Al-An'am 44: Thus, when they forgot about the warnings that had been made, We opened the doors of everything (regarding provisions and joy). Finally, when they were enjoying the things that were given to them, We caught them unexpectedly. Thus, they lost all hope.

Surah Al-An'am, verse 44: So when they forgot the warnings they had been given, We opened to them the gates of everything, of blessing and pleasure. This too is a test; this too is another way Allah Almighty sends affliction. Atatürk probably imitated this verse too.

He would raise someone he disliked, raise him, raise him, and then put a watermelon rind under his foot and bring him down. Of course, falling from that rank is hard for a person.

This too is another affliction from our Lord. What does it say? Look: so when they forgot the warnings they had been given. They turned their backs on Allah's religious rulings. We opened to them, it says, the gates of everything, of blessing and pleasure. Finally, it says, when they reached full prosperity, We seized them firmly, it says.

Finally, just as they were fully prospering with the ease and freedom given to them, We seized them suddenly. And at that moment they were left bereft of all hope, it says.

This too is another kind of affliction from Allah Almighty upon people. A saying of one of the saints comes to my mind.

Allah Almighty does not leave His saints without affliction. There is always affliction upon them. One of the saints says this. When he found a little peace: O my Allah, did my feet slip, did my feet slip, or did I drift away from You, he says. When he attained a little prosperity, when he saw prosperity, he says this: Did my feet slip, or did I drift away from You? Yes, so when abundance comes, you will examine yourself, and when hardship comes, you will examine yourself.

Yes, people are tested in various ways; you are tested through Allah's mercy; it is mercy, He gives. How will you behave? What will you say? My Allah, all praise and glory be to You, all thanks be to You. For deeming these worthy of this helpless servant, my Lord, while I cannot give due thanks for the blessings You have given, with this helpless state of mine, these blessings You have given me, as though I had thanked You in the finest way, accept them. And remember like this: O my Lord, people who today cannot find even dry bread, in the face of those people, saying how can I give thanks for these blessings You have given me so abundantly, and in that feeling, while eating that morsel, do tears come from your eyes?

Then you have truly given thanks.

Then again, you do wrong and Allah narrows things for you. You carry on, He narrows them further. You carry on still, and this time He showers you. Then be afraid. This time He will seize you. This time He will seize you. Fear that. So not every abundance that comes to you is through your Lord's mercy, nor from the good you did yourself. These you will work out with your deeds within your nafs, against the verses, with that knowledge. With knowledge.

We read the verse once more. So then, what was (?)? Look how many kinds of mercy there are. Do you see? Not every mercy that comes is mercy as such. This time, the mercy that comes is the mercy of affliction. Yes.

So when they forgot the warnings they had been given, We opened to them the gates of everything, of blessing and pleasure; finally, just as they were fully at ease with the ease and freedom given to them, We seized them suddenly. And at that moment they were left bereft of all their hope.

Yes, the most (?) event for people is when, after owning a rank or wealth, they let it slip from their hands and fall into want. It is (?) to a person. If I appointed you director somewhere, and then took you away from there, put you among the workers, and appointed a director over you, wouldn't it hurt you? Yes. So Allah Almighty too opened all kinds of His blessings upon these people who would not listen. That is, although they carried on in that swamp of disbelief, although they did not keep what Allah said, this time Allah Almighty opened all kinds of His blessings upon them. Then, when they reached full ease, the opportunity to desire the evils their nafs would do came within reach; they reached that ease.

Now they will do the evil of every carnal desire.

With Satan making what they will do seem fair to them, when they would plunge everything into corruption and injustice, at the very moment they thought they were fully at ease with this ease and opportunity given to them, Allah Almighty seized them suddenly. What did He do? Many peoples He mowed down with a single cry, face down, like the reaping of a field of crops. Some with the flood, some He drowned in the sea. Some He destroyed with a single cry. Yes.

Allah Almighty seized them suddenly. He wiped such peoples off the face of the earth. With these afflictions that befell them, they are bereft of all their hopes and dreams and meet the endless punishment of the hereafter. So this rosy appearance of the world, its attractive appearance to man, Satan and the nafs pulling you into the swamp, entangled with the world, it pleasing your nafs. Even though your reason shows you what is right, even though the verses your Lord sent before you as a light and a proof, as a light, stand there, if you turn your back on them, was it you who willed it, or Allah who willed, in placing you in the eternal punishment of hell?

Yes. With these afflictions that befell them, they are bereft of all their hopes and dreams and meet the endless punishment of the hereafter. Allah Almighty shows such peoples He destroyed to the generations that follow as lessons, as warnings, as examples to people. Examples. Among these examples, Allah Almighty, with comparisons, look, says this: Have they not travelled through the land, it says. Have they not seen the traces of the towns that were destroyed, it says. On the roads, it says. Yes. In the past, when coming from Tabuk to Medina, on that road, the destruction of the people of Lot: black, black stones like this, shaped like cartridges, small cartridges, round, round; impossible to make that.

Those are the marked stones, prepared from baked clay, it says, marked. We saw them, and I showed them to my late mother too. The place where the people of Lot were destroyed. Look, (?) stones. A town like this. Over an area. Yes. Stones heaped on top of each other. Allah Almighty tells people of such events through His verses so that people take a lesson from them and become servants to Allah.

And what does He say to Pharaoh? As he was drowning in the Red Sea: today I will leave your lifeless body as a lesson for the worlds, He says. O man! So many miracles before your eyes. If a prophet showed you a miracle, in this age you might say it is magic. But even though the verses and the events that happen prove these to us, even though today, even stronger than the miracles prophets would show, the miracles of the Quran's verses appear before us scientifically, for a person to drag himself so mindlessly, so senselessly to destruction, to bankrupt his hereafter in order to build up his world, and buy the abode of eternal punishment: this goes against a person's reason.

People cannot be this senseless.

So Allah Almighty telling people of such events through His verses is so that people take a lesson from them and become servants to Allah. If people do not take a lesson from such verses and carry on with their carnal excesses, since Allah Almighty is just and will give everyone what they deserve, even if they do not meet the fate of those before them, they will still meet many afflictions on earth. Then in the hereafter they will be gathered with those before them.

Why? In this world he is not destroyed like them, but in the hereafter he is gathered like them. The Prophet: Allah Almighty says in the verse, he is alive. While he is among you, We will not send you affliction, He says. Why? He came as a mercy to the worlds. If he came as a mercy to the worlds, if His mercy (?) His wrath, the Beloved of the Almighty, (?) as long as Muhammad (peace be upon him) is alive in the world, destructions have been lifted. Instead there are afflictions. With these afflictions, in the hereafter, on the same scale, at the same level as the destroyed, together with them they will be gathered.

May Allah Almighty reform those far from Allah, in rebellion and denial, and keep the whole community of Muhammad on the straight path and grant them to go to the hereafter with faith.