the Prophet's soul He created the souls of the prophets. From a particle of it. And from those prophets' souls, however many people there are to come into the world, He created their souls. From one small particle.

Well, Allah Almighty being the universal Soul, can He not manifest His Being in every place, everywhere, then? We go into prostration. We prostrate to the ground. Directly to Allah; we are in Allah's presence. It is our ascension; we are in Allah's presence. Ascension. So since everyone who prays is in ascension, in the morning prayer he is directly in the presence of his Lord. Directly. That is it: the morning prayer is witnessed, by our Lord. Yes.

Let me say it, and you may believe it or not. If there is anyone who will prove the opposite, let him prove it with verses. And just as it is proven from the verse that angels cannot bear witness for us, let him too prove it to us from the verse. Yes. Along with revolving around the sun, the earth also rotates around its own axis. The earth's rotation around its own axis brings about night and day. It completes this rotation in 24 hours. With the earth's rotation around its own axis, with sunrise, the beginning of the day comes about. As the earth goes on rotating around its axis, certain times come about, and in this verse Allah Almighty commands the five daily prayers.

The noon prayer is at the time when the sun reaches its zenith, exactly at the top. The moment it passes the zenith, the moment it passes the zenith, the noon prayer time begins. Prayer right at that zenith is a disliked time of the sun. That is a moment. When it passes, the (?) time of noon has begun. Yes.

The afternoon time is when, as the earth rotates on its axis, the shadows double, its entry into a certain time. You plant a stick. You measure the stick's length. How many centimeters? It comes to ten centimeters. When this is twenty centimeters, it is afternoon time. The stick's length. When it is double, the afternoon time begins. The evening is the sunset. The night prayer time is when the sun's redness in the sky has gone and night has gathered. Now, at evening time, the sun sets and produces a redness in the sky. That is evening time; when you see that redness in the sky, evening time has begun.

When that redness disappears and you see something like a brightness, the night prayer has begun. And after that it gathers the night: the night prayer. Yes, Allah who created the universe and the world has also created times of worship for people. And within these set times, Allah has made known that the people He created, of their own will, without any pressure from anyone, within their own being, should worship His Being. He has made known that they should worship His Being.

Allah Almighty, pointing especially to the morning prayer, speaks of this prayer's being witnessed.

Some commentators and commentaries say that since the angels of day and night are present at this prayer, they bear witness among people before Allah Almighty, they say. To this we say: Allah Almighty created mankind the most honored, and the angels even prostrated to our forefather Adam. So then, by His verse saying I created man in the finest form, with that verse, for man, than whom He created no more glorious and honored creature, what testimony would the angels give? he said. Will Allah do injustice to His creatures and make angels witnesses against people? Even when a person recites the declaration of faith, even when he recites the declaration of faith, what does he say? Eşhedü en lâ ilâhe illallah.

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah. Ve eşhedü enne Muhammeden abdühû ve resûlühû. Muhammad is Allah's servant and messenger. Yes, they say. Are these people angels? The witnesses recite the declaration of faith. Since our souls saw Allah Almighty at Kalu Bela and made a covenant with Allah, Surah Al-A'raf, verse 172: We, from the offspring of the children of Adam, made a covenant with those to come, lest you say we knew nothing of this; as the verse makes known, because we have seen Allah Almighty, in essence He makes us bear witness. In essence. In the earthly realm, He has us believe in the unseen.

The unseen. Now, in this world, have you seen Allah? You bear witness. What do you say? I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.

Well then, does Allah Almighty make man bear witness falsely to something he has not seen? So belief in the unseen in this world is in fact because in essence we saw Allah Almighty; because we know that, in spirit, at the address Elestü bi Rabbiküm, we made a covenant with Allah Almighty, and because He said I am your Lord, and each of you there made a covenant with your Lord, Allah Almighty has us bear witness in essence. The Muslim, that is, the son of a Muslim: one bears witness by one's own will. And in this world, belief in the unseen. The unseen. In this case Allah, without letting any being come between His Being and man, has man bear witness to His existence.

Accordingly, when we perform the morning prayer, will Allah Almighty have angels bear witness for us? At the time a little before imsak, called the false dawn, Allah Almighty calls out to the world: Is there no one asking of Me? I will give whoever asks what he asks, He decrees. And this time is exactly the time of the tahajjud prayer. It is a time 40 to 45 minutes before imsak. The time from imsak until sunrise is the morning prayer time. The morning prayer a person performs within this time is, by Allah Almighty, witnessed in person. Although the prayers a person performs are surely in the presence of Allah Almighty, (?), the morning prayer is privileged.

To give an example of this: Allah Almighty is present and watching everywhere. Now look where we draw the example from for you. However, in the Hajj season, when people go on Hajj and visit the House of Allah, Allah Almighty decrees: My servants are directly in My presence. Directly in My presence, He decrees. Yet wherever in the world people may be, even in the remotest corner of the universe, they are in Allah's presence and under His mercy. Even so, in the Hajj season, His saying they are directly in My presence is because those who go on Hajj, the covenant they gave to Allah Almighty at Kalu Bela, they fulfill; that is why He says they are directly in My presence.

The morning prayer is like this too. It is directly under Allah's witness.

Yes.

To people who trust in Allah and rely on Him, Allah Almighty is a witness, a guardian, a protector and a support. What does it say? Hasbunallâhu ve ni'me'l-vekîl, ni'me'l-mevlâ ve ni'me'n-nasîr. Gufrâneke Rabbenâ ve ileyke'l-masîr. Lâ havle ve lâ kuvvete illâ billâhi'l-aliyyi'l-azîm. What an excellent master He is. What an excellent support. What an excellent friend, companion, it says. Yes. Where here will angels bear witness for me?

If people in this way put their trust in Allah and submit to Him, there remains no need for anyone's witness but Allah's. In a verse Allah Almighty says: be mindful of the middle prayer, He decrees. In our earlier lessons we explained this verse in detail too. To touch on it briefly here: the middle prayer is the prayer performed with contemplation, in the realm of the heart, directly in the presence of Allah Almighty. The middle prayer is not any one particular prayer. So, in the morning prayer, which is people's ascension and which, with the realm of the heart, they perform in the presence of Allah Almighty, will Allah Almighty call the angels to His side and say: look, this servant of Mine is performing the morning prayer, you be a witness too?

Therefore the privilege of the morning prayer, as we described in the lines above, is that it is a prayer they perform blessed with the witness of Allah Almighty Himself. This Friday our hodja in the sermon spoke of the Battle of the Trench. not in full detail, of course, obliged to read the text the Religious Affairs Directorate gave for it.

He said; he reads the text in his hand, of course, the poor man, what can he do, they gave it to him.

The Prophet abandoned the evening and night prayers. They kept us from the prayer.

So he said, it says.

After Friday prayer we took the Hodja Efendi into his room.

Allah is my witness. Hodja, I said, the fault here is not yours.

You read the text the Directorate gave you. And the Prophet (peace be upon him) says: even if knowledge is in China, go and get it, he says. So the Prophet (peace be upon him) in no battle missed any prayer. Because Allah Almighty sent down a verse. During battle, one row holds against the enemy, one row he leads in prayer behind him, the other row that prayed goes toward the enemy, and the other row that did not pray comes behind him and performs its prayer. So which evening and which night prayer did he miss? I told you the truth of this, I said. This refers to the Battle of the Trench. The Prophet says this: They kept us from the middle prayer.

He doesn't say they kept us from prayer, look. They kept us from the middle prayer. What is the middle prayer? None of the prayers, I said, if you pray, is the middle prayer. But each of the prayers, I say, is the middle prayer. Now how is it that none is the middle prayer and yet each is the middle prayer? Well, if you pray while wandering about the market, how is this the middle prayer? How is this praying in your Lord's presence? How is this praying before the divine manifestations? But when He says be mindful of the middle prayer, from your heart you take out all that is other than Allah. You put Allah's light into your heart.

There you look at your Lord's manifestations (?). If while praying you speak with my Lord and worship Him as if you see Him, or rather, if you pray spiritually, (?), then this is the middle prayer. So when he says they kept us from the middle prayer: such a prayer I could not perform. Because, I said, everything was surrounded. Together with (?). Under siege for a month. So that is what it tells of that time, but now. At that time, it says, the believers were going through a great test. And the polytheists were saying: so the prophet promised us empty words after all. In that situation, that night, in pitch darkness, Allah Almighty, with rain, cold, a storm, along with unseen armies, He says, We destroyed them, scattered them, He says.

Yes. We have told these with the verses. Then, I said, if the middle prayer were, as your scholars say, the afternoon prayer or, I said, the noon prayer, one of the prayers, a man would say I performed the middle prayer, and would never pray again. He would keep up only the middle prayer. When it says be mindful of the middle prayer. Plus, I said, when one goes before Allah Almighty, isn't that the ascension? I said. Ascension. Isn't every prayer an ascension? Ascension. So when it says be mindful of the middle prayer, does that become ascension and the others don't?

Or is one prayer time, in which one goes before Allah Almighty, very valuable and the others worthless? I said.

Watch well the words that come out of your mouths, I said. You don't know the verses, I said.

He said, I speak according to what I have in hand. There are Dawud's, he says, Muslim's here, he says, things, writings. And I said to him, I am sifting through 7,300 hadiths. Neither Dawud nor Muslim nor, well, Tirmidhi left anything out, I said. Slanders, lies, they wrote them all down. And we are sifting them: this is hadith, this isn't, this isn't, this is hadith, I said. Don't look at those writings, I said. Yes. But let him look at the verses, I said, the verses. Yes.