Ali 'Imran 9: Our Lord! You are the One who will summon mankind on a Day about which there is no doubt. Verily, Allah does not turn back from Allah’s promise.

If no one has another question, let us read verse 9 of Surah Al Imran.

Our Lord, on a day whose coming is not doubted, will surely gather people. Which day is this? The Day of Resurrection. After the Resurrection breaks out, at the gathering, our Lord who, in the address 'Elestü bi Rabbiküm', said 'I am your Lord' — Allah Almighty, our Lord who created these worlds from nothing, will bring about the Resurrection. Our Lord who said 'I am your Lord' will, at the Great Court, as the Judge of judges, gather us in His presence. What does it say? Our Lord, it is You who will surely gather people on a day whose coming is not doubted. Allah never breaks His promise. Never.

Whatever He has said, so it is. Our Lord's word is truth. Who is more faithful to his word than Allah, it says. Yes, on a day whose coming is not doubted, on that Day of Gathering, Allah Almighty will surely gather people together.

Because this is our Lord's promise. What does it say? Every soul will taste death, and your return is to Allah, it says. Again, in a verse: when We gather you at the assembly, when you rise, you will ask one another: How long did we lie under the earth? Some of you will say a day, and some of your wise ones, it says, will say we lay a little less than a day, it says. Ask the appointed noble angels who kept count of how long you lay under the earth, it says. Yes. Even if we lay there for thousands of years. So this means that at the gathering we will rise again from the earth. In what form? As bodies.

As bodies. Then they will be joined with the souls. According to the verse 'You have come into My presence with a driver.' There, at the Great Court, we will be called to account. That is the day whose coming is not doubted. It will certainly come. We are on a journey. On a journey. All people in this worldly realm are on a journey.

We are travellers through a series of adventures. We were created in the realm of Lahut, the realm of souls. Then we were granted our Lord's address. There we became wretched or God-fearing. That is, we either knew our Lord or denied Him. Then our wishes and desires were written for us as destiny. And we were taken up to the realm of barzakh. Then, when its time comes, the soul comes into the worldly realm. Now I ask you, gentlemen.

How long were we there?

None of us can answer this. We only know that we opened our eyes in the world.

why did we forget the hereafter? Because our Lord was going to send us to an unseen realm. An unseen realm. There He would will His Being to be known, so that Allah Almighty be free of deficient attributes. So in this way we came to an unseen realm.

We do not remember that place here, so how will we remember this place after we die? Because we prove here what kind of person we are, there we will not have a single word to say to Allah Almighty. That place and that place too — in the hereafter, that covenant we gave in the realm of Lahut, we will see and know. From here to there, as if within a single day, as if within a day and a half, or as if within a day, we will experience it and know that we have proven ourselves. And we will have no word to say to Allah Almighty. At that moment, 'If we could go back again,' it says, 'how we would worship You!' Even if We sent you not once but several times more, you would do the same again.

If those traits are in you, those places will again be made forgotten to you, and again you will do the same. So, in that case, on that day, a day whose coming is not in doubt, our Lord will surely gather us. Surely. We will answer in His presence. But Hodja, does no one, while living in this world, remember that place? Yes, they do. The prophets remember. The prophets know.

For example, our Prophet, who came as a mercy to the worlds — I am not speaking to those who deny. They do not accept it. Yet he is their prophet too. He is a mercy to the worlds, but they deny. Allah Almighty, in His verse, with the words 'remember' and 'have you not seen', lets us know that he knew that realm. We also said that the scholars, that is, the heirs of the prophets — I know it too. I know it too. I too know that address, 'Elestü bi Rabbiküm'. There we gave our covenant and were taken up to barzakh. Then each person, when their time came, came into the world. In the world, as an actor in the script of the covenant they gave there, they play their part in the world.

After that, we said we are travellers, travellers.

Ahead of us is a grave, a grave.

After the grave, a Resurrection. After the Resurrection, a gathering. After the gathering comes the assembly before Allah Almighty at the Great Court. What did we say? We are travellers, travellers. We are still continuing the journey. We are halfway through the journey.

We are still on the road.

That is why Allah Almighty reminds us of these things. Look (?). Our Lord, on a day whose coming is not doubted, it is You who will surely gather people, it says. Allah never breaks His promise. On a day whose coming is not doubted, on that Day of Gathering, You will surely gather people together. Since all souls are mortal, You are the Everlasting, my Allah, and it is also You who will annihilate the creatures and worlds You created from nothing and create them again, my Allah. Accordingly, just as every person of reason grasps how they came to exist and how they were created, so too, grasping the existence of His Being, that none of the created is left to itself, that the created have an owner and will one day be called to account by that owner — this Allah the Creator makes known to people.

According to the verse 'Allah never breaks His promise': that is, O people, just as you know that you were born of your mothers, so too, tomorrow on the Day of Resurrection, when you are gathered before Allah, grasp it and believe it, He commands. Yes.

People — that is, Allah Almighty's address to people: you, while living out in the material realm the covenant you gave, by your limited free will feel yourselves free and unaccountable. Don't we feel that way? Those who deny Allah, those who say 'Is there another world after death?', whom the halter Satan put on their necks, through their own lustful feelings, drags toward the world, and who dupe people with all kinds of schemes, those people who wrong their own souls — believing that there is no one at all who will call them to account, acting accordingly, by behaving like this, are they not wronging their own souls?

Those far from Allah think of themselves as if no one, the Creator, will question them, and they will do as they please, free in this world, and then die and be gone. Oh, what a lovely world. How did you come here? How did you come to be in this world?

How did this body of yours, equipped with so much knowledge, come to exist?

I have not seen the one who made this glass. I have not seen who made the glass. But can I deny it? 'No craftsman made this'? That is impossible. A craftsman made this, a craftsman. It has a craftsman. (?) So this universe is equipped with knowledge.

Did reason, life and soul appear in this universe by themselves and create themselves?

So every person will seek the reason for their own creation and act accordingly. So when people come into the material realm, if they turn their back on their Lord, feeling unaccountable, they pull whatever scheme they like in this worldly realm. But in the end, on that Day of Reckoning, when they are called to account, the deeds they did will not give them regret. Their regret will be of no use. While living out in the material realm the covenant you gave, by your limited free will you feel yourselves free and unaccountable. The sound-minded person is one who has taken on a duty, and that whether they fulfil it or not they will be called to account by the one who gave the duty — if only they knew it.

O human, how were you created inside this garment of a body? And what does the One who created you tell you? He will not call to account anyone of a generation to whom He did not make it heard. But since there is no one left to whom He has not made it heard.

Well, do you have no responsibility? Does this body have no responsibility? Does this Creator, the Creator of this body, have no command for you, no religious ruling? He does.

Then what will you say when you go into His presence? When a superior gives you a task and it is not carried out, you are crushed under its responsibility, yet without grasping your responsibility to Allah, who created you from nothing, living this life of yours, how can you be so cruel to your own soul?

Allah, by sending us to the material realm — in this world where we seem unaccountable we are in fact actors playing the script of the covenant we gave — and how we played this part we will be called to account for on the Day of Resurrection, that Day of Reckoning beyond all doubt; this is what Allah Almighty declares. What does He say? O human! With this body I gave you, in this unseen realm I sent you to, in the life of that realm where you saw yourself as unaccountable, you now felt that you were responsible. And knowingly you denied Me and turned your back on Me. When He says, 'Now, today, this is your place', no one will be able to blame Allah. Why? Because 'It is the recompense of what your two hands have earned', according to the verse.

On that day, Allah Almighty says, without anyone being wronged, without any injustice being done, everyone will be given in full what they earned, He says. In full. So as human beings, when we use our reason, when we act against our Lord's commands and realize it, would our feelings not stir, and would we not feel shame before the One who created us? Would we not be ashamed?

Given that He is present and watching everywhere, and every atom's weight of good and evil we do is recorded, do you never think, 'How will I answer for this tomorrow before my Lord?' So if people were to think about this, with Allah's commands these people would live on earth as if in a festive mood.

And man would taste the joy of being a servant of his Lord.

Yes.