This content introduces a new educational series, "Siretu'l-Quran" (The Morality and Dogmas of the Quran), emphasizing a return to the core meanings and practical application of the Quran, distinct from traditional religious rhetoric, to foster genuine humanity and understanding.
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I salute all of you with the most beautiful greetings.
How people from
all over the world greet each other;
esselamu aleykum,
sabahu’l-hayr,
good morning,
guten morgen,
bonjour,
buongiorno,
selamat pagi,
ohayo gozaimasu,
zao en
jin dobre,
yuragen,
habari…
Let my audience presume that I greet everyone
the same way people greet each other.
Because salutations
are the passwords for peace
and Islam
is peace.
Islam means three things;
silm (peace), salvation, devotion.
In Arabic language philosophy,
the meaning closest to the origin of a word is
that word’s root meaning.
Silm’s root meaning is peace.
If the letters of a word increases,
that word differentiates and deviates from its root meaning.
Salute(salaam)’s second meaning is salvation,
and its third meaning, a more deviated one, is devotion.
Therefore, Islam is a global peace project
and this project is Allah’s project.
All prophets are volunteer ambassadors of peace
and all Muslims
who are devoted to Islam are also
and all Muslims
volunteer peace ambassadors of the world.
This peace
is the peace between humankind’s;
heart and mind,
inner world and outer world,
emotions and thoughts,
action and intention.
inner world and outer world,
This peace is the peace between individual and society,
human,
humanity,
earth,
air,
water,
universe,
existence.
It means to live in peace with everything,
from the youngest to the oldest.
Therefore,
my audience
should presume that I’m greeting them the same way they greet each other.
Hello everyone,
I wish you all a good day and
a good lesson!
My dear brothers and sisters,
we're starting a marathon here today.
Here is “Akabe Foundation”.
“Akabe” means a challenging slope.
In Beled surah,
Quran counts every stage of a challenging slope.
1. to liberate a slave;
2. or to feed the hungry;
3.(for example) an orphan,
4. or a homeless and helpless person…
Therefore,
Quran counts four stages.
As you can see, these four stages are actually
a favor to the humankind.
Quran describes people helping each
other as a challenging slope.
human goodness to human,
human humanity to human,
Orphans;
There are orphans
from every religion, every beliefs, every sect
every nation, every color
all around the world.
Quran does not discriminate between the poor either.
as "your orphan"s and "orthers' orphans.."
because, there are no distinction between orphans
Quran does not discriminate on the poor too
like "help our poor, don't help the other poor"
or it does not say
"nurture the poor of you, don't do anything for those of not yours"
Again, Quran
does not say "help rise of your fallen" or
"you can kick other fallen when they're down"
There are no such discrimination.
Thats why,
Quran’s point of view is a movement of mercy and
compassion that embraces all of humanity.
That’s why it has four stages.
Today we are starting
the third and last stage of
a three-staged journey.
As you know, we started our first course
with commentary on the Quran.
In October 1992,
we started the lessons in narrow circumstances
at Malta Boyacı Kapısı Street
(in Fatih district of Istanbul).
and ended in June 2008,
Our Asmau’l-Husna lessons
started in October 2008
and ended in June 2013,
after a five-year course.
Sixteen years plus five years.
A marathon of twenty-one years.
I was very young.
My hair and beard were pitch-black.
Now as you can see, , I don't have much hair left and my beard has turned grey.
I got old.
But I’m still here before you.
Being old is not a bad thing.
If I were unproductive,
now that would be bad.
What is not good is unproductiveness,
not old age.
An old man makes use of
his full willpower.
So, let’s not become worn-out by age,
let’s just age.
Right here our third marathon is starting:
Siretu’l-Quran,
which means the morality,
the dogmas of Quran.
Our Siretu’l-Quran
lessons has a procedure.
Procedure is a must.
If you want to
do something properly,
you must first set up a procedure.
If you set up a
procedure at first for measuring
and evaluating,
you can check how well you are following your procedure.
And today in our lesson,
we will try to explain Siretu’l-Quran’s procedure,
why
how
where
and why and how it is important.
First let’s take a look at its principles.
What are the principles of Siretu’l-Quran?
We will not tell lies here, we will only speak the truth.
Why do we need these principles?
You must also see that
we have turned into a society
that have mixed lies and religion together.
Is there anyone who objects to this?
Lie and faith cannot coexist.
If there are lies,
then there is no faith.
There are
no white lies.
But the worst of lies,
the most dangerous
and harmful
of them
are the ones that involves Allah, prophet, religion and faith.
If you are involving
Allah in a lie,
or if you are lying in the name of Allah,
it means you are regarding
your religion
and faith as a lie.
A believer cannot do anything worse than this his own religion.
If we are going to tell about our beloved Prophet through revelation,
it cannot be built upon lies.
To build truth upon lies is
to build skyscrapers upon ice.
You can build a skyscraper on ice.
You can do it in the Arctic if you wish.
But then you must do something else too;
you must put out
an arrest warrant for the sun.
You must be an enemy of the sun.
That’s why people who build
lies upon lies do not like the sun.
They try
to cover
the sun.
Why?
Because the foundations of ice they build upon
lies will melt as soon as the sunlight touches it.
Our second principle
is not superstition but truth.
Superstitions are everything that are mixed with religion
religion but actually has nothing to do with religion.
In this sense,
God is the owner of religion.
Not us.
So, what is the place of man in religion? .
We are the servants of religion, not the owners.
Thereby, the believers who claim ownership of the religion,
reduces or increases it.
They bend the rules of religion
to their convenience.
Religion belongs to Allah
and if you want to add something
to the religion,
then you play the role of Allah!
That religion is no longer a true religion.
That is superstition.
Superstitions are
actually cancers of religion.
They are cancers of faith.
If a superstition is mixed in religion,
it destroys the healthy parts.
First it destroys the tissue,
then the organ,
and then
the whole body.
That’s why we emphasize on the truth, not the superstition.
Truth is not relative.
So, there is no such thing as your truth or my truth.
If the truth becomes
a relative subject,
it stops being
“the truth”.
This is why we will try to convey the religion of Allah without any distortions.
Our third principle is not fallacy, but meaning.
When it comes to religion, there is a lot of deceit.
Deceits are fallacy.
So, what does fallacy mean?
It means imposing an idea
on someone by making use of
the rhetoric
and literary language,
regardless of whether
that idea is the truth or not.
Therefore,
we will not make speeches
that will wear someone down,
Our principle is meaning.
We will be in the meaning.
Why?
Because Allah means meaning.
Before the law of gravity was created,
there was law of meaning.
Because there is meaning in everything that Allah has created.
We are in pursuit
of that meaning.
The opposite of meaning is meaninglessness.
Just like how opposite of truth is superstition.
That’s why we will search for meaning
and we will ask;
what is the meaning of this?
We should ask
what does this verse from the Quran mean?
What is the purpose of it?
That's part of the meaning.
We’ll ask:
“The prophet did this and this before this verse was revealed,
and he changed his behavior later on.
So, what does it mean?
The society to which this verse was revealed, behaved in this and that way.
What does that mean?
What is the education method that was developed by Quran against this behavior?”
What are we going to do after we find this meaning?
We will put it into practice.
We will carry it out in our daily lives.
Because we need that meaning.
We will add meaning to
our lives through the verses of Allah.
We will add meaning to
the first person who added meaning to
his life through the verses of Allah.
We will follow the teachings of
Quran and the Prophet.
We can't travel a thousand,
four hundred
and forty years to the past.
But what else can we do?
We can determine
the principles and the moral rules,
we can carry
them to the present day.
So, in order to do this,
we will find that meaning,
that essence.
Not judging but understanding and taking lessons
Another principle is
that we will not make judgements from where we stand.
Unfortunately,
the most important problem of our society,
the Muslim geography,
is to judge others.
People who do not carry out their own accounting,
who refrain from doing so,
are always ready to judge others.
We should not even judge the negative examples
in the Quran,
let alone judge people around us.
What will we do?
We will be content
with the judgment
of the Quran on this matter.
We will try to understand it
and take lessons.
As you can see,
this speech is called “lessons”.
That is why I ask those of you
who think they came here to listen to a sermon,
please do not bother.
I mean it.
There is nothing more abundant than “sermons” in this country.
A lot of sermons are being preached to you through the screens of televisions.
If you are content with those sermons, you can go to the closest mosque.
But do not come here thinking that you are going to listen to a sermon.
First, I tell myself.
I try to take lessons myself.
Today I’m here before you to share.
I’m fulfilling my responsibility of sharing.
So, whatever I equip myself with,
, I equip you all with it.
Whatever I ask you to do,
I first ask myself to do it.
That is why what we are doing here is a “lesson”.
When does a teaching become a real lesson, do you know?
When we take lessons from what we learn.
Another principle is
looking at narrations and historical material through a critical perspective.
Critical reasoning is
a powerful ability and a virtue that
the Muslim East has unfortunately lost.
Critical reasoning is actually something that God commands us every day,
every hour
and every minute.
How do I know it?
I know it from the Surah Al-Fatihah.
“İhdina’s-sırâta’l-mustaqîm;
Guide us to the straight path."
Now;
if there is one thing in the life of humankind where he or she
symbolically stands in the presence of Allah, it is prayers.
Now; You have believed.
You believe in revelations,
you believe in Allah,
and you are praying.
You think you are standing in the presence of Allah
and you are telling him:
“Guide us to the straight path.”
Aren’t you already
on the straight path?
You want one thing from Allah.
You have one wish:
to be on the straight path.
And Allah asks you to do this every time you pray,
in every rakat.
"Guide us to the straight path…"
So, does that mean we do not have any guarantee?
Have we not guaranteed salvation?
The priests used to sell “indulgence” to the people,
a piece of paper that says they have guaranteed grace in heaven.
Are not already carrying a certificate that guarantees heaven in your pocket?
Why do you feel the need to pray to Allah to guide you to the straight path?
This means that the Muslims
cannot carry a certificate that guarantees them heaven.
There is no such thing that guarantees you the heaven.
Right now, you might be on the straight path.
But is there any guarantee
that says you will be
on the straight
road tomorrow?
You might be on the straight during the dawn prayer (Fajr),
but you might stray from that path during the noon prayer (Dhuhr).
You might make mistakes.
You might harbor immoral thoughts.
You might have bad inclinations. You might deviate.
It is possible. After all we are only humans.
It was too late.
let me more narrowing range for you,
1 rakat ago,
you were straight ahead,
but we can become crooked after prayer.
Second rakat
In other words, if there is a time,
even 2 rakat it is enough for us to become crooked.
For this reason,
we will examine the past through critical thinking.
What is a critical mind?
A critical mind filters the knowledge it receives.
Anyway, what are you going to do.
Therefore; If you are going to sift a nut,
sift a chickpea,
sift a flour.
You have to have something.
And your sieve must have holes.
without hole it would not be sieve
Some of them need to go underneath and some need to stay on top.
So, “Huz mâ safâ, da’ mâ keder.”
“Take the pure and pristine, leave the impure and blurry.”
You should filter.
You should take the one that works,
not the one that doesn't.
You should filter.
The superstitions
can damage your faith.
It is not easy to
repair a broken faith.
What do you do then?
So is the dentist as easy to repair your faith?
That’s why
we should filter all the historical materials
through a critical mind.
And that critical mind is based on revelation and creation.
We must have a rational perspective,
not an emotional one.
We, the Muslim East,
have unfortunately
attached ourselves
to the limbic system.
The limbic system is the lower brain,
and there is also the upper brain.
This protrusion is the frontal lobe
and there is also a net stretched over it.
That's what makes us human.
The lower brain is the brain that we share with other living creatures, the animals.
The lower brain works with hormones.
It works with anger,
fear,
passion
and lust.
.. and more
Therefore,
if a lower brain that works with anger,
fear, passion and lust
starts to control you,
all of your actions
will be results of either anger or fear
or passion or lust.
Then you become
subjects of those
emotions
and stop being
a subject
of Allah.
Consequently, it is a person who is controlled by his
or her hormones that has an emotional perspective.
The most typical characteristic of this perspective
is that it is woven with prejudices.
A person
who is prejudiced does not learn.
Who is the dead?
The dead is not one who does not breathe,
it is one who does not learn.
Learning
is becoming a new person.
Learning is actually the real repentance; did you know that?
Because you abandon
the wrong ideas that you thought were right,
and you learn the truth.
Therefore,
learning is the repentance of the mind.
In this sense, another principle is
to emphasize on the causes that produce results.
The Muslim East
have no faith in the Sunnetullah (rules of Allah).
The Allah that Muslim East believe in is
a God that pulls a rabbit out of a hat (perish the thought!).
He doesn’t have
any rules
or principles
or sunna.
any law.
He does whatever he wants.
“It takes one to know one”
they say about him.
They made up a being like that and called him Allah!
“We len tecide li sunnetillâhi tebdîlâ.”
“We len tecide li sunnetillâhi tahwîlâ.” (Surah Al-Fath 48:23).
This is repeated many times, it’s one of the most certain sentences of Quran.
“That has been the Way of Allah and you will not find any change in the Way of Allah.”
Therefore,
Allah has rules
and principles.
He has a destination.
Allah does not only call us to the straight path,
he is also on that path.
“İnne Rabbî alâ sırâtın musteqîm:
it is my Lord that is on a straight Path.” (Hûd 11:56).
Would you look at the verse?
In another verse of the Quran,
Allah tells us
that he is “Righteous”.
He invites us to be righteous right?
But when we read Quran, we learn that he is also pious.
“Huwe ehlu’t-taqwâ we ehlul mağfira;
He is the Lord of Righteousness, and the Lord of Forgiveness.” (Surah Al-Muddaththir 74:56).
So, what does it mean?
No one can call him to account but
he does everything with responsibility.
He is not ruled by his power,
but he is the master of his own power.
Another one of our principles is to not to absolutize interpretations.
We are humans.
Humans have a disability called “oblivion, forgetfulness”.
We can make mistakes.
Please listen to my speech with critical reasoning.
But the critical reason is not to have an idea about
something without
having any knowledge
about it first.
What is critical reasoning?
It is to research more than
the person you are speaking with,
and correct him where he is lacking in knowledge.
Therefore, we shouldn’t count our interpretations
and comments as absolute truths.
If we absolutize them,
then we count them as verses.
If you place too much importance on a mere comment,
then the verses of Quran lose their significance, right?
Therefore, the one who says "Everything we say is true,"
is telling the biggest lie.
No one but Allah can say that!
Therefore, when we say “Everything he speaks is true,”
we are putting that
person on the same level with Allah!
Never.
That is committing shirk.
We can be mistaken,
e can say the wrong thing,
we can have a slip of the tongue.
We are humans.
If we notice our mistakes,
we must correct them.
That’s what it means to be human.
That’s why it is not right to
count someone’s comment as the absolute truth.
Not to exploit and sloganize the revelations is
another one of our principles.
Many examples come to your minds when I say “exploiting the revelations”, right?
Remember how
the governor of Damascus who rised against Ali
Amr bin el-Âs, instructed the people of Siffin to
put pages of the Quran on spearheads?
do you know what does it mean?
This is utmost exploitation of the Quran.
One cannot exploit
what he respects,
or respect what he exploits.
What did Al-Kindi say?
-Peace be upon him-
“What a person sells don’t belong to him, it belongs to the buyer.”
A person who sells their faith,
sells their messenger.
has no religion.
If he had any respect to his religion, then he wouldn’t sell his faith.
There is no God.
He said he had no faith.
Why? Because he sold it.
What he wants to sell is not his.
When you see someone selling his faith in his loom for a fair,
run, run, run.
Move away as it moves away from Satan.
Because it's not his.
If he respected, he wouldn't.
If he respected, he wouldn't have used it.
Respectable does not abuse.
For him, it means that he does not respect him
who exploits something he has believed for himself.
How can a person be disrespectful to what he believes in?
We believe in Allah’s Prophet,
we believe that he is Allah’s prophet,
how can we disrespect him
by putting words into his mouth?
In Surah Al-Ahzab Quran says:
“We sellimû teslîmâ”
“Send your blessings on him, and salute him with all respect.”
Another principle of ours is accepting the place of our Prophet that the revelations put him at.
Our Lord placed him upon a higher place, right?
Yes
And who is he?
First of all, he is human.
“Qul innemâ ene beşerun;
Say, O [Muhammad], "I am only a man like you.” (Surah Fussilat 41:6)
I am a person, justa mortal being.
just being revealed to me, this is the only difference.
And more, he can die or be killed.
“Efein mâte ew qutile’n-qalebtum alâ a’qâbikum...:
If he also dies or is slain, will you then turn about on your heels?” (Surah Ali 'Imran 3:144).
In 8 verses of Quran,
Allah tells Muhammad to repent.
Can you imagine?
If someone today came and told those people
who put themselves on a higher ground
than our Prophet
to repent,
can you imagine what would happen to that person?
Let’s not say anything more.
There is a place where our Lord has put the Prophet,
let's settle for that.
let's trust him.
These are our principles, dear friends.
Yes.
We have our whys.
Let’s explain our whys in our procedure, methodology.
Religion again?
I have a couple of things to say to those who are fed up with the topic of religion.
You are not asking if there are actually people who say that, right?
Especially among youngsters,
there are a lot of believers who say that. They are constantly like “Oh if it’s about religion, then I don’t want to listen.”
Because they have been overwhelmed with religious topics
on televisions,
in schools,
in society,
in everywhere,
or in mosques during
Friday prayers etc.
The religions that
the imams have been telling them
about does not fit,
into their daily lives.
Even the imam who tell them about religion
don’t live it fully themselves.
So, you either live your life or
follow the rules of your religion,
you can’t do both at the same time.
The religion they describe
conflicts with reason.
I mean, you should be an idiot to believe in that religion.
you should be foolish,
must be crazy.
therefore we are in between,
stuck.
Therefore, I understand those
who are fed up with religion.
We are not actually helping
people by constantly
telling them about religion.
whar are we doing? we oppressed them!
In fact, that religion that we are fed up with,is not Allah’s religion.
Because Allah’s religion does not conflict with life
He who owns life owns religion.
Two things (religion and life) that came from the same being (Allah) cannot be in conflict with each other.
It does not make sense. Therefore,
if they are in conflict
with each other, then one of those two is from wrong sources.
That’s why that religion that is imposed on us is not the real religion. It is not Allah’s religion.
On when we truly learn Allah’s religion that we begin to
understand the difference.
And it is Allah’s word, Quran, which will teach us the true religion.
not someone else.
This is really posing a big problem in the Muslim world.
If some of us does not shoulder responsibility,
does not put effort
into truly understanding and explaining religion,
if they don't care,
if they don't try,
don't take any risk
This problem will grow.
then the younger generation will not want
to have anything to do
with religion!
That’s why these lessons are important
by paying special attention to this problem.
but to enhance humanity.
Please do not misunderstand.
I do not think that the Muslim East needs anymore religiousness.
They don’t need it,
praise be !
They are already fully immersed in it.
But they need humanity.
why?
Is every religious person also a good person?
No. We have enough proof to refute that.
it is so obvious.
Our most religious ones 693 00:40:10,633 --> 00:40:12,933 turn the world
into hell to gain heaven.
believe me,
They tell lies in Allah’s name.
Believe me,
Their consciences are so at ease that
if you were to give them the key to heaven,
they wouldn’t share it
with anyone other than their own clique
their own sect.
they wouldn’t share it
with anyone
They are number one when it comes to injustice
They have no mercy or moral compass.
There is no equity.
no humanity in their lives.
Therefore, they have no qualification 710 00:41:03,466 --> 00:41:06,266 or competency or quality.
What use is religiousness in the absence of all this?
That’s why it’s not important
to enhance religiousness
it’s crucial to enhance
the humanity of Muslim East.
As I always say;
show your religiousness to Allah, what I need from you is your humanity.
Because we are in desperate need of humanity
and we cannot find it anywhere..
In this sense,
one of the reasons for these courses is
that we cannot be Muslims without being proper human beings at first.
Without being a human first, you cannot be a Muslim.
The most important evidence of this in Quran is
in the 2nd Verse of Surah Al-Baqara (2)
and in the 11th and 17th verses of Surah Al-Balad (90):
