In The Name of Allah, The Most Compassionate, The Most Merciful

Through spiritual association, believers may find what is for them and be able to continue on the straight path. Without connection to divine knowledge, gatherings are empty, with no benefit. So many religious gatherings today become worldly. People come together in places of worship to collect money, but their spirits are empty.

We are in big darkness in this time. There is so much knowledge everywhere. Everyone has technology at their fingertips. But their hearts are empty. They are leading empty lives and going to emptiness. Wasting! Wasting is forbidden, especially wasting time. Time is clicking and passing. Every minute that passes you cannot bring back. One minute at a time is taken from your life. Whatever you have filled your time with, that’s what you will find on Judgment Day.

What is our aim? Why are we in this life? We didn’t want to be in this life. Somebody sent us. Someone has authority on us. So what is it we have to do in this life? Nobody thinks about this in these days, except a very few people who are pulling themselves away from society. When asked these questions, people look at you like you are a lunatic, saying "What is he talking about?" But this is the main thing that people should concentrate on.

We are not in this world because we wanted to be here. We are not going out from this world because we want to. Someone sent us here and we do not know when he is taking us back. So, we must not lead a heedless life. We should look. If we are busy searching, Allah Almighty will send us the knowledge of what we are living for.

From the beginning of the first man, Prophet Adam, to the time of our Holy Prophet Muhammad, Allah sent 124,000 prophets to this world. They came to different nations, different tribes, with the same message: "LaillahaIlAllah," meaning "Leave everything that you are worshipping and turn yourself to your Creator."

Those who turned with their prophets toward the creator, they won. Those who didn’t, they lost. Everyone claimed something in this world: "I did this and I did that." But now it’s history. It’s gone. Anyone who is doing foolish or forbidden things is wasting time. We must try to fill our time with good deeds and worship. We may then find the best in eternal life.

And our time is going to go. If the world has another 200 to 300 years left, we are not going to be around. We are going to pass from this life, and the history books are going to be writing "21st century man." They should not write "21st century civilization," because although people reached the peak of technology, science and medicine, they were the worst ever living on the face of Earth. The whole world is eating each other for nothing, from small groups to nations, ready to destroy each other, building weapons of mass destruction. They are happy about it. So, what is it they are preparing to do with those weapons? To destroy the world and everything in it. This is the civilization that man has reached.

But those people who are keeping the ways of the prophets, they are the winners in this world and hereafter. They do not have anything to do with what is happening in this world. They cannot take any side, saying "This war is between Christians and Muslims." The fighting is only for ego. No nation on Earth today is fighting for the sake of their faith, or for the sake of their Lord. They are fighting only for the land or for who is controlling what.

Prophet Muhammad said to us, "If you reach to those times, pull yourself away from the cities to the mountains. Live a simple life in the way that I have shown to you, until the Angel of Death comes."

This is our intention: Trying to follow the orders of our prophet. Anyone who follows these words may win for themselves. For the rest: The world is waiting out there. But time is passing. Think correctly how to spend your life. You won’t get fooled by the confusion if you are following the way of prophets.

Prophets came to give advice, which is still communicated through small spiritual associations. We concentrate on our own actions. We are responsible for ourselves, not the world. If an individual does what is for him, then the community changes, and the world will change too. We are not giving up hope for anything, because only unbelievers give up all hope. Hope is never-ending, and until the last breath of our lives we have to try our best to act properly toward ourselves, to others and to everything around us.

[The Daily Star, 1/28/06]