Al-Isra 19: And those who desire the hereafter and approach it as a mu’min and work with effort, their work will be accepted.

Allah Almighty, Surah Al-Isra, verse 19: And whoever desires the hereafter and, as a believer, strives for it with an effort befitting it, the efforts of these are accepted.

Allah Almighty does not say, "I will put whom I wish into Paradise," or "over whom I wish I will carry out My judgment." What does it say? "Whoever desires the hereafter and, as a believer, strives for it with a befitting effort." What does that mean? "If he strives as a believer in a way befitting it": you know the believers. Nefs-i emmare, nefs-i levvame, nefs-i mülhime; the fourth station, nefs-i mutmainne. And in Surah Al-Fajr, verses 27, 28, 29, 30: "O nafs that has found peace, with your Lord pleased with you and you pleased with your Lord, enter among My servants, enter My Paradise" - these are the people it means; with no turning back, they never engage in any acts that would (?) that station, they avoid them.

But since Allah Almighty created us deficient, how beautifully He says here: "whoever desires the hereafter and, as a believer" - that is, if you have risen to the rank of believer, make an effort befitting it. However much nefs-i emmare, nefs-i emmare, right? If, from your nafs or through Satan's temptation, a (?) seizes you, then, by a nafs that has found peace standing against it, being in a dignity befitting that station - and so the efforts of these are accepted, it says. Accepted: Allah Almighty, in the hereafter, receiving His righteous servants who are believers with a smiling face. It is accepted.

Yes. In the hereafter everyone will be called to account for the (?) good and the (?) evil they did. Today, it says, without any wrong being done to anyone, without any injustice being done, as the return for what his two hands earned, everyone will be given it in full, it says. Yes.

If, believing in Allah and the hereafter, one desires the hereafter and, as a believer, in a way befitting him, wants to win Allah's pleasure, Allah Almighty holds the efforts of such people as accepted. Their efforts He never lets go to waste. In fact, Allah lets no effort go to waste. Fe men ya'mel miskâle zerretin hayran yerah: "I record an atom's weight of good," it says. Ve men ya'mel miskâle zerretin şerran yerah: "I record an atom's weight of evil," it says. So there is no such thing as good and good deeds in any way not being accepted. Nor is there such a thing as their efforts going to waste.

But there is a verse like this: All the fine deeds they did have gone to waste, it says. For whom? For non-Muslims. Well, since everything here is void, what is void about it? Was it not recorded at all? It was recorded. So why did it go to waste? Whoever denies Allah, deliberately denies a verse of the Quran, or the Beloved of the Almighty, the Seal of the Prophets, the Prophet Muhammad, deliberately denies him, is a kafir. In that case. Even if they had done good deeds that no one in the world had ever done, by denying the one Allah or denying His verse - no. What he did in the world, (?), what he did, even if no one had done it, even if, against the reward he got, not a thousand times but a hundred thousand times as much of that reward, next to denying Allah it goes to waste.

Yes. In that case We set up no scale for them, it says.

Believers are those who know the purpose of creation.

What is the purpose of creation? Allah Almighty was (?) with His essence. A hidden treasure.

There were neither the earths nor the heavens. Nor what is between them. He willed it. He wanted to be known. His will. From His light He created the light of the Prophet.

I'll tell it briefly. Then He gave him from His spirit.

From his light He created these worlds. The Throne, the Kursi, the angels, Iblis, everything there is, He created from his light. From his spirit, the spirits of the prophets; from theirs, the spirits of their peoples He created. So Allah Almighty addresses man thus in His verse: We have made man honoured above the worlds, it says. Man being made honoured above the worlds is because Allah Almighty gave man from His spirit. Some poor people who do not know themselves, those within the circle of ignorance, and those who think they are scholars and swim in the swamp of superstition, release the spirit into cats, dogs, plants, into every being.

Whereas the universal spirit is Allah Almighty. From His spirit He gave to the Prophet (peace be upon him). And from his spirit, people were created indirectly. So man is honoured above the worlds. The proof that the spirit is in no other being: when He created Adam, before giving His spirit, before giving the spirit to Adam, He did not have Satan and Iblis, that is, Iblis and the angels, prostrate to Adam. Only after He had given the spirit, after giving His spirit to Adam, then He said: "Now you shall prostrate to him." Prostration to Adam was prostration to Allah. But, well, he played his game of logic.

"You created me from fire and him from clay," he said. "Clay does not purify fire. Fire purifies clay," he said. He thought he would mislead Allah Almighty with a game of logic. So he was cursed. Yes. So in the worlds, the spirit is only in man. There is no other being. So man, by his creation, is honoured above the worlds. And Allah Almighty has made mankind the addressee of His own essence. Hence, by sending His eternal word, the Holy Quran, to people, He speaks with people.

Believers are those who know the purpose of creation, we say. So in this case, Allah Almighty, mankind, why did He create them? He created them to know His essence. He also created the angels to know His essence. He also created Iblis to know His essence. Except for Iblis, the angels are all, like robots, programmed. They cannot step outside the duties given. Iblis was left free with his own will, together with people, but he has no spirit; man, however, with his own will, because he is his Lord's addressee, through the decisions he would make, has had himself programmed. So Allah Almighty, in Surah Al-A'raf, verse 172, says so beautifully - and also "With those to emerge from the offspring of the children of Adam We made a covenant," it does not say.

Look: "With devils, with angels We made a covenant." "With those to emerge from the offspring of the children of Adam We made a covenant." "We made them witnesses over themselves," it says. "We said: We are your Lord," it says. So there, man, in that world of lahut, when our spirits were created, when He said "I am your Lord," is divided there into three classes. Ve küntüm ezvâcen selâseh. (?) classes, it says. Fe ashâbü'l-meymeneti mâ ashâbü'l-meymeneh. O people of the right, (?) be yours. Ve ashâbü'l-meş'emeti mâ ashâbü'l-meş'emeh. O people of the left, you say, woe to you. Ve's-sâbikûne's-sâbikûn, ülâike'l-mukarrabûn, fî cennâti'n-naîm.

The third group, it says, is the group of the sabiqun. The saints, the prophets, the martyrs, the (?), all of them. So then, in Allah's (?), when our spirits were created, each of our spirits making a covenant with our Lord, our desire and wish, our will, becoming destiny for it, and within that destiny of ours, our determining the times to come. Just as an engineer draws a project and shows us the times, that is, the project, Allah Almighty shows the times. In proportion to our desire and wish, according to those times, we (?) our own will to Allah Almighty. And Allah Almighty places characters in us, characters according to our desire and wish, and raises us to the barzakh.

In the world of barzakh, He brings the spirit whose time has come into the world. According to the verse "Did you think you would die without proving what kind of person you are?" - we express desire and wish through actual deeds. From the attribute of His being Allah, Allah Almighty brings forth the deeds of all the beings He created and creates them. And those persons, by carrying out those causes with their desires and wishes, earn reward and sin. And what kind of people they are is proven by the acts they do. Yes.

What beautiful verses, (?). So the believer knows the purpose of creation. So he knows that his creator is his Lord, that there is no god besides Him, that he is a traveller in this world, that his true home is the hereafter, and, holding to his Lord's noble ruling even more than to a state's laws, that tomorrow, on the Day of Judgment, Eleysallâhu bi-ahkemi'l-hâkimîn, before the judge of judges, he will give account; and he conducts his affairs, worldly and otherworldly, accordingly, while his soul is still in his body. Yes. Believers are those who know the purpose of creation. They are people who believe in Allah and the hereafter with certainty.

These people know that they are being tested in the world. They arrange their lives according to the hereafter. They are people of taqwa. With the verse that says "in a way befitting a believer": these people, in a way that does no harm to Allah's attributes. Yes.

They are people who carefully apply Allah's commands. They heed halal and haram, avoid interest and adultery, help the poor, the needy, the stranded traveller, and, making jihad in Allah's way with their wealth and their lives, they work to attain Allah's pleasure. Thus they arrange their lives for the hereafter, according to the hereafter; the efforts of these people are accepted. That is, when Allah Almighty says here the efforts are accepted, then in line with the verse "deeds depend on intention," accordingly, depending on the sincerity of a deed you did, one becomes three, one becomes five, one seven, one ten, one seventy, one a hundred, up to one becoming seven hundred.

So believers, because they base their sincerity and all their affairs, in the way of taqwa, on Allah, receive a reward of up to 700 for one. This is what accepted worship is, it says. The true word about "accepted" is this anyway.

Since they keep repenting of the mistakes they make as human beings, Allah forgives their sins, and because they work for Allah, He increases their rewards.