Al-Munafiqun

When the hypocrites come to you they say, with their tongues, in contradiction of what is in their hearts: ‘We bear witness that you are indeed the Messenger of God.’ And God knows that you are indeed His Messenger, and God bears witness, He knows, that the hypocrites truly are liars, in what they conceal, that which is contrary to what they say.

They have taken their oaths as a shield, as a [means of] protection for their possessions and their lives, and so they have barred, thereby, from the way of God, that is, from using them for the struggle. Evil indeed is that which they are wont to do.

That, namely, their evil deed, is because they believed, by [affirming faith only with] the tongue, then disbelieved, in [their] hearts, that is to say, they persist in harbouring disbelief in it; therefore their hearts have been stamped, sealed, with disbelief. Hence they do not understand, faith.

And when you see them, their figures please you, on account of their fairness; and if they speak, you listen to their speech, because of its eloquence. [Yet] they are, by virtue of the enormous size of their figures, [yet] in their lack of comprehension, like blocks of timber (read khushbun or khushubun) [that have been] propped-up, set reclining against a wall. They assume that every cry, made, like a battle-cry or one made to [retrieve] a lost camel, is [directed] against them, because of the [extent of] terror in their hearts, lest something should be revealed deeming their blood licit. They are the enemy, so beware of them, for they communicate your secrets to the disbelievers. May God assail them!, destroy them! How can they deviate?, how can they be turned away from faith after the proofs [for it] have been established?

And when it is said to them, ‘Come, offer apologies, and God’s Messenger will ask forgiveness for you’, they twist (read lawwaw or lawū), they turn, their heads, and you see them turning away, rejecting this [offer], disdainful.

It will be the same for them, whether you ask forgiveness for them (a’staghfarta: the interrogative hamza here has taken the place of the conjunctive hamza) or do not ask forgiveness for them: God will never forgive them. Indeed God does not guide the immoral folk.

They are the ones who say, to their companions from among the Helpers: ‘Do not expend on those who are with the Messenger of God, from among the Emigrants, until they scatter off’, until they part with him. Yet to God belong the treasuries of the heavens and the earth, with [what they contain of] provision, and so He is the provider for the Emigrants and others, but the hypocrites do not understand.

They say, ‘Surely if we return, from the raid against the Banū al-Mustaliq, to Medina, the powerful, by which they meant themselves, will [soon] expel from it the weaker’, by which they meant the believers. Yet [the real] might, victory, belongs to God and to His Messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites do not know, that.

O you who believe, do not let your possessions and your children divert you, distract you, from the remembrance of God, [from] the five prayers; for whoever does that — it is they who are the losers.

And expend, in alms, of that with which We have provided you before death comes to any of you, whereat he will say, ‘My Lord, if only (law-lā means hal-lā, ‘why [do You] not’; or the lā is extra and the law is optative) You would reprieve me for a short time so that I might give charity (assaddaq: the original tā’ [of atasaddaqa] has been assimilated with the sād), that I might offer alms, and become one of the righteous!’, by making the Pilgrimage. Ibn ‘Abbās, may God be pleased with both [him and his father], said, ‘Every person who has fallen short of [his duty regarding] alms and the Pilgrimage will ask to be returned [to this world] at the moment of death’.

But God will never reprieve a soul when its term has come. And God is Aware of what you do (ta‘malūna; also read [as the third person plural] ya‘malūna, ‘they do’).