The Prophet's Concern: Faith

M. Fethullah Gülen · Sermon · February 14, 1975 · First sermon of the "Proofs of Tawhid" series

Every person has a great matter that occupies them and makes them forget other things. In this sermon Hocaefendi asks: what should the greatest matter of a person, or of a nation, be, and who will determine it?

This post follows the video above section by section. The account keeps to the sermon itself; tables, concepts, and source notes are in the expandable boxes.

I — Every person has a great matter

A great matter makes the small ones forgotten

Every person has a great matter that occupies them, moves them, and often makes them forget their other worldly affairs. As the matter grows, everything outside it is utterly forgotten and abandoned.

Someone faced with the matter of losing a leg cannot be imagined gossiping about the variety of dishes served that day. And a man whose wife has left home and gone off, no one knows where, does not make an issue of polishing his shoes that day.

II — Who will determine the matter?

The yardstick: Allah's standards, conscience, and reason

Hocaefendi asks: how will we grasp the greatness of the great affairs that lie outside the matters of our own life and living? His answer is this: we will find it within the standards of Allah (may His glory be exalted), in the light of conscience and human compassion, through reason and logic.

In every age, certain matters gain importance. At one time wars, conquering the world, and founding civilizations and flourishing lands gain importance. At other times, giving people the sound conviction they need, faith, saving people from living out their own desires, and living Allah's wishes and enabling others to live them gain importance. This is a plain matter that nearly every person who has a conscience, with reason as their guide, can feel.

III — The test of conscience

One who is not moved has neither heart nor conscience

A person who remains unmoved in the face of a generation that has lost its moorings has neither heart nor conscience. Someone whose child or close relative has become irreligious, if unmoved by this, has lost their human faculties. If, in a nation, disintegrations, ruptures, and unbridled living follow one another while the nation stands numb and indifferent, that nation cannot be claimed to carry a heart and conscience.

In the heart of everyone who has a heart and conscience, wave upon wave of grief must arise in the face of anyone who breaks from religion, leaves faith, or gives up morality and righteousness. If it does not, we will say: "no heart, and no conscience either." For one who is moved by very small matters but not by this, it means they have doubts about the outcome of unbelief.

IV — The real diagnosis

Doubt about where this course ends

If a person is not moved by these collapses, disintegrations, and disappearances, it means they have doubts about the outcome of this course: they do not believe in a resurrection, do not believe in a reckoning, do not believe in standing before Allah, do not believe in eternal bliss.

If someone is not touched by their child's going off the rails, all the evidence they bring on this subject is cast aside. For in this matter, the very first manifest and evident sign of having believed, of being truly attached to it from the heart, is the effort shown in rescuing them from that whirlpool. Hocaefendi prays that the Almighty grant us success in grasping the great matter in keeping with its worth.

V — The Prophet's matter

"I don't know, my matter is great!"

The Noble Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), from the moment he opened his eyes to life and understood its meaning, took this concern to heart and made this matter his greatest matter. He sacrificed his own wealth and his wife's wealth for this matter; because of his matter he knew no ease.

"Your head is broken," they were saying: "I don't know, my matter is great!" "Your tooth is broken": "I don't know, my matter is great!" He was forced to leave his homeland and was ordered to make the Hijra (migration): "My matter is great!" he said. This matter had brought him to the point of suffocation, so the Qur'an said: "You are on the verge of killing yourself because they do not believe" (Ash-Shu'ara 26:3). Hocaefendi says: "This is a believing heart's expression, this is a conscientious heart's expression."

VI — Abu Talib

Forty years of protection, and the last breath

Abu Talib had served the Messenger of Messengers for nearly forty years, had protected him, had shielded him even from the blowing wind. But he did this not because of his prophethood but out of a feeling of kinship and compassion. Had he done it out of respect for his prophethood, the ice in his heart would have thawed and he would have melted away in the ocean of the Messenger of Allah. So as not to leave this protection unreciprocated, the Messenger of Allah asked something of him: "My uncle! I do not ask much of you: say 'La ilaha illa Allah' (There is no god but Allah) once, so that I may intercede for you at the Supreme Tribunal!"

Abu Talib was hesitating; for we learn from the Messenger of Allah that "as you live, so you will die; as you die, so you will be resurrected." Abu Talib had not lived saying "There is no god but Allah" to die saying it. At his side were the chieftains of Quraysh and Abu Jahl, the father of ignorance and unbelief; as the Messenger of Allah pressed him, "Say it!", Abu Jahl was saying, "Are you turning away from the religion of your father and mother?" A person mired in preconceived notions cannot be persuaded. The believer's last word is "There is no god but Allah"; Abu Talib's last word was "I am dying upon the religion of Abd al-Muttalib."

At that moment the Messenger of Allah was crushed; it was as if the dome of the building he was in had collapsed on his head. To protect the Light for forty years, to be thrown for its sake from trouble to trouble, from death into the arms of death; and then for the Messenger of Allah to be unable to do anything for him, for him to go to the Hereafter having lost even the right to intercession. The Messenger of Allah was crushed.

VII — Consolation

"You cannot guide whomever you wish"

At that moment these words fell from the lips of the Messenger of Allah: "So long as I am not forbidden, by Allah, I will always ask forgiveness for you." "If Allah forbids me, what can I do then? The command comes from on high: I will bend my back and bow my neck." A verse was sent down at once: The Prophet and the believers, even if they be their own relatives, can never, ever ask forgiveness (istighfar) for those who die as polytheists, cannot request forgiveness for them (At-Tawba 9:113).

This too is a consolation from on high (Al-Qasas 28:56): "My Illustrious Beloved! You cannot guide whomever you wish! Allah guides whomever He wills." It was not the divine will; he had not turned toward Allah for Allah to will his guidance. "So do not be grieved at all! Let your pure heart not be saddened; even if he is your relative, your relatives are those close to you in taqwa (piety), close to you in nearness to Allah."

You cannot guide whomever you wish! Allah guides whomever He wills.

VIII — A thousand people, one concern

The great matter: telling people about Allah

What distresses the believer, leaves them in anguish, is someone turning irreligious. What if a thousand people become irreligious every day, what if a thousand corpses lose their faith every day, what if thousands of people break away from religion! A person who remains unmoved before this great scene has neither heart nor conscience.

In proportion to their faith and understanding, a person will try to tell others about the great cause they know: their great matter is telling people about Allah. A person committed to a political party goes from village to village, town to town, talking about the party's leader, whether an Ali or a Veli. Does Allah not have as much value in your eyes as the party's leader, does the Messenger of Allah not? If you do not travel from village to village, town to town telling people about your Allah, and if your heart is not moved in the face of youth going off the rails because no one tells them about Allah, it means we have been corrupted, we have decayed.

IX — Concern and cause

Take our Prophet's concern and cause as your own concern and cause

Hocaefendi prays: may Allah grant us success in grasping the great truth; may Allah, by His grace and bounty, forgive us and guide us to the straight path. Allah knows how much longer this nation will crawl on its face; until the moment it returns to Allah, it is certain to be this way.

This was the concern and cause of the Messenger of Allah. Take our Prophet's concern and cause as your own concern and cause; this is Allah's wish. Live by your heart, live by your conscience; make the decisions you will make in the light of heart and conscience.

X — Ali and Khaybar

"Tell whoever comes before you about Allah!"

Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) had been assigned by the Messenger of Allah to the conquest of Khaybar. When Khaybar could not be conquered, the Messenger of Allah declared: "Tomorrow I will give this banner to someone who loves Allah and the Messenger of Allah, and whom Allah and His Messenger love." That night everyone expected the banner to be given to them the next day: Umar was waiting, Abu Bakr too, and Uthman as well (may Allah be pleased with them).

When Ali, whose eyes were sore, who had a sickness in his eyes, came into the presence of our Master, it was applied to his eyes and he was healed. When he gave him the banner, it became clear who was loved by Allah and by His Messenger. "Walk on just as you are! Then, wherever you go, tell about Allah! Tell whoever comes before you about Allah!"

XI — A believer's most important matter

One man's guidance

"One man attaining guidance at your hands is, for you, better than heaps upon heaps of the wealth Allah has given, than camels, than sheep." To be a means to one man's guidance, the faith of a single member of this nation, is more important than this entire country dying. Izmir being struck by an earthquake and sinking to the bottom of the earth would weigh very little beside one person leaving faith; because people who die, if they have won Allah's pleasure, go to Paradise. But what of one who falls prey to Hell forever, who loses Allah forever, who loses the Qur'an forever!

That is why a believer's most important matter is to tell people about Allah, to tell people about the Messenger of Allah. You will lend your voice to the preacher, and to the one who admonishes; you will say what he says, and spread what he spreads. You will be partners in the great truth, so that together you may live thus, and together be resurrected thus.

A believer's most important matter is to tell people about Allah, to tell people about the Messenger of Allah.

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