BISMILLAH

SACRED HOUSES

There can be no building without a foundation. If you are to build a 10-floor building, you will need to dig
as deep as possible to lay the foundation. So that in the case of an earthquake or a natural disaster it faces
minimal affect. The foundation of the Hizmet are people. Qualified people. The great scholar Alvarli Efe,
used to consistently pray: “May Allah make us human!...” The main foundation of Hizmet is “humans” of
this quality. And people of this rank are only established in Hizmet houses (Ders-hane). If we have people
who have been educated in houses of such quality, then we have Hizmet. If not, we do not have Hizmet.

House, but what kind of house?

Where 5, to 6 people live… Where there is prayer 5 times a day, when possible, prayed in congregation,
followed with tasbihat at least on three occasions and reading. A house where all the rooms are spotless,
where the kitchen is immaculately clean. Allah (swt)’s “glory” won’t manifest in dirty and untidy places.
The reflection of iman cannot be found in messy and nasty places. To remember Allah and do dhikr is a
precious gift. The prestigious places where this gift consistently presents are these houses.

When Quran says ‘buyut’ it points to “houses” like these:

“This light (Allah’s light) is found in those houses and Allah (s.w.t) allows for his exalted name to be
honored and remembered. In those houses, morning and night, they remember Him, there are such
valiant, brave and strong individuals among them that there is no amount of financial struggle, business
or trade to divert them from dhikr to Allah, praying on time, and without hindrance and with all the
requirements, and paying zakat on time and fully….” (Nur: 36, 37)

Houses without proper foundations like these can only be titled “bachelor houses”. This is the bitter truth.
If houses with these qualities stand then Hizmet will continue to exist. If not, there is no Hizmet. Even if it
appears to be there.

Hocaefendi describes these houses in these words:

“These houses of light are the most precious and fertile of all the holy buildings that have ever existed.
Every person who wakes up to enlightenment there immediately comes to terms with darkness. In these
houses every dawn is a conquest and is veiled with the color of victory. Dhikr echoes in every corner of
those houses like the hypnotic chants of war, and the blessed inhabitants of these houses wake up with
relish, sky blue emotions and full of confidence. In their world with all four corners filled with hopeful light,
there is no place of emptiness and despair. When they gather it is to train and temper themselves; when
they disperse it is to reap the rewards of these pristine emotions, clear thoughts, beautiful manners, the
virtue of Iman and the benefits of their corresponds with God, that they have gained from these barracks
and places of learning.”

These houses are each small life universities. They are laboratories where the essence of Allah is learnt
and people management, empathy and collaboration is practiced. Neither school nor boarding schools
can replace these houses. A human possessing such qualities cannot be established with a collective
approach. A factory can mass produce “scarecrows” but cannot mass produce “humans”. It was around
the 2010s. I had dared to try a quality test for these houses. I had asked some questions to a few new
graduates I was meeting. There were these kinds of dialogues:

For how long did you stay in the houses? What did you do there?

5 Years. 3 years of this was spent as ‘house abi’.

So, did you finish the risales

I did not finish it yet, but I am almost finished.

What does İçtihad mean?

....I am not sure.

So, in which book can one find the Icraat risale?

I couldn’t really remember but it may be Lem’alar.

Is there a sentence you remember from the risale on ihlas?

Yes, that is the one that must be read every 15 days, right?

Yes. One statement?

I couldn’t recall.

As the conversations went for the worst, I had to ask this questions:

Is the Words or the Mektubat thicker?

If my memory is not failing me, Words is thicker.

I am not talking about a singular conversation but a culmination of many conversations. And you are
making these people managers. You are making them teachers… And afterwards we expect a
management approach that follows the Ihlas Risale.

And now I will add an anecdote.

It had been 20 years since I had seen a house. I was dropping a relative of mine who was studying at law
school to one of these houses. It was close to 11 at night. I thought I would go up and see the house. And
I went up. It was a luxuries apartment. It was as big as the house that I had lived in with 11 students. We
used to use wooden coffin-like beds with tops. But they had couch sets in addition to beds. 4 people were
living in this huge house. Their house abi was engaged so he came to the house only occasionally. The
other two stayed at their parents at weekends. The house was exactly a typical share house. I asked if
they ever received guests. They said no. Guest wasn’t a word in their vocabulary. A minimum of 3 hours
would have been needed to vacuum and mop the house to clean it. The scariest was the kitchen. The oven
top had stains of almost 3 different dishes. The garbage bags were piled on top of each other. The
refrigerator was a food scrap archive. I did some calculation in my head. ‘If I cleaned this place it would
take until the morning prayer.’

As they say, ‘a part shows the future for the whole’. What percentage of the whole were like the house
that I mentioned? Even if it is 10, 20 percent this was a tragedy. Now, if you had thousands of houses like
these, what would it matter? If you added a hundred of the ones like in the first example, would they
complete the function of one dershane house? But when quantity and ‘Excel’ blinds us ‘opening houses’
becomes a race. The verse perfectly explains; “Competition in [worldly] increase diverts you” (Takathur:
1). Can you establish individuals who are” respectful to Allah”, “prioritise people” and who “value human
beings” in these houses?

We revealed to Moses and his brother: “Appoint houses for your people in Egypt (as places of refuge and
coming together in God’s cause), and (as a whole community) make your homes places to turn to God,
and establish the Prescribed Prayer in conformity with its conditions. And, (O Moses,) give glad tidings to
the believers!” (Yūnus 10:87). The command, “Make your homes places to turn to God!” in this verse has
various meanings, as follows:
First of all, houses should be built to face the direction of qiblah, where Moses and his nation lived when
this command was revealed to them—so that they can get enough sunlight. Second, houses should
have the characteristics of functioning as places of worship as well. The above verse (An-Nur 24:36) also
confirms this idea and points to the similar houses that fulfill the same function. Third, God commands
that each and every house should function as a place of worship as well. The people of each house should
worship and perform their Prayer in their house and prevent it from becoming like a lifeless grave.
Although the command is addressed to Prophets Moses and Aaron, upon them be peace, it is directed to
every believer, especially when it is impossible to worship God in the open. Therefore, it has the following
meanings:

 When it is impossible for you to worship God in the open, adopt your houses as places of worship
and perform your worship in them.
 When your places of worship are banned from fulfilling their functions, convert your houses
into places of worship to perform your duty of worship.
 Regardless of all the impediments, do your best in order to be able to build places of worship
where you will worship your Lord without negligence.
SUMMARY
The above article tends to touch everyone who is currently living or living in the houses(Ders-
hane). The author clearly explains on how our houses should be. But also in one of the survey
done by the Akhi, it seems that some houses regarded as Dershane tend to refrain from this
qualities. Wallah! Brothers and Sisters, it is sad and depressing. We should keep in mind that these
houses(Ders-hane) are a blessings of Allah to us and Wallah! he will ask us on how we used this
blessings on the day of judgement.
Before the Day of judgement comes,I will take this opportunity to again remind you on how an
ideal house(Ders-hane) should be so that in the day of judgement,we may have something to
answer to Allah. We should ask and evaluate ourselves especially those living in the Ders-hane
currently if the following qualities are present in our houses:
a) READING
Reading(Iqraa) or the way I like to refer to it “The first commandment”. For the record,I do that
in order to refer to how much of a huge deal it is.In our a typical Ders-hane, a person is required
to spend a minimum of thirty minutes every single day to read any book that revolves around the
scope of our religion.It can be a fountain magazine or the Qur’an just to mention a few. Since
most of us living in the Ders-hane are adults,I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that
no one is going to push you to do this Ibaadah but Wallah you will accountable to Allah during the
day of Judgement.
b) CLEANLINESS
Cleanliness or in other words “half of our Imaan” is one of the most vital parts not only in our
Dershane but also in every single aspect of our daily life. It is a huge shame if there is a house(Ders-
hane) that does not apply cleanliness as a part of their everyday lifestyle while in the house.
Cleanliness in this case starts from our own bodies, to our own clothes to the kitchen and the
entire house in general. Every house(Dershane) should perform a minor cleanliness everyday and
a major Cleanliness at least once per week. I can’t stress enough on how important it is but here
is all I have to say;” Don’t do it for me just because I have urged you when you read this but rather
do it for Allah’s blessings and for your own health benefit,Period!
c) SHOWING LOVE AND COMPASSION TO OUR NEIGHBOURS
There is a hadith that stresses that it is difficult for a person to enter Jannah if his or her neighbours
are not pleased with that respective person. Therefore we do not expect to having neighbours
near our Dershane that are not pleased with us and feel disgusted whenever we are around them.
So the real question still remains, how can we show love and compassion to our neighbours while
we’re living in our Dershane. It is actually not that difficult.The following are some ways which
you can implement that.First,greeting them by their own greetings(Not compulsory for it to be an
Islamic greeting).Second,paying a visit to them whenever they are sick.Third,Giving them a certain
portion of food whenever programs are done inside our Dershane. There are many ways in which
love and compassion could be achieved but if I were to mention them all, I would bore you guys
and it would take unnecessary estate in this article.
d) HAVING STUDENTS AND TEACHING THEM SECULAR AND NON-SECULAR STUDIES DURING
THE WEEKEND
Since most of us living in Dershane are university students, we are capable of taking in secondary
and high school students and be able to teach them secular and non-secular studies. This can be
easily done during the weekend. I can not stress on how important it is. Helping these students
excel in their school studies while at the same time teaching them about Islam is simply a passive
investment meaning you will extract rewards (thawaab) till Qiyamah from the whole generation
that comes from that respective one student.That is for one student,just imagine how much you
can thawaab you would attain if you had more than one student. I urge you reading this right now,
if you don’t have a students and you don’t have an obstacle that inhibits you from having
 one.Then starting from this week, Get a student and start cultivating for your own hereafter. Use
this blessing while it lasts cause one day you will move out of the Dershane and you will regret
that you misused this once in a lifetime opportunity.
FINAL WORDS
The above points illustrates only a small percentage on how a perfect sacred house should
be.Nevertheless,what really matters is not me bombarding you with a lot of stuffs cause it can get
you easily overwhelmed. Let’s keep it simple and start with the above few key points
.All these four points and the whole article in general will mean nothing if they are not put into
practice cause knowledge without practice is useless.

………Thanks for taking time to read this, Any recommendation would be very much appreciated. Catch
you later next week! May Allah bless you!.………

…end…