Having no expectation in return is a concept that expresses the state of not having any material or spiritual expectation in return for the services the self-sacrificing and good-hearted souls provide for humanity. To serve is an obligation. Services rendered with anticipation will not be effective, as they will not be sincere.

“Cherishing no expectations is the essence of the path of the Prophets. The characteristics of the path of guidance are striving everyday towards God, always running towards Him, selflessly trying to save others’ faith, and enduring many difficulties but never asking for wages in return. In the same way, Prophets Noah, Hud, Salih, Lot, and Shuayb, may God’s blessings and peace be upon all the Prophets, always repeated the same phrase: ‘I ask of you no wage for that (for conveying God’s Message); my wage is due only from the Lord of the worlds.’ (Shuara, 26:109). In saying this, they voiced the shared feeling and thought of all Prophets. God Almighty commanded the Prince of the Prophets to say, ‘(I ask of you no wage, yet even so) whatever you may think I might ask you for by way of wage, it is yours. My wage is only due from God. He is indeed a witness over everything’ (Saba, 34:47). By doing this, He emphasized the lofty aspect of Messengership.”¹⁾

“When brother Ahmed Feyzi passed away, Ali Rıza and Sacit effendis looked at his face for a final time. They told me, ‘By God, he was smiling!’ I led the Funeral Prayer for him. We had been good friends. So I still feel sorry for not having looked at his blessed face for a final time. He had died from a heart attack. As you know, a heart attack causes strain on the face and thus consequent contractions and frowns. In spite of that, God knows what was shown to him and he was smiling. That valuable person had spent his life within the frame of the Qur’an and on the path of striking the balance at thought. He did not make slightest wishes as, ‘Let me be known as a sagacious person, so that others come and form circles around me.’ On the contrary, he spent an entire lifetime of not expecting anything in this world.”²⁾

“A state of harboring no expectation and an understanding of self-sacrifice is very important and a vital dynamic for the sake of continuing to walk on this path with sincerity until our last breath. Since worldly people do not know what these dynamics mean, they reduce the issue to the material and financial aspects and thus try to understand the picture before them accordingly. However, self-sacrifice and harboring no expectations are such values that it is not possible to find any reward to correspond to them in material criteria.”³⁾

“If the devoted souls who walk on the path of guidance keep up their initial purity, non-expectant stance, intention to serve, and do everything purely for the sake of God, the people in the lands they went will observe them for a few years and eventually, when they see the volunteers keep up their steady course, let alone suspecting from them, they will become their defenders.”⁴⁾

Altruism

Devotion

Self-sacrifice

Sincerity

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