Al-Baqarah 57: We made a shade for you, with the clouds and gave you manna and quail, telling you to eat from Our permissible provisions. They did not commit oppression against Us (by not obeying us), but they committed oppression against themselves.

He gives death and He gives life. Yes, we come to verse 57. In the desert of Tih We shaded you with clouds and sent you manna and quails. And We said: eat of this lawful provision of Ours. By not obeying, they did not wrong Us; rather they wronged their own selves. Now, before moving on here: why did the curse become due upon these people? Let us touch on that here. Why did Allah Almighty curse them? If any people asks Allah Almighty for a miracle, and our Lord grants that miracle, and the people then turn to denial, to denial, that people Allah Almighty destroys. It has become a public case. That people is destroyed.

Now, these said, let us see our Lord; Allah Almighty killed them and revived them, showed them His Self; again, in the desert of Tih, sir, after they were saved from Pharaoh, Allah Almighty fed them there with quail meat and manna. Again, out of the desires of the nafs, they were not content with what came from Allah Almighty. O Moses, tell your Lord to feed us from what the earth grows, its onions, its garlic, they said. So Allah Almighty declares this: The lawful and pure provision I gave them, they exchanged for the basest of foods. For the basest of foods. That is why onion and garlic also smell.

And although these people in this way saw Allah Almighty's many miracles, the people who would come after them too, but you may ask a question like this. Before I finish my words, you may ask this question: This was a shame upon those people. Why should the people who come after bear their guilt, why should those who come also be cursed? When this is asked, Allah Almighty, I quoted the verse a moment ago, the verse: there is not a single living being to come until the Day of Judgment of whom We would not know what he will not do. Because the people who will come from the loins of such people will also be of the same character, the same mentality, the same belief, Allah Almighty cursed them.

Is there such a verse about them? There is. What does it say? We made you on earth (?) so that you may be quickly recognized. So that, within the same mentality, the same people can live that life and prove themselves in the best way, those people come among people like them. We gave an example earlier too; we said, for instance, a German cannot get along with a Frenchman, a Frenchman with an Englishman, an Englishman with America. But among themselves, within their own mentality, people of the same character find life among one another, and living there freely and in the best way, they prove to Allah Almighty in this worldly realm what kind of people they are.

So, did you think you would die without proving what kind of person you are, according to the verse?

So despite so many favours, despite Allah Almighty showing them so much mercy, since they were still in denial they were cursed. They did not deny the miracles, but they turned their backs on Allah's verses. For this reason they were cursed. If they had seen these miracles and denied them, they would have been destroyed. Destroyed. Not denial: they turned their backs. Now, what is it in denial? For example, the people of Salih, what did they do? A yellow camel, for us, bring out as a miracle of Allah, they said; they brought it out, Allah Almighty brought it out. To this camel, he said, on this day they will drink water; on this day you will not come near.

By killing that camel, by killing this miracle (?), the public case brought destruction upon them about. Sir, Noah, so many a thousand years, nine hundred and sixty years, he stayed among them. Allah Almighty, who was patient for so many long years, so many long years. Sir, Allah Almighty, who was patient despite Noah staying among them, at last, with Noah's prayer: O my Lord, these no longer listen to me, and he prays for them to be cut off at the roots, and finally Allah Almighty accepts the prayer of His prophet. In fact, those prayers are all set within a program that has been made. As a result of that program, together with Noah's prayer, they were destroyed. On earth, the multiplying of people again after Adam is after Noah. Therefore this people did not deny Allah's miracles, but turned their backs on what he said.

For this reason they were cursed. What does it say now? In the desert of Tih We shaded you with clouds and sent you manna and quails, and We said: eat of this lawful provision of Ours. By not obeying, they did not wrong Us. Rather they wronged their own selves. No being can do wrong to Allah. Because if the created, the heavens and the earth and what is between the two, united, they could never harm Allah. All the deeds that are done, the actual deeds people have done, are a wrong against their own selves. That is, they earn sin; in the hereafter, when they go before Allah Almighty, in return for the sins they have done, in Allah Almighty's true paradise and hell they take their places.

Those who do wrong will go to hell, and those who obey our Lord's command and are obedient to Him will go to paradise, of course. This is our Lord's promise. What does Allah Almighty say? Who is truer to his word than Allah. Now let us read the verse and here, if needed, answer you again. In the desert of Tih where they camped, We sent the people of Israel manna and quails, so that they would eat of this lawful provision of Ours and thank their Lord. The aim of 'lawful provision' here: over what Allah Almighty created, no created being has any right. What is it? Over what Allah Almighty created, no one has any right. I work, I earn, I buy provision. I bought meat, I bought garlic, I bought onions, I bought rice, I bought bread, whatever.

In this, through the right of people's eyes here and there, or else, during that time, by making a person waste his time, I have mixed the forbidden into it. Within this forbidden, I cannot find it as lawful as what Allah Almighty gives me. So the quail and manna Allah Almighty speaks of, the food He sent them from the highest paradise, since no one has any right in it, because it was sent to them by Allah Himself, is lawful provision. Otherwise, all the provisions Allah Almighty created are lawful. Because He brought them and put them in the world. But when people take it, working and earning, in return for what they earned, with money, when they take it, they may also mix the forbidden into it.

While bringing it home in a net bag, if someone else sees it and his eye lingers on it, again some forbidden mixes into it. In that case, what did our forefathers do? They brought their food from the markets in baskets. Net bags came later. Plastic bags came later. There is the zembil. Zembil. There is the zembil too. There are baskets too. They brought it in them so that no one would see. Yes. That is lawful provision. What do we say? The aim of 'lawful provision' here: over what Allah Almighty created no created being has any right. For this reason, as Allah Almighty's divine grace, in what He bestows there is nothing forbidden.

In what Allah bestows. Because He created it; directly, the Creator gives it to you. Directly. There is nothing indirect here. That is why it is pure provision. It is lawful. Yes. That Allah the Creator, having no need of His creatures, offers the things He created as His own to His creatures, sir, is the best and most lawful of provisions received. To provisions received. Our Lord says: We send you quails here, in the desert of Tih. This is a desert, there is nothing. What will they eat? Allah Almighty would send them quails. Quails. They would eat quail meat. And at the same time manna. Sir, to them as food it was given. They, despite eating that lawful provision, they are being tested.

They are being tested. Sir, they rise up in denial and rebellion.

Think. A person in captivity. In captivity.

In prisons, chains clapped on their feet. Those who, like galley slaves, make do with a piece of dry bread, do not rebel, they do not rebel. Because they are captives. He would rebel against his master, but he has nothing in his hand. He has no authority. They are content with what is given. If they even find that bread, they give thanks. He found it there, he eats. Allah bestows on you from His own Self. They rebel against Allah. What do they say? Let Him give me from what the earth grows, its onions, its garlic. Tell your Allah, they say, (?). Yes. And as a grace, We made the clouds a shade over you, He says: the desert of Tih.

The desert is hot. Very hot. It is impossible even to stay there. So Allah Almighty brings clouds. Shade over them. Also, that Mount Sinai, He lifts it, too, into the air. As shade, He has it give them shade. These are Allah's miracles. Yes. When Moses was saving the people of Israel from Pharaoh's oppression, taking Moses as their saviour, out of fear for their lives they took refuge in Allah. What do they say? We believed that Moses is a prophet. What you say, we will do what you say, they say. And one evening, all together, they leave Egypt.

From the places they were, from where Pharaoh was, which, the (?) of Egypt, Cairo, probably from today's Cairo, sir, they leave. And these, at the sight of hardship, at hardship at once turning back, people, when they reached the shore of the Red Sea, on seeing Pharaoh, at once against Moses they rebel. We followed you, we came after you. Look, now they will kill us here. They say things like: if only we had not come. But there they see one more miracle. When Allah Almighty tells Moses, strike the sea with the staff in your hand, the sea parts to two sides and they cross over from there. Pharaoh, who followed them, Allah Almighty destroys there too, together with his army.

So many miracles. That is, openly, plainly, events beyond the strength and power of human might, let us not say human might only, beyond the might and strength of created beings. Since Allah Almighty knew what they would do, to leave them, through a test, as a remembrance for the generations to come, creating these miracles is so that, with Allah Almighty's attribute of godhood, no one can (?) a deficiency to Him. He knows what they will do, but since He saved them from there through Moses, His deputy, His prophet, His messenger, so that they would not say: O Moses, is this your Lord, He left us hungry, He feeds them there. He gives to them.

And in this case, since Allah Almighty is free of any deficient attribute, and since He knows what they will do, to such ungrateful ones, to those who oppose Allah, who do not heed His command, for the people to come after, as a remembrance, He gives to them like this. Yes. When they attained prosperity, after so many blessings, from time to time they were drowned in the darkness of shirk. Although Allah Almighty's mercy was constantly upon them, they thought this state would always remain so. There is a child, his father loves him very much, his father or his mother; the child gets spoiled, his father does whatever he says, does everything he says.

Then he really starts to defy his father. So, in return for everything they did, Allah Almighty giving to them, they saying (?), saying let us see Allah, and the thunderbolt striking them, killing them, showing His Self, then reviving them, saving them from Pharaoh's torment, taking them across from the desert of Tih, and giving them food, sir, with quail meat, spoiled them. So these were mistaken in the face of such qualities. They were mistaken. If Allah Almighty, to a person, a mercy he is not worthy of, a provision, a blessing, grants him, this is a disaster for him. A disaster. Here, when a person, about something he is not worthy of, says: I was not worthy of this, my Lord gave it to me, but how shall I give thanks for it, then he became worthy of it. But these did not say that.

What did they say? We are the close ones of Allah. Punishment will not touch us for more than three days, they said. And Allah Almighty gives them such a fine answer. If what they say is so, then let them wish for death, He says. Or do they have proof in their hands, He says; let them bring that proof.

Each of them, He says, even if their life in the world were a thousand years, let him live that thousand years, they say, He says. Let me live, they say, He says. Since I am close to Allah; if you are in that thought, you, I, sir, as long as I live on earth, the people I long for, I try to go to them. To them. If I have a father, I go to visit my father. If I have a mother, I go to visit my mother. If not, if I have friends, brothers, I go to visit them. These are my loved ones. If you too love Allah, since there is no being worthy of love other than Allah, then run to Him at once. Go at once. Well then, why, if you had a thousand years of life in the world, do you want to live that thousand years? Is this love?

Is this love? So these are the liars themselves. Yes.

What does it say? When they attained prosperity, after so many blessings, from time to time they were drowned in the darkness of shirk.

That is, from time to time, against Allah they turned their backs. Such as, as a result of Moses going up Mount Tur and staying there forty days, Samiri making a calf and their worshipping it, like that.

Although Allah Almighty's mercy was constantly upon them, they thought this state would always remain so, and they began to disobey Allah Almighty's command.

So because they did not obey Allah Almighty, our Lord declares: they did not wrong Us, rather they wronged their own selves. What is it? No one can do wrong to Allah Almighty; that is, as we said a moment ago, if the heavens and the earth and what is between the two united, they could never harm Allah. This is a verse. Yes, then every soul by what it does wrongs its own self, its own self. Every person's earnings are the return for his two hands; and since Allah Almighty, eleysallahu bi ahkemi'l-hâkimîn, is the judge of judges, He informs us that everyone, because of committing good and sinful deeds, will be called to account, and that with the wrongs people do they wrong only their own selves.

Allah Almighty. Yes, so in the desert of Tih, although Allah Almighty raised clouds over them, although lawful provision was sent to them, since they opposed Allah they did not wrong Allah, they wronged their own selves. There was a great test here, and they lost the test.

Now,

there is no fault in a comparison.

Ahmet Efendi

saves me from captivity. From captivity. I have fallen captive. The men, those people who took me captive, are both killing my children and working me in the hardest labour. For just a full stomach. Ahmet Efendi comes and takes me from there. He gives me freedom. He gives life. Has it given. Allah's, first of all, in our lifetime (?). Well then, toward that situation, toward this good that Ahmet Efendi has done me, how could I turn my back? I would want to carry Ahmet Efendi on my back. To try to repay him his due in this way. And although Allah Almighty shows you, man, so much mercy, this person going against Allah Almighty, sir, against what He says, is not something the mind can grasp.

It is not something the mind of a normally thinking person can grasp. Therefore, these people's behaving this way, against so many good deeds, against so much of Allah's blessing upon them, does not show that they are intelligent. That they are wrongdoers against their own selves, that they busy themselves with a nothing, that whoever busies himself with nothing is a madman, we said in our previous verse lesson. What did we say? Whoever busies himself with nothing is a nothing. Sir, and nothing is madness, it says. Nothing is madness. Whoever wants to do nothing is also madness, it says. In this case, what is nothing?

The world is the likeness and shadow of the hereafter. Whoever loads the world onto his back and abandons his hereafter, Here is a hadith on this saying. What does it say? The bankrupt of my ummah is not the one who goes bankrupt in the world, but the one who goes bankrupt in the hereafter, it says. If you busy yourself with nothing, if you load nothings onto your back and abandon your hereafter, one day, with this death, with the command of the Truth, or do you, from your world, own us (?)? According to the verse, according to the verse in which He says the inheritance of the heavens and the earth is Allah's, you leave it in the world and, with a deed you have done, with your actions, you turn to the presence of our Lord.

Yes.