An-Nahl 67: From fruits such as dates and grapes, you make intoxicant (bad provision) but also good provisions. Verily, there is a great lesson in this for those who use their intellect.

Surah An-Nahl, verse 67.

This time Allah Almighty gives an example from plants. From fruits like dates and grapes, both intoxicant, bad sustenance, He says, intoxicant, that is, wine is made, and also good foods you obtain. Surely in these there is a great lesson for those who use their reason.

Even if it doesn't occur to you right away, it occurs to me. If someone like that read this verse, a question like this would occur to me. What does it say now? From fruits like dates and grapes, both intoxicant, that is, bad sustenance, and better foods you obtain. In this case, since Allah Almighty says bad sustenance, well, if it's sustenance, it's sustenance. Its bad, even if it's bad, since it's sustenance, Allah created this sustenance too; from here too you are provided for in this way, He says. And there are good foods too, He says. Then would my benefiting from this bad sustenance be a sin, in this case, you say.

Can it be said? It can.

But Allah Almighty did not send His verses in a way that proposes it. What does He say? He has made the drinks made from these, that is, wines, forbidden. So bad sustenance falls under the forbidden. Because it has been made forbidden, you cannot take sustenance from this bad sustenance. But people who benefit from these in this way, because they go against what Allah has forbidden, become sinners. If, as a Muslim, he constantly drinks wine, what Allah calls bad sustenance, made from these dates and grapes, or else made from barley and wheat, this bad sustenance, wine, if he drinks it and keeps on, because he goes against Allah's religious ruling he becomes a sinner.

If this person goes even further and leaves the religion of Islam, he becomes an unbeliever. Yes.

So in these, in these too there is a great lesson for those who use their reason. A great lesson.

What is this lesson?

Let us open that up for you a little too. So in these too there is a great lesson for those who use their reason. From the dates and grapes I created, from wheat and barley, you make wine, He says. Wine. Bad sustenance. But from the same substance, with very good foods you are provided, He says. If you use something for good it is good; if you use it for bad it is bad. So these good things (?) created, who deems them clean, who forbids them, He says. So if you, on your own, make forbidden the sustenance Allah created clean for us by going outside our Lord's command, you become a sinner.

Allah Almighty has many different fruits He created. Here, as an example, He gives the example of one or two fruits. These examples, as for how they are rendered in translation, in the translations of the Holy Quran and in the commentaries have been rendered wrongly. From fruits like dates and grapes you obtain both liquor and good foods, so it has been rendered. Allah does not recommend liquor to people. If Allah had recommended liquor to people, Allah would be ascribed attributes. Yes, since this way of rendering is wrong, we corrected that part; we corrected it with "bad". That is, in the translations of the Holy Quran and in the commentaries it has been rendered wrongly.

From fruits like dates and grapes you obtain both liquor and good foods, so it has been rendered, we say. Yes, It's not we who say it, they say it, of course.

If Allah does not recommend liquor to people; if Allah had recommended liquor to people, Allah would be ascribed attributes: Allah Almighty did not know that liquor was a bad thing. He tried it out on people. Then, when He saw its harm, He banned it. These are ascribing attributes to Allah, and people fall into kufr without knowing. Allah knows not only what He created but their particles, the seeds within them, and what they will do, and how He created them. In this case, some say, according to their own reason, that since people could not give up what they were used to, Allah sent down the verses gradually to wean people off it bit by bit, they say.

These are judgments that people, by their own reason, without understanding Allah's verses, have made. And while making these judgments, they think they are doing something good. Since they are unaware of the root of knowledge, that they ascribe attributes to Allah they do not even notice. Now, when the verse that liquor is forbidden came down, forget about weaning bit by bit. The noble Companions in Medina al-Munawwara, the Ansar, pour those wine barrels in their houses out onto the streets. The streets become just like a lake of blood. As if rivers of blood were flowing. It comes to that.

Those who are unaware of the hadiths, of the hadiths, in this way try to explain the verses according to their own reason. And some of it they even attribute to Umar. Like this: of liquor, he says, if you boil the liquor, if you boil it, he says, and evaporate two thirds of it, one third is your share, he says. That is, if you set out to purify the wine, he says. This, he says, boil it, boil it, evaporate two thirds, one third, he says, what remains at the bottom, he says, is yours, he says, it is your sustenance, he says. That is your labor, he says. Now, forbidden is forbidden. Once something is forbidden, it never again has a lawful form.

However much you boil it. It has now become filth. Even if you declare that filth clean, it is filth. Yes. That is, they want to say something from somewhere or other, but on the other hand the hadiths, I've written, now 2260. 70. We've come to hadith 70. These come up there. We fit (?) according to Allah's verses in this way. Some say, according to their reason, that since people could not give up what they were used to, Allah sent down the verses gradually to wean people off it, they say. These are judgments that people, by their own reason, without understanding Allah's verses, have made. And while making these judgments, they think they are doing something good.

Since they are unaware of the root of knowledge, they do not even notice that they ascribe attributes to Allah. This is how people fall into kufr without knowing. If Allah had not tied deeds to people's intentions, these would have perished and gone. Yes.

In this verse, in this verse, seker was taken to mean something that intoxicates, that is, liquor, and through the plain Arabic wording they went as far as Allah telling people "you obtain liquor from this" and even making it permissible. Whereas here seker, the term of the Arabic text, is a word used in the sense of something akin to intoxication. Seker.

If we give an example of this: in Paradise there are rivers of honey, rivers of milk, rivers of wine. They enrapture those who drink. They become intoxicated. But it is not the intoxication of this world. These are words with no Turkish equivalent, which we try to explain as best our tongue allows. A person does some work, and the work turns out very beautiful. Caught up in its charm, the person is carried away. It is a moment of delight for a person. This is not a state of drunkenness. These too are like this: when a person squeezes the juice of these fruits and drinks it, their flavor gives a person delight, gives an enrapturing pleasantness and relief.

Allah Almighty wants to tell people this. But if, with dry wording, one likens it to a person's delight in this world, and in meaning it is understood that way, may Allah protect us, a person, ascribing attributes to Allah, does not even notice that he has fallen into kufr. And with His saying "you obtain good foods": when people eat these as fruit, they both take pleasure and get nourishment from them. They provide the calories our body needs. Surely in these there is a great lesson for a people who reflect. Yes.