Al-Isra 37: Do not walk on earth arrogantly. Verily, you cannot tear open the earth and you cannot reach the mountains with your height.

How beautiful the examples Allah Almighty gives people, He gives admonitions, admonitions. Look, here too there is an admonition.

Do not walk on the earth in arrogance.

Who am I? You will ask yourself.

"My nafs is created in helplessness, but, my nafs being in helplessness, a servant created by my Lord." What do you own? By Allah, I own nothing. I am in need of what my Lord gives.

I am in need of what He gives. Eating and drinking are what He gives. My Lord, who gives iron, earth, cement and all sorts of odds and ends, has put all of them at people's service. Without Him I am capable of nothing. I am not capable of creating anything. So in every case we are in need of Allah. Of Allah. In that case, (?) to all of them, seeing yourself as somebody, superior to people, arrogantly or treading the ground hard as if to shake the earth, as if swept up by vain desire – never take Satan's path, He says. Yes. Do not walk on the earth in arrogance. For with your weight and your grandeur you can neither split the earth nor enter a contest of greatness with the mountains, He says.

You have neither a weight like their weight, nor can you reach those mountains in greatness. Yes, in this case, that sacred soul given to you – if Allah, who addresses your self through a part of it, has placed these lands at your command, say this: "O Allah, being in need of what You have created, all praise and glory be to You for these blessings You have given me, to You be thanks," you will say. Moreover, even when Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) climbed onto a high stone, he would say: Allahu Akbar. Yes. Because He is high, He is exalted, He is great.

If we know our nafs to be helpless like this,

no person will see any other person as above or below himself, they will remain bound to one another from the heart, and since people in every case are created imperfect, they will not look at their faults; carrying one another on their backs, in worldly life, on a straight path toward their Lord's presence they try to advance. They walk on that straight path, the sirat al-mustaqim. In this case a person strays neither to the left of the left nor onto the path of kufr. He, on the very path where it says "ve ashâbü'l-meymeneti mâ ashâbü'l-meymeneh", where it says "glad tidings to those of the right", the straight sirat al-mustaqim, continues on.

And in this case, a person who orders his life within a fine, noble ruling, when, into Allah's presence and with (?), with inner peace, with the light of Islam, he comes out, your Lord too receives him with a smiling face. Yes.

Although Allah Almighty created man close to His essence, the man who, with the soul in him, cannot reform the traits of the nafs in his soul – how helpless and powerless he is, Allah Almighty makes known to us by comparison with the mountains. The traits Allah Almighty does not want to see in people are seven. Seven. Namely: vanity, arrogance, glory, fame, egotism, the whims of the nafs, and love of the world. As long as people cannot reform these traits in their nafs, they remain far from Allah. For these traits pull a person onto crooked paths Allah Almighty does not want. And when Satan's temptation is added to a person, when Satan's temptation is added, the person turns his back on the truth completely.

For this reason, Allah tells people "do not walk on the earth with pride and arrogance", and compares man with the mountains to bring him to his senses, to invite man to reflection. That is, man is to reflect on the earth. Who am I?

Even though I was created by my Lord close to His essence, I am a creature created by Allah Almighty. Though I have power over nothing on earth, I am in need of His blessings.

Since whatever there is, from the atom to the globe, is created by our Lord, if in this world my every need is met by my Lord, if, stepping outside Him, not one atom can be had apart from Him, it means that I go on living in need of Him. In that case, if you grow vain, grow arrogant, get carried away by glory and fame, act out of ego, get carried away by worldly desire, you will have betrayed your own true being. When your own true being leaves the body and moves to the hereafter with your soul, when it is called to account, when for the second time it tastes bodily death – since soul, nafs and life are one, into Paradise and Hell we will enter with soul, nafs and life.

Not with bodies; but those wretches who say "I am a scholar" – they put the bodies into Paradise too. Into Hell as well. Yes.

For this reason, Allah tells people "do not walk on the earth with pride and arrogance", and compares man with the mountains to bring him to his senses, to invite man to reflection. When a person is arrogant, when he is seized by pride, as if there were no one on earth but him, swept up by vain desire, he falls into grandeur. So Allah says: O man, what is this frame of yours? You can neither split the earth nor reach the mountains in greatness. Know your place. You too are created, like the other beings. A servant of Allah. Yes.

Your being arrogant toward Allah's servants and being seized by pride, despising what Allah has created, leads you to shirk. These are hidden shirk. And from unknown directions, too, you will gradually come to suffer punishment.