At-Tawbah 3: A proclamation to mankind from Allah and Allah’s Messenger on the day of Great Pilgrimage (Hajj al-Akbar). Allah and Allah’s Messenger are far from the idolaters. If you repent, this will be better for you. If you turn away, know that you will not incapacitate Allah. (Oh Muhammad) give those infidels news about a severe punishment.

Surah At-Tawbah, verse 3: On the day of Hajj al-Akbar, the greatest pilgrimage, from Allah and His Messenger, a proclamation to the people, it says. It proclaims. Allah and His Messenger are far from the polytheists, it says. If Allah Almighty is far from a servant He created, what does that mean? What does it mean? The One who created me — I will be far — my feelings, if you ask: I would ruin myself, ruin, to win Allah's mercy. The One who created me will be far from me, He will say: I am far from you. What is the end of this? Its end is ruin, an eternal punishment, of a deathless life the tremendous suffering. A deathless life.

Therefore, (?) to the verses: on the day of Hajj al-Akbar, the greatest pilgrimage, a proclamation from Allah and His Messenger to the people. Allah and His Messenger are far from the polytheists. If you repent, it is better for you. Please, (?), come, look. Whether polytheist, non-Muslim, idol-worshipper or Magian. Whatever you worship besides Allah, whatever you worship, realize that you are in that age of ignorance and return, He says. Allah Almighty is At-Tawwab, the One who abundantly accepts repentance. And He created people among the forgetful ones, the forgetful. He created people's intellect deficient.

Deficient. So man errs, takes wrong for right, but because, where he hears the truth, he has a capacity of reason able to tell the straight from the crooked, where he finds the right, man says: O my Lord, I was mistaken. Until now I have spent my life in ignorance. Now I understand that there is no god besides You. And the path I walked was a path of deviation. It was a swampy path. When you say "I have turned to You", Allah Almighty you will find as the One who abundantly accepts repentance. In line with the verse, a hadith for you: Even if your sins reached the clouds in the sky, it says, when you repent with a sincere heart, Allah, it says, changes your bad deeds into good ones. Into good.

While I have such a supreme Lord, such a beautiful Owner, such a Lord who protects you, feeds you, gives you drink, raises you and, expecting nothing in return, grants you His paradise in the hereafter, with what conscience, within man's sense of humanity, does one oppose Allah's commands, turn one's back on the blessings He has given, and be ungrateful?

Yes.

If a person thinks about it: if he does not carry out Allah's commands, that quality of humanity remains in him only as form. Form. That is, in character he is an animal. He is like four-legged beasts roaming the earth. He benefits from Allah Almighty's mercy, from His mercy in this world. But in the hereafter, that light is forbidden to him.

He remains subject only to His fire.

Let us read the verse once more. On the day of Hajj al-Akbar, the greatest pilgrimage, a proclamation from Allah and His Messenger to the people. Allah and His Messenger are far from the polytheists. If you repent, it is better for you. And if you turn away, know that you cannot render Allah helpless. O Muhammad! Give those disbelievers the tidings of a painful punishment, it says. Yes.

Hajj al-Akbar means the greatest pilgrimage.

By some calculations this comes once every 8-9 years, I think. By other calculations it comes once every 39 years, they say. It comes once every 36 years. Since the lunar months come 10 days earlier each year relative to the Gregorian calendar year, if we divide 360 days by that, it makes 36 years. Hajj al-Akbar begins with a Friday. It ends with a Friday. Friday is counted as the festival of the Muslims. When Friday and the Hajj come together, when two festivals meet, it means the great pilgrimage. The great pilgrimage. So on such a day of Hajj al-Akbar, it is an announcement from Allah and His Messenger.

Allah and His Messenger are far from the polytheists. Whoever turns his back on Allah and His Messenger, Allah and His Messenger also stay far from them. Whoever draws near to Allah and His Messenger, Allah and His Messenger also draw near to them. Yes, our Lord commands thus. Whoever draws near to Me, I draw near to him, He says. Whoever mentions Me somewhere, I mention him in a better assembly he does not know of, He says. Whoever remembers Me, I remember him within My Self, He says. Within My Self. Therefore, besides Allah we have neither a friend nor a support. Your friend and your support die while in this world.

But Allah — (?) — is everlasting. Hasbünallâhu ve ni'me'l-vekîl, ni'me'l-mevlâ ve ni'me'n-nasîr. What an excellent support He is, what an excellent friend, what an excellent (?), it says. Yes. Your friend — and the Friend is Allah.

If (?), if the Guardian, that too is Allah. Relying on Him, leaning on Him, asking of Him, trusting Him increases a person's faith.

Yes.

If the disbelievers who turn away from Allah and His Messenger repent, accept that the religion of Islam is the truth, and obey Allah and His Messenger, this will be better for them. They find the truth and join those who attain salvation. But if they again turn away from Allah and His Messenger, Allah and the Messenger are also far from them. Since Allah needs nothing, no force or power can render Allah helpless.

The worship people perform is for their own benefit. The worship people perform shows their obedience to Allah and His Messenger. If I worship and tell you the truth here, I tell it for myself. Why do you tell it for yourself? I tell it to win my Lord's pleasure — my Lord's pleasure. You, why do you worship? You worship to win your Lord's pleasure, for your own sake. Through your worship Allah neither rises nor diminishes; but your worship, when you go into your Lord's presence, exalts you. So this too is for you. Your buying and selling, your trade in this world — is it not to earn money? Do you sell your goods to a man to elevate him? Worship is like that.

What do the prophets say? Allah Almighty, about those servants, says to the Prophet: did they ask a great wage of you, He says, did it weigh on you, is that why, He says, you turned away from the religion of Islam?

Those prophets used to say this: My wage belongs to Allah alone, they would say. My wage, too, belongs to Allah alone. I expect my wage not from you but from Allah. So I do it for myself.

Yes. Everyone performs their worship because they expect something from their Lord. They do it because they expect a benefit from Him. What is that benefit, the benefit from Him? What do you say? O my Lord who created me, I feared Your fire, I feared Your punishment. So that You incline me towards Your mercy, I carry out Your commands, you say. Isn't this for you? Is there anything here that elevates your Lord? No. So if anyone, in the worship he has done, boasts "I worshipped Allah", he does harm to his own self. Yes.

Rather, he should think like this: I wonder, in the worship you have done, did you fall short? He will say. My Lord, accept the worship I have done in Your presence, O my Lord, he will say. Yes.

The worship people perform is for their own benefit. The worship people perform shows their obedience to Allah and His Messenger. Whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger attains salvation. The others fall into loss. Those who deny Islam, the last religion Allah sent, who do not recognize the Prophet, who live distracted by their nafs and then go to the hereafter in this state — these people Allah Almighty, addressing them through the Prophet's verse, gives the tidings of a painful punishment. There you go. Painful. Searing and scorching man, and scorching their skins and turning them pitch black; coming out of there unconscious and, a few seconds later, their skins cracking like parched leather, like soil, and from beneath a brand-new skin emerging again, they come to, and after reviving, after coming round, they enter that fire again in the same state — these people's condition, is it not a painful punishment?

Our Lord — we are saying it. The verse I have explained.

Yes. My Lord Himself granted it to me. I saw that realm. I saw them. That is why these are verses about which many things were written from seeing.

Yes, the tidings given to such people of an eternal life with no more death or rescue, a life full of pain and agony, indicate that they are people of eternal hell, and, (?) a constant punishment, that there is no salvation for these people, and that the wrong they did against their own outcome even the two worlds together could not do. Truly, even if the two worlds came together, they could not do the evil a person does to himself. What can you do to me, after all? Put me into a (?), turn me. Torment. In the end I'll die, that's all. I die, I'm free. But in the hereafter there is no more death.

Thus, in the hereafter there is no more death. There is the eternal life of paradise and of hell. Because there is no death upon souls. In the hereafter we will not go before Allah with bodies. We will not enter paradise and hell with bodies. We make you die twice and bring you to life twice. According to the verse, when you come into His presence with a driver, it says. The driver: the soul and that body. When the souls are paired, when they come face to face, We, it says, will silence your body's mouth, bind its feet and make your hands speak. And the soul says to it: why are you speaking against me?

I'm always quoting verses like this, mind you; these are verses. And the body says: Allah, who makes me speak, is making me speak. After the testimony is over, the body says to the soul exactly this: You are being returned to the One who first created you, it says. There it tastes death a second time. There the body dies a second time. The body created from earth joins the earth. Having worn its finest clothes in this world — in the hereafter Allah Almighty will also fold up the world like a rag and throw it into hell. So the soul is nafs and (?); the bodies separate. There is no death upon souls.

So paradise and hell are everlasting too. If there were death upon souls, Allah Almighty would also be mortal. If He is the First, the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, if He exists by Himself (?), if He is eternal and without beginning, then the souls, being a part of Him, are also without beginning and eternal. Paradise and hell are, in this case, everlasting. So, O man, do not be carried away by the showy realm of this world. Do not deem your state in this visible society permissible for your own nafs and run after it. Tomorrow, (?) on the Day of Judgment, in that Great Tribunal, in the presence of Allah Almighty, do not do, while in this world, anything you will be unable to account for.

Yes.