Al-A'raf 69: “Are you surprised that a warning came to you from your Lord by man amongst you? Know that Allah made you viceroys after Noah’s nation. By creation, Allah has given you strength. Remember Allah’s provisions so that you will attain salvation.”

In verse 69 of Surah Al-A'raf, what does Allah Almighty say?

Yes. Do you wonder that, to warn you, through a man from among you, from your Lord to you someone has come with a reminder? To warn you. This part is very important. Let us repeat this part once more. Let us repeat it. To warn you, through a man from among you, through a man from among you, from your Lord to you, with a reminder, that is, to explain Allah's verses to you, do you wonder at the one who has come?

So Allah Almighty, in every age. Just as in the past He sent prophets and messengers to those people, after the Prophet, since no prophet will come again, from within that people, from within that nation, He raises scholars. Scholars, but pay attention, do not misunderstand: He does not raise prophets, nor does He reveal to them. He puts that knowledge into their minds, through inspiration He shows them the meanings of the verses; after giving them knowledge He gives them wisdom, and against false superstitions He has them explain Allah's true verses to people.

This verse is still in force. Allah's verses will continue until the Day of Judgment anyway. They address the past, the present and the future. What does it say now? Do you wonder that, to warn you, through a man from among you, from your Lord to you someone has come with a reminder? Yes, so according to this verse, Allah Almighty raises a person from among us who warns you with the verses and, in the light of the verses, explains the truth to you — did they wonder at that? Yes.

Remember that He brought you in their place after the people of Noah. That is, Allah Almighty, those rebellious peoples, who did not recognize Allah and His Messenger, who had their hearts sealed, in place of those people, them (?), and in their place you He brought, He says. He brought you and made you superior to them in creation. That is, more intelligent; in terms of creation He may make you superior in body too, but in terms of intellect too, that is, in degree, in a way that the intellect can develop more, He created you superior to them. In a way that you can observe and see your surroundings better.

Because technology keeps advancing and you take lessons from the past before your eyes. Allah Almighty tells us what has happened to us, as history. Just as we read history and learn what past nations did, and as people of knowledge we explain it so well to people, and what those peoples did we understand from the histories we have read. In the same way Allah Almighty tells us about past peoples. When we learn better what befell them, are we not in a stronger position than them? In what respect? In respect of knowing Allah. Because Allah makes Himself known to us through those past ones as examples too.

For example, of Surah Yunus, 92-92. verse, as Allah Almighty says about Pharaoh: Today I will save your lifeless body and leave you as a lesson to the worlds. A lesson. So what does this mean? We now come to a stronger position than them in knowing Allah. Why? Because look, Allah's miracles are visible. And they find him in the Red Sea. In England, in that place called a museum, they put him on display. On display. I think there will be a photo of him here too. Taken. There will be a photo of it, I think. Let me have a look.

Yes. Hopefully it is here.

No. I had not put it here. So it is somewhere else. Yes.

Now in this case, in this case, Allah Almighty has surely created us, compared to earlier times, well, strong enough to take lessons from the past. That is, with will. What does it say? He brought you and made you superior to them in creation. So remember Allah's blessings, so that you may attain salvation. So what is Allah's blessing? What does it say? Look, it says, such disasters befell the others. They behaved this way. And We destroyed them this way. Although they acted ignorantly, if you do not learn from the past you will fall into the same state as them. This is how Allah Almighty warns us.

And so remember Allah's blessings, so that you may attain salvation, He says. We could finish counting Allah Almighty's blessings upon us. Our minds cannot grasp them by counting.

To warn you and to keep you away from the calamities that will befall you, that is, to have those calamities lifted from you, so that by your coming to the right path the calamity Allah would give you is removed, Allah charging a person like you from among you, a person, do you wonder at a person who calls to Allah, He says. From among you. You know, Allah Almighty used to create the prophets as the elders and sons of their peoples, the first ones created. And from among themselves, its elders. Remember that He brought you after that people of yours, in place of the people who were destroyed, and made you superior to them in creation.

The people of 'Ad were very tall, (?) and very strong people. The people of 'Ad. According to what they say, they were people like church pillars. Church pillars. They would carve rocks and build palaces. And they saw themselves as so powerful. So powerful. His saying, He made you superior to them in creation, shows that these people were like this. Even so, forgetting the purpose of their creation, just as Satan deceived their forefathers and made them worship idols, these too, like their forefathers, following Satan and the taghut, worshipped gods they made with their own hands. They were turned away from Allah's path.

Since worshipping gods pleased their nafs, they could not leave them and return to Allah's path. Because all together they are following the same thing. What? Worshipping gods, doing the things that please their nafs, circling around them as they like, serving them as they like before their eyes, so that the others say, look how beautifully he serves, and boasting of it.

Yes, with the carnal feelings that Satan gives a person, many of them, within those carnal feelings, since a person has not even an atom's worth of worship to offer Allah, the carnal feeling, within his own will, within his carnal decisions, the things he will do seem very pleasant to him.

And the deeds on Allah's path upset him, weigh heavily on him. If you invite a person who has never prayed to the prayer, the Muslim thinks, how will I pray the five daily prayers all the time like this, and his life seems so long to him that his life, and that prayer on his back — you know these mountains, those mountains — comes on his back as a burden like those mountains, which the nafs shows him anyway. Satan's nest is inside it too. It shows such a burden, brings him such (?), to drive him away from it. But if he keeps up the prayer.

What does the verse say? When you stand up for prayer, even if a (?) heaviness, a laziness comes over you, it says, keep up your prayer, it says. So our Lord too, through warning such people, through keeping up a prayer, through the peace that comes into your heart once you taste its joy, through relying on your Lord: Hasbünallâhu ve ni'me'l-vekîl, ni'me'l-mevlâ, ni'me'n-nasîr. What an excellent support, what an excellent companion, He says. What an excellent Protector. Yes. If you feel this in your own heart, all the wealth of the world beneath your feet disappears. To Allah who created that wealth you dedicate yourself like a sacrifice.

Your heart finds that much peace. So that they do not find that peace, Satan sets traps before those people and says to Allah Almighty: Your servants who would come to You, from Your path I will hold back by setting traps. And Satan's guess proved true, says Allah Almighty. Satan's guess proved true. Why? Because, as we said in the previous lesson, a guess — he cannot know the unseen. He can only guess. That people would slip this way — that proved true. So, so as not to let Satan's guess prove true, we must obey the command of Allah, of the One who created us, so that we defeat Satan. Let us break our nafs, bow our necks, surrender our hearts to our Lord, find peace in this world and go to the hereafter under our Lord's mercy.

Yes.

Yes, they were turned away from Allah's path. Since worshipping gods pleased their nafs, they could not leave them and return to Allah's path. Ego and arrogance took hold of them too; with their whims they turned their backs on Allah and denied their prophets.

Hud (peace be upon him) did not stop addressing his people. O my people, remember the precious gifts of Allah, who brought you in their place after Noah (peace be upon him), so that you may attain salvation. Salvation — indeed, you would have been among a people who came before. You would have suffered the calamities they suffered. By suffering that calamity in the world, they turned the eternal life into a dungeon. They turned the abode of eternal bliss into an abode of eternal torment. You too, look, you have an opportunity before you. Return, He says, to your Lord, return. Yes. O my people, with the flood of Noah, how Allah destroyed people on earth, and to Noah (peace be upon him) how He saved those who followed, do not forget; in their place He brought you, and created you mightier and stronger than them — return to Allah.

Do not forget the purpose of creation, give thanks to Allah and be with Allah so that you may attain salvation. He says. (?), he says. Yes.

Allah does not love a people who transgress the limits. Yes.

Why does He not love them? Allah Almighty did not create man free of error.

With his intellect man makes small mistakes, he even errs by following his nafs; he knows he has made a mistake, he is full of regret in his heart, and later he repents and asks forgiveness. But when He says he transgressed the limits, trampling Allah's laws, to the dignity and honour of humanity, to its self-respect, he will be unworthy. When they act in the state of the animals, like the four-legged on earth, as He says, in the state where He says (?) even more astray, these people, people who trample Allah's commands and madly spend their (?) for the sake of worldly (?), for their own interests, who madly spend their time for the sake of their own (?), and mock Allah's verses and turn their backs on Him — Allah does not love such people.

Why does He not love them? Because He created that human honourable, gave him of His spirit. He gave him a fine intellect. He created him as the most honourable of creatures, the most honourable above the worlds He created him. He bestowed every blessing on him. By creating him the noblest of creation, He made him the vicegerent of the earth. If, amid so many blessings, this human goes against the One who created him and is ungrateful, then surely Allah Almighty, the punishment He gives to such people, He gives as the return for what his own hands have earned. Nor does He commit injustice. If someone did such a thing to us, out of our grudge we might give him even greater calamities.

If such a situation were in our hands. Allah forbid. But Allah Almighty gives them the return of what they earned. Yes.

Allah does not love a people who transgress the limits. O my people, believe me. From among you, one who calls you to Allah, trustworthy and giving you counsel — I am a messenger, he says. Trustworthy. That is, trust me, he says. I am truly, of Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the One, the messenger. All those things you worship are servants created by Allah. Those things you worship are beings that are not even aware that you worship them. (?), he says, to Allah, to the One who created them. Yes, let us inform you of what Allah has revealed to me. He said: You cannot know what I know. Why can you not know? Because you do not believe.

Whatever I say, you will not believe. So if I said more, you would call me senseless, you would call me astray. So this much is enough for you, he says. Just as, when we go a little deeper, they say this man is astray — like those who dive deep into religion and join the (?) group, that is, like those who put us into the class of unbelievers. Yes.

Despite so much counsel, his people seemed to have (?).

They neither listened to the words of Hud (peace be upon him) nor paid any attention to him. The only thing that angered them — the call, instead of many gods, to that one God — drove them mad. We have so many gods, they say. Now you, they say, are calling us to that one god, they say. Yes.