Al-A'raf 31: Oh Children of Adam! Put on your nice garments whenever you prostrate; eat, drink but do not waste because Allah does not like those who waste.

We have come to Surah Al-A'raf, verse 31.

O children of Adam! At every prostration, put on your fine clothes. Eat and drink, but do not waste. For Allah does not love the wasteful, it says. Now, O children of Adam, O people! At every prostration, put on your fine clothes. Now, let us think about it this way. Who is saying this? The Lord of the worlds is saying it. What is prostration? Prostrating is, among the pillars of the prayer, standing upright, going down into ruku, going down into prostration, sitting for the tahiyyat, well, in this way ascending to the Mi'raj. Prayer is the Mi'raj. What is the Mi'raj? It is being in the presence of Allah.

That is the Mi'raj. It is a gift to us from the Prophet. In this case, if you are ascending to the Mi'raj, that is, if you are going before Allah Almighty, if you are going before the Creator of the worlds and your Owner, you will put on your clean clothes. Your clean clothes.

If they came for you and said: Ahmet Efendi, Mehmet Efendi, or our daughter Ayşe, our daughter Fatma, come along, today the President is inviting us, we are his guests, you would look for clothes to wear, run here and there, maybe go around the market to buy clothes. And you would go before the President. This is such a President: the Owner of the worlds, the absolute Ruler; we, too, before our Lord, who is our Creator and our Owner, are going. Of course we will put ourselves in order.

So that His Self is not taken lightly, Allah Almighty says: O children of Adam, at every prostration, put on your fine clothes. The Prophet (peace be upon him) even used to put on scent. Scent. Yes.

Essence smells good. Essences, rose scent. The Prophet, too, is said to have smelled of roses.

Cennet-i Naim, (?) scent, many scents. Their these rose oils', these essences' good smell always attracts people. I mean the people of faith, though. it both attracts the people of faith with its good smell, and also, if you pay attention, to the scent of essence, other creatures, vermin, do not easily come. Vermin do not come to that scent.

In this case, very rarely of course; when I say they won't come, it's not that they never come, but generally, if vermin are going to visit a person, most of them won't. They do not come to this scent. But people whose faith is weak, I'm a Muslim, weak in faith. This person says: rose scent, essence, but how bad it smells, he says, but the lotions that will harm the world, harm himself, he thinks they are something. Because, to the invention of the unbeliever and to enriching him, and at the same time to harming the world, the body about which He said: I will call you to account for how you used the trust I gave you, what will harm that body, the traits Allah does not want, how lovely they seem to him.

He feels he smells very good. Yes.

It is truly a pitiful thing.

Allah Almighty is the Lord of the worlds.

When the Prophet (peace be upon him) ascended in the Mi'raj, he brought the prayer to his community as a gift. A person's Mi'raj is the prayer. Indeed, by standing in prayer, in the presence of Allah, the Lord of the worlds, you stand. In this respect, putting on our finest clothes, we must come before our Lord in the finest way. We must ascend to that Mi'raj before our Lord in the finest way, and stand in the divine presence. Allah Almighty says: eat and drink, but do not waste. Do not waste at all. Now let us give an example.

Suppose we said: would you sell your life? If life could be sold, if it were sold for money, in exchange for money, would you sell your life?

If you sold your life, what would you do with that money? Because life would be gone. In that case, what was the most valuable thing in the world? Money. Why money among material things? Gold, ruby, chrysolite, everything you will buy with money. If you cannot sell your life for money, you would not sell it, for if you did, life is over, what would you do with the money?

If you do not sell your life for that money, you sell it to earn that money. How do you sell it? You actually work 8 hours at a workplace. Every day you go to that workplace. You spend your time using up your body or your mind at that workplace. Eight hours of the day, to get your monthly pay or to earn your daily wage, you sell. Couldn't you have spent that time of your life you spend there in pleasure and amusement? But you have a responsibility. I have a family. I have a living to make.

So Allah Almighty says: eat and drink, but do not waste. Waste is the squandering of a person's life. The most valuable treasure is a person's life. Just as a person works and strives and acquires property. He spends his life acquiring wealth for his own comfort. And then, if the person falls ill, he does not hesitate to spend all his wealth for the sake of his life to get well. Yes.

So in this case, life is the most valuable treasure for a person. Life. You worked, you strove. You built your fortune, set up your goods and property, but you suffered from an ailment, (?), you give away your goods and property, you sell them, to be rid of the ailment.

So when a person wastes what he earned by working, he is in the position of spending his life in vain, which is haram. Another meaning here: a person has duties toward Allah Almighty; he is to be in obedience and worship, (?), if he spends his life for no reason, this too is haram. Another meaning: Allah Almighty gives one person the provision of another, and from his hand provides for the others. If this person wastes what is in his house and narrows the provision of the people he is to provide for, this too is haram. That is why Allah does not love the wasteful. Yes.