Al-Isra 23: Your Lord ordered with certainty to worship your Lord (Allah) alone and to treat your parents with goodness. If one of them or both age on your side, do not even say “Uff (displaying emotion of fed up)” to them and do not scold them. Say good words to both of them.

Verse 23 of Surah Al-Isra: "Your Lord has firmly commanded that you serve Him alone and treat your parents well," it says. Those who treat their mother and father harshly, I, according to this verse, turn my back on them. I don't love them. Even if I love them, since I love Allah's verse more, those who toward their mother and father show treachery, (?), or cruelty or act in ways they would not want, I get very angry with them.

"He has firmly commanded that you treat your parents well," it says. Firmly. Why?

Look, there's construction going on over there. Construction. In rain, in mud, in cold, men are working there. Working. With the money he earns he'll support his home, bring food to his child, bring sustenance. To his child. That child: in that hardship, in that cold or that heat, he will earn that money and raise that child of his. And when that child grows up, he will betray him. Just as we are ungrateful for the sustenance Allah Almighty gives us and turn our backs on our Lord.

Yes.

I don't expect anyone who comes here to ever give their mother and father any distress.

Let alone treating them sternly or harshly; I don't expect them even to give a rude answer.

When a person gains knowledge, he must not be a porter of knowledge. A porter of knowledge.

He knows the knowledge but doesn't practice it himself. The Prophet says this:

There are three kinds of scholars, he says. Three kinds of scholars. How can a scholar be of three kinds? And he answers. The first knows but doesn't act on it, he says. Doesn't act on it. He is fit for burning, he says.

The second knows, doesn't act on it himself, but tells others, he says. Tells others. This one too is fit for burning, he says. The third knows, both practices it and, he says, tells others. This one is like the sun, he says. Like the sun. So if we know, yet don't practice it ourselves but tell others, we are fit for burning. What have we become? We have become porters of knowledge.

Yes, never, against your mother and father, in a way that weighs on your nafs, "they spoke to me," "they shut me out, threw me out, didn't look after me," with such words, "they didn't stand by me," with such words. The mother and father who raised you to a certain age and to that age, until you could stand on your own feet, those parents you are obliged to obey, however bad they may be. Only on one condition may you not obey: only if they would take you out of the religion of Islam, if they force a non-Muslim state upon you, if they force you into evil, into theft, murder, pick- pocketing and the like; in that case there is parting from them on good terms, he says.

On good terms. Yes. We, in this transient life of ours in the world, to live our life of a few hours in this world, compared with the Hereafter, not as rebels against our Lord but on sırat-ı müstakim, the straight path, must place the verses in our chests and hearts and be ruled by them.

Otherwise, like a trader who suffers loss and goes bankrupt, we fall into that state. Yes.

"Your Lord has commanded that you serve Him alone and treat your parents well; He has firmly commanded it. If one or both of them reach old age with you, do not even say 'uff' to them," it says. How beautifully it puts it. "Do not scold them, speak kind words to both," it says. Yes.

Allah Almighty has willed that people serve Him alone. Why? Him alone.

There is no god but Allah. The absolute Owner and Ruler of the universe.

The heavens and the earth and what is between them know the Lord's remembrance, according to the verse. Whatever Allah Almighty created, from the atom to the globe, He created so that it remembers Him, and this symbolizes that there is no god other than Him.

In this case, if a person seeks a second god, as the previous verse says, Allah Almighty, condemned, without anyone, as a dweller of the abode of eternal punishment, takes him to the Hereafter. In this case, the One who created us and offered us so much sustenance, who made us vicegerents on the earth, tells us only this much: In this transient world, in the world of the Hereafter, He says, play the script of the covenant you gave, knowing Me. (?), He says. Know Me, know that the sustenance I give is given by Me, do not be ungrateful to Me, know that I am the absolute Owner of the worlds. And also, to you, prostrate to Me as your Creator, as your Lord, He says.

Until when? Within our life of one, one and a half hours in this transient world. Compared with the Hereafter. After that, there is no more worship in the Hereafter. All these blessings I have made, that is, worship, are in the transient world, and since in the world of the Hereafter there is no more worship for you, you will live within (?). Hodja, was that wrong? Is there really no worship in the Hereafter? There isn't. Is there proof? There is. There is. Doesn't it say this world is the likeness and shadow of the Hereafter?

Does a sultan, does a president make people prostrate to him? Does a prime minister make people prostrate to him? The state has laws; you go within the framework of those laws. Allah Almighty, too, there, with a new (?), in such a way that people will in no way do evil, will (?) live in an abode of bliss. But just as in this world we want to see the President, the Prime Minister, there too we will long for Allah Almighty. We will want to see our Lord. Some of us once a year, some once a month, some once a week, some of us once a day. Like this, according to their rank, Allah Almighty will pleasantly converse and talk with them.

Yes.

This world is the likeness and shadow of the Hereafter.

So what is it? What has happened to you? In this world you denied Allah, you did not worship Him, it was hard on your nafs; to enjoy this life of one, one and a half hours you asked for the punishment of the Hereafter. Now, is this the work of a sensible person?

Yes.

So Allah Almighty has willed that people serve Him alone. For this reason He has made man His addressee. He has left man free in his own will. Through the deeds people actually bring about, they earn reward and sin. And for these sins they are called to account. So Allah, who wants to be served through worship of Him alone, has made known to people His commands. What, then, is Allah Almighty's command? They are the religious rulings in the Holy Quran. The religious rulings.

The most important of these is, first, worship of Allah. Indeed, it is Allah who created us. Then obedience to parents. Why? Because Allah Almighty feeds us and gives us drink. Isn't that so? He has prepared the world's blessings for us, laid out before us whatever is needed. "Here's the arena, go ahead," He says; by the deeds you do you will earn reward and sin, He says. You will prove yourself. So the mother and father too, they too will work, work, and without betraying the trusts, will raise them; their life, their life they will sell in work; in that time they will sell it to that person, and that money earned from their life they will spend feeding you.

If someone said to you, "Would you sell me your life?" Would you sell your life? Is that possible? What if you sold it? You would die. What good would it be? But do those parents work 8 hours a day? 12 hours? Four hours? Whatever. To a man, or a government office, or a contractor, or a worker sells his life there and gets money from there. He has to go there; if he doesn't, he gets no money. There he imprisons his life, he sells his life there. And with the money he gets there he comes and feeds you. So you cannot repay what you owe him. The value of the life he has spent, you cannot put a price on in money.

So just as we don't turn our backs on our Lord, aren't ungrateful to Him, and thank Him for the sustenance He gives, so, to pay our parents their due, when their old age is spent beside us, we must not even say "uff" to them. You must win their hearts.

I know a man. He's in Ankara. One day he invited me to his home. I went. He invited me to a meal. One should accept an invitation to a feast. I went. This man's father is in an electric wheelchair. So he gets around inside the house. (?) He treats his father so beautifully. He says sweet words to him. He kneels before him. He kisses his cheeks. He feeds him with his own hand. My eyes filled with tears. And that such a person would obey such a father, I mean such a mother or father, I have never seen before. I have never seen anyone obey like that.

This man is still alive. Yes. But his father, (?), has passed on, of course.

Yes. Now you think about this man's state.

The most important of these is, first, worship of Allah, then obedience to parents. This is Allah Almighty's firm command upon people. In line with this verse, the Prophet (peace be upon him), in one of his hadiths, said of those who cannot win their parents' approval while they are alive: Woe to them. Yes. If either of them, that is mother or father, or both spend their old age with you, do not even say "uff" to them, do not scold them, and speak gentle, sweet words to them.

My late mother got breast cancer.

I had her admitted to Okmeydanı in Istanbul.

Every evening I would go to her. Every evening. Every evening I would bring her special food from home.

One evening, because of duty, I couldn't go. She complained about me to my uncle. Saying I didn't come by. When I went to her the day after that evening, she says to me: "My son, when I see you, it's as if I'm stepping out into an open world."

One night she craved yoghurt. At night, eleven, half past eleven. I was visiting her. Visits were open continuously. The cancer ward. Any moment, they say, they go. It's open there. "My son," she said to me, "yoghurt." I go from restaurant to restaurant to find yoghurt. I combed through all of Istanbul. I bought it and brought it.

I was going to go on Hajj.

I asked my mother's permission. Whether I should go. (?), she said; go, but come back quickly, she said.

I prayed to Allah: O my Lord, I am going on Hajj. I want to come into Your presence. My mother, I said: in my absence, don't let her feel it.

I stayed on Hajj for 28 days. 28 days. When I returned, I brought her gifts. Prayer beads, this and that, for her to hand out here.

"My son, did you go and come back?" she said to me. Yes, I said. "When did you go and come back?" she says. See the answer to the prayer you made.

Yes.

A person's treasure is mother and father. They are the (?) he will spend in the Hereafter. Never betray them. Yes.

Allah Almighty is the Possessor of justice, He is the Judge of judges, He never wants anyone to be wronged. A mother or father trembles over their children and wants to raise them in the best way. Even if they had done nothing else, raising them to a certain age is enough for a person. In this respect, the right of mother and father over people is a command of Allah. However bad a mother and father may be, by Allah's command their children are obliged to look after them. But when a mother and father try to keep their children from the way of Allah, when, turning them from the religion of Islam, they want to turn them, together with those who associate partners with Allah, to their own invented religion, not obeying them is an exception. Then there is a gentle parting from them.

Yes.