Al-Anfal 46: And obey Allah and Allah’s Messenger, do not fall into dispute; otherwise you will be seized with fear and your strength will vanish. And show patience. Verily, Allah is with those who are patient.

Obey Allah and His Messenger Verse 46: Obey Allah and His Messenger. Do not dispute with one another. Otherwise you will be seized by fear and your strength will go. And be patient, for Allah is with the patient. Patience. In more than a hundred places in the Quran it says: be patient. Be patient.

Obey Allah and His Messenger.

Hodja, you know how they say that sometimes verses address the past — doesn't this verse address the past? Where is His Messenger? His Messenger is alive. And (?) we don't see him. My heirs are the scholars, he says. What did he say? My heirs are the scholars. So then, to Allah and to Allah's Messenger — even though he is alive — to his heirs, that is, his scholars, obeying them is Allah's command. There is even a verse about the scholars too. The passing of scholars to the hereafter is like the sun going and darkness coming, it says. Yes. So obey Allah and His Messenger, and do not quarrel with one another, it says.

Quarrelling weakens the bonds of love toward one another, drives people into hostility. Then people come to be wary of one another. And in this case unity and togetherness break down, strength decreases. So Islam does not quarrel.

Then you will be seized by fear and your strength will go. And be patient. Patience is a very beautiful thing.

Allah is with the patient. Yes. I have lived this. A moment ago I said something: I suffered many calamities, but I never (?) or complained, I said. That is, I was patient. And then I said I was never unhappy. I always attained success, because I was with Allah. Yes. We always went through a test.

We went through tests with lives and wealth. In those tests I was always patient. I was always with my Lord. I never complained. He knows the best of everything, I said. He does not load on a person's back a burden he cannot bear, I said. And never did I tire of it, never was I fed up. I always lived with an open heart toward my Lord, with my bonds of love.

And I never came to harm. Yes.

With this verse Allah Almighty declares that Muslims should, in unity and togetherness, live, and not quarrel with one another. People who obey Allah and His Messenger, for Allah's sake, their Muslim brothers' mistakes or warnings they accept for Allah's sake and strengthen their bonds of brotherhood. The people of Islam are brothers to one another. Yes, in a fitna lived through in Islam, it is the cause of 'you and me' slipped into Islam. They do not care about the harm done to Islam. To split Islam apart, the saying 'may the snake that doesn't touch me live a thousand years' they made Muslims adopt.

If the snake that didn't touch you has touched your Muslim brother and put him out of action, tomorrow it will touch you. If your other Muslim brother thinks just as you do, then this time you will be left alone. In this way Muslims will break apart from each other, and as unity and togetherness disappear, you will become the enemy's captive. You see, the enemy, very cleverly, with ulterior intentions, saying words pleasing to people's nafs, tried to distance people from the bonds of brotherhood.

State property is a sea; whoever doesn't eat from it is a pig. Whereas in the state's property there is the right of the widow and the orphan. Those widowed mothers of ours, our brothers, our sisters. Working to look after their family and children, they paid taxes to the state. They themselves writhed in hunger and want. They gave the state that child's, that orphan's sustenance, which they cut from their own mouths. If you take that state property, you will have stuffed fire into your belly, fire. Yes. So the words they said to weaken people's state, 'may the snake that doesn't touch me live a thousand years' — always with words pleasing to one's own nafs, they break the bonds of brotherhood of Islam here.

That is, whatever you are, what's it to me, it didn't touch me — with things like this, with indifferent attitudes, breaking the bonds of Islam and weakening Islam. Yes. These are very bad traits. Fires of fitna.

Here Allah declares the points that will give people life, that will strengthen the bonds between people. What are they? Obey Allah and His Messenger.

Obey your scholars, do not quarrel with one another, otherwise your strength goes, you weaken and are seized by fear. Yes, and be very patient. That is, resolve your Muslim brothers' mistakes within yourselves. We did not create people free of error, says Allah Almighty. So whoever, his Muslim brother's mistake within himself, lets go, who tolerates it — that person, in keeping with Allah's purpose of creation, when he consents to His verse — and he is consenting — that person attains Allah's mercy. Yes, these are not adhered to. People fall into (?); if they quarrel with each other, Muslims drift apart from one another and, left (?) alone, are deprived of strength and support.

People are not free of need. In this case, if a person is left alone, in a time of hardship or a moment of trouble he cannot find a companion or a friend by his side.

And be patient, for Allah is with the patient. Allah Almighty did not create people free of error. If, because of mistakes made knowingly or unknowingly, a person immediately goes at his Muslim brother, or, not being patient with a harm done to him, immediately retaliates, they will not find Allah at their side as a helper. Because you too answered him in return, either in kind, or with more, and did not bring Allah to mind and say: this too is a servant of Allah. You did not think: since Allah created people incomplete, perhaps he made a mistake unknowingly; and even if harm was done knowingly, saying 'he is a servant of Allah, perhaps one day this person will give up the harm or injustice he did,' taking refuge in Allah, you were not patient.

In this case, since you were not patient relying on Allah, you are left alone. Muslims are instructive. He forgives the people around him, and with harm or injustice done to him he is patient. With his conduct, the matters he has undertaken — he entrusts to Allah his affairs. With his patience the Muslim finds Allah at his side as a helper, and Allah's unknown doors open upon him, so that the person is at peace. (?)