Al-An'am 74: At one time, Abraham said to his father Azar; “Are you accepting idols as deities? Verily, I see you and your nation in an open falsehood.”

Surah Al-An'am, verse 74. When Abraham said to his forefather Azar, that is, to his father: Do you take idols as gods? Truly, I see you and your people in manifest error. Abraham had said this.

Allah Almighty says he was a hanif. That is, even as a child he believed in none but Allah, was a servant of Allah, a hanif upon the upright natural disposition of Islam. When Abraham said to his father Azar: O my father, the idols you make with your hands, which are of no benefit even to themselves, which you make from materials Allah created — do you take these as gods for yourselves? O my father! I see you and your people in manifest error, he had said. Abraham (peace be upon him) said this to save his father and his people from error and to turn them to the one Allah.

Man, created honorable, the noblest of creatures — taking as gods things weaker than himself, and above all lifeless things capable of nothing — the more laughable that is, the more it shows that they did not use their reason, could not use it, and, by associating partners with the one Allah, how sinful they are. How sinful. You know that there is a God. You know that there is a Lord who created us. And you come, (?) to the things that Creator created, and then worship them. This is truly a very bitter thing.

A very bitter thing. And then, when you invite them to the truth, they say: I found my forefathers upon this.

You found your forefathers on that path. True. But Allah Almighty warns you. Even if they knew nothing at all, He says, are you on their path?

Even if they knew nothing at all, are you still on that path? We do not believe in what you bring, they say. True. Because you made your nafs your god; your forefathers' filth pleases your nafs. Since filth likes filth, that is why you (?) your forefathers' trail.

Yes.

Filth is found in filth.

Let me tell you something I saw.

Many years ago, when there was no sewer system here, this dergah of mine was connected to a cesspit.

We would get the municipality's (?) truck and have the filth pumped out of here. They took it away. For a fee, of course.

One day we noticed that the driver did not come. He did not come for 10-15 days. He did not come for a month.

The man had been on leave. When he came again to pump the filth out of here, I saw his lips were all cracked like this.

Maybe you know him. I said: I hope all is well, what happened, were you ill? No, he said. I have got used to this smell, he said, this smell. This, he said — (?) if I don't smell it, he said, I get sick. And he went and smelled the filth in that cesspit, drawing it in like this. I witnessed this.

Look at the nafs. I am not presenting that man as in kufr, outside the religion of Islam, mind you. I wanted to give an example. Of what? Just as he had grown used to that filth by smelling it like a perfume, so that nafs, being used to filth, sees the filth its forefathers were upon as the truth — and in fact does not even see it as the truth. Because it pleases his nafs, he does not want to leave that path. Yes.

O my father, I see you and your people in manifest error, he had said. Abraham (peace be upon him) said this to save his father and his people from error and to turn them to the one Allah. Man, created honorable, the noblest of creatures — taking as gods things weaker than himself, and above all lifeless, capable of nothing — the more laughable that is, the more it shows they could not use their reason, and, by associating partners with the one Allah, how sinful they are. So that people do not fall into such a senseless state, and so that man preserves his loftiness as he was created, Allah makes known that he should worship none but Allah.

Worshipping anyone other than Allah.

If you worship anyone other than Allah, you actually make your own nafs your god. You too know that there is no life or soul in them. They bring you no benefit. But because your nafs has worked on you that way, because you do not do what Allah says but what your nafs says, you match the verse: Have you not seen (?) the one who made his nafs his god? — you fit what that verse describes. Yes.

Azar is the father of Abraham (peace be upon him). Another name or title of Azar is Tarah, it says. Tarah. They lived in Kufa, in one of the towns. They were called Kenaninyum. Kenaninyum. This people took the stars in the sky and, on earth, the idols they made with their hands as gods. They made an idol for each star. They worshipped the idol they made, attributing it to that star. They hoped for intercession from the star they worshipped. So Abraham — that these were false and baseless, that they too had a creator, and that He is the one Allah — was trying to explain to his father and his people.

Yes.