ADNAN OKTAR: This one says; "Master, since Allah knows the future and determines destiny, why did He create satan?" That is nice. In fact I have explained this previously. My brother Allah does not like to be alone. He wants there to be conscious entities, human beings. He wants entities that appreciate Him and His creations, entities aware of all that is good, entities that are pleased with them and enjoys their existence. But when human beings are created directly.. As you know He created the Prophet Adam (pbuh) and Hazrat Eve (pbuh) in Paradise. That desired excitement, profundity and submission do not form. Look, Hazrat Adam (pbuh) was a Prophet, a great Prophet, but those things did not come about. But in the face of satan, lower-self and Hell, then human beings acquire a wonderful profundity. I mean everything acquires a significance after that. A cup has significance, and a mug, and life acquires a wondrous richness, and beauty acquires significance. There is no testing without satan. And without testing, the meaning of life largely fades away. In other words, it becomes all blurry; it turns into a plain wall. Imagine a plain white wall and nothing else. That is where you end up. For instance, look at this cup; Why do we like this cup? We like it in comparison to other cups. This is a beauty.. Look, the only reason is this comparison. There is a comparison there.. For instance, this pen of mine is very beautiful. It is beautiful because we compare it to other pens. Otherwise we would consider it to be very ordinary. This beautiful one [guest] we have here for instance is very nice, very sweet. But we regard her to be beautiful when we make a comparison with other pople. I mean then her beauty would become a blessing. Yes.. For example, what could we strive against in the absence of satan? We need to strive. Maybe we could not preach the religion like this without satan for instance. These things need to be explained because of the existence of lower self and the satan. When these things are explained, one becomes a follower of Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh), and becoming a follower of Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh) is a delightful thing. There is an excitement to it, and you become brave and passionate, you become a stalwart person, right? You smash disbelief with your mind and ideas. That is a delight, a beauty and real excitement. My brother, if that is not there, if this is not there; then without those you would be destroying the beauty and excitement of life. Allah creates satan, and lower-self and the dajjal (anti-messiah) in order to add excitement to life. He creates Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh) against the dajjal. He sends back the Prophet Jesus the Messiah (pbuh) and creates Hazrat Khidr (pbuh). Allah gives rise to events. The result is excitement and beauty. Life acquires meaning. That is to say monotony and dullness are eliminated. There are the angels, for instance. Look, Allah loves human beings, devout human beings much more than the angels. I mean people might think it should be the angels; but that is not it. An angel is not considered enough for Allah. He wants human beings. Allah greatly prefers human beings. That is because they strive against satan and lower self and have faith in Allah without seeing Him. Allah much loves this aspect of human beings, of human beings with piety. For example, Allah tells our Prophet (saas) that He created the universe from his light. He loves our Prophet (saas) very much. Allah refers to him as "Habibi" (My beloved); for instance Allah refers to the Prophet Abraham (pbuh) as "Khalil al-Allah, My Khalil", meaning 'Friend of Allah'. He likes him and He loves him very much. Allah delights in beauty. He loves all beauty. He loves beautiful people and lovely views. He loves beautiful speech and wants us to delight in all these. He loves them Himself as well. But our liking is of course in weakness. There is no weakness in Allah. For example, Allah sends His verses in a musical, majestic and harmonious form. If He wished, He could send them in a completely bland form. There might be no harmony. He might just have written them article by article. That is not it.. He creates them as symphonious. For instance Allah produces Abu Lahab and Abu Jahil for our Prophet (saas) to strive against. Allah inflicts Hazrat Wahshi on Hazrat Hamza. He causes him to be martyred. It is also Almighty Allah Who causes Hazrat Wahshi to eat his liver. A fervent spirit of zeal arises among Muslims then. Hazrat Hamza (ra) feels no pain, as he is already in Paradise at that moment. That is to say there is no pain of martyrdom. He feels no pain at all. His soul has long since been taken. The aim there is to give rise to a feeling of zeal among Muslims. For example, Allah had Afghanistan invaded; Allah did so to inspire feelings of zeal in Muslims. He had Iraq invaded. It is also Allah Who allows children to be hungry and wretched. It is also Allah Who creates them. These give rise to the feelings of zeal in us. Otherwise no child would suffer. A martyred child would instantly become a child of the Paradise and would not even be aware of that.. But Allah shows us these things in our minds, to test us. We cannot know their state in the outside world anyway. That is between them and Allah. But you must know that no innocent entity will suffer in any way. But that is how Allah shows it to us in our brains. In order to encourage and excite us and to hold us to account. Otherwise, "Allah does not oppress people," says Allah in one verse. That is impossible. He may appear to die in agony; but he does not really suffer in any way. His soul has long since been taken. There is a verse that says that Allah places no greater burden on any person than he can bear. I, for instance, am 55 years old. I cannot remember any burden I was unable to bear. They put me in a mental hospital, for example, among the most crazed lunatics. I thought of the verse, and I really was not distressed at all. Allah Allah.. I was perfectly comfortable there, I was not distressed.. I mean also in prison, they have put me in the ward in which there were lunatics. I was perfectly comfortable there, too. No such thing happens.. All those people held in the ward I was held, had killed someone before. They brought people who had killed while in prison to that ward. They were all around me. I made friends with them and talked to them. The prison colonel even said "I specifically have sent them all to the master." In other words, these people on my ward were people who had killed many times over; not just one or two, the ward I was in was full of them. It is the ward known as "one by one's." He said ;"They have become unable to even hurt a fly and filled with love alongside the master." You can ask, the colonel is still around, he was a young man. The Colonel of that time is still around. He used to say; "I've sent them all around him specifically and they all become people who cannot even hurt a fly, all very well mannered." Prison colonel used to tell everyone. You can ask after this. It was Bayrampasa Prison, he was known as the clonel of that period, he is retired at the moment. You can ask.. These are the requisites of the test. It is Almighty Allah Who makes them all that inoffensive.. The man might start fights over nothing in prison, anything could have happened. But nothing did. For example, the mental patients broke down my door and did many things to each other. The mental patients have killed seven people during my time there. But nothing happened to me, Alhamdulillah. I was not even uneasy. I was perfectly relaxed. I have had a little tape player I have brought it there. It was playing Ottoman Janissary Music and I was working out with pull ups. Seeing me doing those, the mental patients started to do pull ups as well. There were rusty metal bars there, I have covered them with nylon coverings and started to do pull ups there. That is to say, Allah makes difficult conditions pleasant as well. I have a habit let me tell you that; I do like boiled meat very much, it is a blessing. There, in the mental hospital, they have had sheep herd. They were slaughtering one of those blessed animals and boiling it all fresh but they did it so nicely so that flesh of the animal was almost melting, it was boiled that well. I have had a cup like this, it was nice; they were bringing that dish and pouring it to our cups. The mental hospital had very nice bread, big loafs of bread, we were eating that dish like the soldier's rations with that. And after that I was staring with my pull ups. The mental patients there thought I was a doctor. They were astonished. Wondering what I was doing there. That is because most of them came there after commiting murders, most of them were on another planet, shouting and screaming most of them at each other's throat. They were unaware of how to meet their natural needs. But I lived quite comfortably there in that environment. Only my mother was turning pale everytime she came to visit me; normally she used to have red cheeks but when she came to visit me she turned lime white. She regarded them to be dangerous it seems, but actually they are inoffensive, they would not do any harm on anyone but of course it is perturbing for anyone who doesn't know. Doctors coming there used to faint, visiting nurses were fainting as well. That stems from the frightening atmosphere in the place. You can see that in books [describing the hospital back then]. I mean the people visiting were unable to cope up with the fierceness of the incident, they couldn't bear even the sight of it. They were fainting in the first ten minutes. But nothing happened to me, Alhamdulillah, I was quite comfortable. Why does this all happen? It was a test, so one can have a glorious past, a token of bravery Right? I, for instance have always encountered difficulties right from childhood, alhamdulillah, and that has strengthened and honed me. Otherwise, who knows how I might have turned out? One would be perplexed and placid. These difficulties are also the reason why I am so joyful and full of love. Such things are instrumental in making one a deep-thinker, in making a person who reflects deeply. Allah likes such things, He finds it to be ince. And finally, He bestows Paradise as a reward and causes one to live there for all eternity. And you cannot ever forget such things. Only then can Paradise seem delightful to you. The other way, one will not enjoy it at all, he cannot even enjoy being in Paradise. If you put someone into one of the mansions of Paradise and he will look around baffled; I mean if Allah so wishes and puts him there. He would just look at the foods in Paradise and fail to appreciate them. But if he has suffered troubles here, and difficulties, if he has fought against satan and the dajjal and his own lower self.. -I am considering our Prophet (saas) free of this, I am just talking about myself. I would just say they did give a struggle, for them.- Then that would be very meaningful. Even a small cup in Paradise will amaze one. That is because Allah speaks of an "fine silk and rich brocade" worked with fine work. But one needs a profound soul and mind to appreciate such fine work. Otherwise, one will not even see it. Someone who is unable to see the details in insects, ants or the cell here on earth will be unable to see these details in Paradise. We look at a bee in this world, for instance and it takes our breath away. So our breath will be taken away when we see a bee of Paradise as well, insha'Allah. There are animals there, too. No animal will ever be non-existent. They are all there in the Presence of Allah. For instance one has a dog and it dies, his cat dies for instance. Not one will cease to exist until the end of time. If we ask it from Allah, Allah will produce whichever one we wish for us. A cat or dog or horse, whatever one loves will be with him. Not even an insect will cease to exist in any way. It is impossible for anything that has once existed in the Sight of Allah to cease existing thereafter. May Allah forbid, He Himself would have to cease to exist for that to happen. And since it is impossible for Allah to cease to exist, they will not cease to exist, either.