Al-Anbya 14: They said, “Woe upon us! We truly were oppressors!”

In verse 14 of Surah Al-Anbiya: Woe to what has befallen us, they said. Yes, truly we were wrongdoing people. When?

When the earth becomes another earth and the heaven another heaven. The earth too, it says, when it is brought forth perfectly flat, with neither descent nor ascent, there is no evading Israfil. That is, all people will now be resurrected there and, under Israfil's lead, gathered at the place of assembly. You know how it says there is no evading Israfil: no one will be able to go outside his command. Some people say, you know, there is the Sirat Bridge; will they cross the Sirat Bridge to the other side together with Israfil? And shamelessly they even have the Prophet waiting on the other side, at the far end of the Sirat Bridge, you see. And sometimes they have him fall into hell too.

Then they proclaim a smokeless fire in hellfire that does not burn. Then they invent caves that don't burn. Fantasies, fantasies, fantasies. These are poor people who know nothing of the verses. What were they saying in verse 14? Woe to what has befallen us, they said. Truly we were wrongdoing people. That is, when we lived the life of this world, when we plunged into pleasure, when we chased after our own nafs and didn't think of others, when we denied the realm of the hereafter, when we denied Allah, well, now what those people said has come true: Allah does exist, that is, the Creator exists, resurrection after death exists, and so in the world, with what we did, we truly were wrongdoers, that's what they will say.

They will say so, but their fitrah will not change. That is, the hardness in their hearts will never turn into the light of faith. Because their covenant is so. Their covenant. Without doing any analysis on water, or without changing the roots of the elements, you cannot change the form of any element, that is, of any substance. For example, let's say two hydrogens and one oxygen formed water. Unless you remove one hydrogen or remove one oxygen, you cannot change the water. You must remove one of them to change the water. So, since no one's destiny will change, that is, since their characters will not change, whatever they are at root, that is what they remain; they will say these things with their tongues. Because even when they enter hell, they will still be waiting for the Lord of their imagination, and that Lord will come, save them, and they will take revenge on Allah.

With these feelings, as they see punishment, their grudge against Allah Almighty will grow, and as those grudges grow, they will remain there in eternal punishment. Nor will they ever change. If they changed, if they had known Allah as Lord, as Creator, Allah is not unjust that He would leave them there forever. Yes.

Allah Almighty says in His verse: If only they had known Me here.

That is, if only they had known Me in the beginning. Where? At the address Elestü bi-Rabbiküm. That is, when they wrote their destinies for themselves, their desire (?), as destiny, if only they had known then. If only. But this verse they interpret as: if only they had known it in the world; that's how they interpret it. Yet whether he knows it in the world or not, what difference does it make? Whatever that person's destiny is, he will live it. So he must know in the beginning. So those who denied in the beginning are non-Muslims, and those who did not deny are Muslims. Let's put it like this: those who denied in the beginning, ve ashâbü'l-meş'emeti mâ ashâbü'l-meş'eme, those of the left; and those who obeyed Allah in the beginning, ve ashâbü'l-meymeneti mâ ashâbü'l-meymeneh, O those of the right.

In the third group: the martyrs, the group of martyrs, the group of the foremost, and sâbikûne's-sâbikûn ülâike'l-mukarrabûn, the group of those brought near, and cennet-i naim; they are in the Garden of Bliss, it says. So these three groups finished their business in the beginning. In the beginning, as spirits, with our original body, that is, our spiritual being, we finished our business in the spiritual realm. We came to the world to prove what kind of person we are. So that man may not say: My Lord, I saw You. There I could not recognize You as Lord. Because You created me with a part of Your essence.

In a form like mine, outside my imagination, as the One who created me, I could not recognize You. So within my own imagination I waited for a Lord. So, to be free of these attributes, Allah Almighty creates the world. And now, in an unseen realm, He sends prophets and scholars. Whatever you were in the beginning, whatever your covenant was, accordingly you were formed with characters, and this is what you are. You will prove yourselves in the world too. What difference does it make whether he knows it in the world or not? That's how they interpret this verse. If they had known in the world. A person who doesn't know the beginning, unaware of the verses, will interpret it this way.

Yes. What do they say? Woe to what has befallen us, they said. Truly we were wrongdoing people. Wrongdoers. Yes.

In the face of Allah Almighty's true promise, the community of wrongdoers has understood the truth. Unable to ascribe any fault to Allah Almighty, they realize that they themselves are guilty. When they taste death and become aware of the existence of the true realm, they understand that they lived in the material realm as in a dream. After that they understand that they are to the abode of the eternal and endless realm.

After that they understand that they are in the abode of the eternal and endless realm. Let's put a letter D here.

Yes. So in this situation this community of wrongdoers, beginning to lament, says: Woe to what has befallen us, and they realize that to themselves they truly are a wrongdoer. Themselves too. They realize that they themselves are wrongdoers. Yes.

Those who disregard the warnings given to them live by what their nafs desires. Not believing in Allah and His book, they do not believe in the prophets who brought the book either. They mock them or kill the prophets. As they killed John. As they killed Zechariah. He was going to save John. Some Jews are following his son. Zechariah. When Zechariah (peace be upon him) realized he was being followed, he went into an empty tree trunk. Immediately they closed the trunk from both sides and sawed it in two. The wrongdoers. Yes. They keep moving away from the mercy Allah gave them. Then, when they come face to face with the truth, they feel regret.

In fact the regret they feel is not regret either. It is lies they make up with their tongues to escape that punishment at that moment. As I explained earlier. Because even in this state they are looking for the Allah they imagined in their own minds. That is why, while living on earth, these people make their idols with their hands, imagining the Allah they framed in their own minds, and associate partners with Allah. So in the realm of the hereafter, despite seeing the punishment, in order to escape it they wait for the Allah they imagined in their minds, who will save them, and keep waiting. And so, as eternal people of hell, they remain there.