Ta-Ha 86: Upon this, Moses returned to his people, angry and saddened. He shouted; “Oh my people! Did your Lord not give you a beautiful promise? Did time appear too long to you or did you desire that the wrath of your Lord comes upon you that you turned back from your promise to me?”

Surah Ta-Ha, verse 86: Thereupon Moses, angry and grieved, returned to his people. He said: O my people, did your Lord not make you a good promise? Did the time then seem too long to you? Or did you want the wrath of your Lord to descend upon you, that you went back on your promise to me? it says. Moses (peace be upon him) speaks this way. When Moses (peace be upon him) returned from Tur, he came to his people angry and grieved. In fact, according to one narration, he right away seizes his brother Aaron by the beard. "Did I leave you at the head of my people for this?" he says. And he says: O Moses, you are hurting me, son of my mother.

O son of my mother, you are hurting me, he says. I warned them, but I was not strong enough. They nearly, he says, came at me too, he says. Yes.

When he returns from Tur, he comes to his people angry and grieved, and addresses his people. O my people, did Allah not make you a good promise? Did He not save you from Pharaoh's tyranny and guide you? After you found the right path, how could you worship a calf? Or was my absence too much for you? he said. Fearing that your Lord would forget you, you worshipped made-up gods, a calf. Or, after the oppression you suffered at Pharaoh's hands, the comfort you attained you could not digest, and so did you want Allah's wrath to descend upon you, he says.

Pay close attention here, to this word.

Now another word comes up here. "Or after the oppression you suffered at Pharaoh's hands" — and we say that a certain life of poverty and need, a life lived in poverty, from within life, from within life, we carry this on.

Or, after the oppression you suffered at Pharaoh's hands, after your life in this poverty and need, in poverty, the comfort you attained you could not digest — after seeing a few pennies, people who go so far as to leave their religion, so far as to strip stark naked, (?) who, to make others treat them as somebody, go so far as to shatter their own honor and dignity — people who uncover themselves and drift away: their situation is exactly this situation. Coming from nothing, when he sees a certain wage, a certain amount of money, out of that downtroddenness suddenly finding strength behind the three pennies he sees, that person who thinks himself free — free, free, unbridled, that person who thinks himself unaccountable, who strips himself so that people will treat him as somebody and pay attention to him, makes himself stark naked and exposes himself to people — this person is exactly in this situation.

Exactly in this situation. Pity these people. A pity. Yes. Did you want Allah's wrath to descend upon you, that you turned back from your promise to me — that is, from your loyalty to Allah, from your being Muslim — because, living Islam and saying the shahada, you did not bind yourselves by it, are you waiting for Allah's wrath? he says. Did you not give me your word that the oneness of Allah you would not abandon? he said. Yes — whatever we may do, whatever we may be — if, for the world's temporary rank, the world's transient material things, we get carried away and sell our Hereafter, we will have rebelled against ourselves and against our homeland, our nation and our religion alike.

Know this well.