Al-Hijr 3: Leave them so that they eat, engage in joy and so that empty hopes amuse them. They will know soon (the bad outcome).

In this case, Surah Al-Hijr, the third verse — look how beautifully it addresses them. Leave them, let them eat. Let them eat. (?) keeps on eating. Let them amuse themselves. And let false hope keep them distracted, it says. And let false hope keep them distracted. False hope. Actually it is not "let false hope keep them distracted." Let them go on distracting, distracting themselves with false hopes. Let them go on distracting themselves with false hopes. Not that hope distracts them. They are the ones who hope. Yes. "Let false hope keep them distracted," it says. They will soon know the bad outcome, it says.

What beautiful verses. They always support one another. Pay attention to the verses. In every verse Allah makes His Essence known. In every verse. They say 6666 verses, but it is 6300-some verses. In every verse He makes His Essence known. And in every verse He shows a way.

When Allah Almighty says "leave them", knowing what character they have, He speaks these words. For example: My beloved, I sent you only to convey the message.

Mercy is from Me, He says. That is, tell them as much as you like; as long as I do not have mercy on them, or as long as they do not let mercy be shown to them, they will not enter Islam. In this sense, in this sense, when Allah Almighty says leave them, let them amuse themselves — because He knows what character they have, He speaks these words. Since these are people who gave Allah an evil covenant and do not believe in the hereafter, however much you invite them to Allah, they will not understand,

and in the sense that words have no effect on them He says this. Why? "If We do not will, you cannot will," says Allah Almighty. Now this verse people have turned upside down, they took the will away from people: so Allah willed, whom He willed to paradise, Allah willed, whom He willed to hell. If We do not will, you cannot will. From people who lack the grasp of the verse's meaning. This verse: if We do not will, you cannot will. This verse supports Surah Al-A'raf, verse 172. It supports Our covenant.

By each person's own will, desire, wish and aim, if this aim has been written for him as destiny, then only I, He says, can change this destiny. No one besides Me can change this destiny. That is: if We do not will, do not will, you cannot will — the verse. And a word has come to pass from Us. Look how beautifully they always support one another anyway. There is a book with Us, preserved in the Preserved Tablet; after that neither any addition nor any reduction is made. So what is written is written, events have been programmed, and from now on no one is going to be changed out of his own destiny. The one who will change this, the one who can change this destiny, He says, is Me alone, says Allah Almighty.

And from Us a word has remained firm. What is it? There is a book with Us, preserved in the Preserved Tablet. After that neither any addition nor any reduction is made, it says. So since this word remains firm from Me, this too is finished, He says. Everyone will live his own destiny, He says. That is how paradise and hell have been divided. According to people's destinies and their actual deeds, their good deeds and sins, everyone will go to his place as the recompense of what he earned. Surely, it says, to everyone, what each has earned will be given in full, it says. What he earned is not, as I explained with the verse earlier, worldly blessings.

It is the worship you have done for Allah. What is this worship? Fulfilling your duty of servanthood. What else? Paying attention to the lawful and the unlawful. What else? Respecting people's rights and dues. What else? Not harming people, being governed by Allah's steel-firm rulings, spreading right and justice on earth.

These are your good deeds. With these you will enter Allah's presence. You will not drink alcohol, you will not gamble, you will not commit adultery.

You will keep away from such bad habits. You will not gossip. You will not backbite. You will not slander Allah's servants. You will not accuse chaste women of adultery.

Yes. And you will act with fairness.

Hodja, they say the hodjas hand out the bunch of grapes but swallow the bunch themselves. Well, I am not one of those hodjas. Hodja, do you do the same? If you ask whether I do it, I do my best. You are witnesses too, I suppose. Here. People are witnesses too. Yes. I would be afraid of (?).

Let them eat, let them amuse themselves, it says. Let them eat, let them amuse themselves. Allah Almighty made a covenant with every soul in the realm of the hereafter. He sent people to the material world to live out their covenant, and within these lives to keep control over themselves and their surroundings. Therefore leave them, let them eat and drink, and do not waste your time dealing with them. You only convey the message; those among them who will find the truth will surely follow you. You cannot make the deaf and dumb hear your words, He declares.

All these things being said, you see, are the meanings of the verses. We are speaking in everyday spoken language.

Let false hope be able to distract them. What is false hope? False hope is a fantasy. A fantasy.

Don't fantasies come true?

Even if what they hope for comes true, since (?) does not attain perfection, he fantasizes of more than that, and of more than that again, and when there is something he can no longer fantasize about, he commits suicide. He commits suicide. That is false hope. He went on and on and on, and finally destroyed himself within that false hope too.

Some people live in a fantasy world.

Our ancestors, too, have a proverb so that we do not enter this fantasy world. A hungry hen, it says, sees itself in the hayloft. Yes. False hopes — fantasies that are within human power or beyond human power — keep a person distracted. They draw him into that world. They pull a curtain over his eyes. They make all people vanish from before his eyes. Even though he sees them, they vanish in his inner world. Only, on the road to that world he hopes for, to obtain it he recognizes neither right nor law. He respects neither people, nor young nor old. He knows neither decency nor manners. Yes. Hodja, are you saying that false hope here also relates to the words "they will not be able to see their Lord"?

That is exactly what we are explaining. That is what false hope is. Chasing after things one cannot reach, apart from Allah alone, is false hope. Yes.

For the worldly goods they desire — let me have this too, this and that let me buy, let me live like this, let me attain that — they keep distracting themselves with false hopes and carry on. The desires and wishes of the human nafs are endless and never run out. People writhing in these passions, sooner or later, the moment they taste death, realize that the things they ran after in the world were each a nothing, and pass on to the hereafter. So (?), they all go. Yes.

A saint says the following.

Whoever busies himself with the world is a nothing. And whoever busies himself with nothing is a nothing, he says. It comes to the same meaning. A fantasy world, that is. Whoever busies himself with those is a nothing. That is, Allah's mercy is in the end cut off from them. They become people of hell forever. Yes.

They keep distracting themselves with false hopes. The desires and wishes of the human nafs are endless and never run out. People writhing in these passions, sooner or later, the moment they taste death, realize that the things they ran after in the world were each a nothing, and to the hereafter they pass on. In the end, leaving everything in their hands and palms in the world, distracted in chasing a false hope, they fill out their life span and go to the hereafter as a merchant gone bankrupt.

They will soon know the bad outcome. What is the bad outcome? In return for what they did, by our Lord's attribute of justice — Eleysallâhu bi ahkemi'l-hâkimîn. By the attribute of Judge of judges, in our Lord's presence they will give account, and finally what each has earned will be given to him in full as the recompense of his own (?). According to the verse — the verse where He says they will soon see that bad outcome — its meaning is: when a person, with the filth and sins in his nafs, before our Lord goes into His presence, he will see that bad result. What does it say? They will soon know the bad outcome.

In time — Allah, who created time within it — for people, in the worldly realm a thousand years are like one day of the realm of the hereafter. So when these people are called to account in the hereafter, the times they saw as long in the world will seem to them like hours or days. Then, when they are called to account and realize that their place is punishment, that the bad outcome is what they have earned, and that their place is hell, what an evil place of return — this they will understand.