﴿ يَحْلِفُونَ بِٱللَّهِ لَكُمْ لِيُرْضُوكُمْ وَٱللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُۥٓ أَحَقُّ أَن يُرْضُوهُ إِن كَانُوا۟ مُؤْمِنِينَ ﴾

“[The hypocrites] swear to you by God [that they are acting in good faith], with a view to pleasing you [O believers] - the while it is God and His Apostle whose pleasure they should seek above all else, if indeed they are believers!”

Those who are engrossed in worldly considerations and therefore are not able to support God’s religion—rising above their reservations—are generally people of status in society. In order to keep their position intact, they try to spoil the image of those who have risen in true Islam. They run campaigns of false propaganda against them, devising different ways to distort their image, such as ferreting out various points in their statements which they claim to be objectionable. Such people forget that this is a very serious matter. For their part they are simply opposing the people of Faith, but it amounts to opposing God Himself; it is like setting themselves up as adversaries of God. Had these people admitted their wrongdoing, instead of trying to establish their innocence, and had they been the well-wishers of the believers at least in their hearts, they would perhaps have been treated as pardonable. But having adopted an obstinate and inimical attitude, they have written their names on the list of God’s enemies. Now, for them, there is nothing but dishonour and divine retribution. Fear of God softens a person’s heart. He patiently listens even to people’s baseless utterances—to such an extent that the hypocrites start saying that that person seems to be a simpleton, that he is unable to fully understand the points being made.