9. At-Tawba

And of them, the hypocrites, are those who injure the Prophet, by casting aspersions on him and communicating [to others] what he says [in confidence], saying, when they are forbidden from [doing] this, lest it should reach him: ‘He is only a listener!’, that is, he listens to anything that is said, and accepts it, so that when we swear to him that we have not communicated [to others] a particular thing, he believes us. Say, he is, ‘A listener, who listens, to good for you, and not one who listens to evil, one who believes in God and has faith, he trusts, in the believers, in what they inform him, and not in others (the lām [of li’l-mu’minīna, ‘in the believers’] has been added to distinguish between belief in the sense of ‘submitting [to God]’ (islām), and in other senses [such as ‘trusting’]) and who is a mercy (read rahmatun, in the nominative, as a supplement to udhunun, ‘a listener’, or rahmatin, in the genitive, as a supplement to khayrin, ‘to good’) to those of you who believe. Those who injure God’s Messenger, for them there is a painful chastisement’.

They swear by God to you, O believers, that what has reached you of the Messenger being injured they did not do, so that they might please you, but God and His Messenger are more deserving that they should please them, through obedience, if they are, true, believers (the merging of the pronouns into one [in yurdūhu, ‘their pleasing them’] is because the ‘pleasure’ of both [God and His Messenger] are mutually dependent; [either that] or it is because the predicate of Allāhu wa-rasūluhu, ‘God and His Messenger’, has been omitted).

The hypocrites are cautious, they fear, lest a sūra should be revealed to them, that is, [to] the believers, informing them of what is in their [the hypocrites’] hearts, of hypocrisy, and yet despite this they persist in mockery. Say: ‘Keep mocking! (this is an imperative of threat) God will bring out, He will make manifest, that, hypocrisy of yours, of which you are fearful’, lest it be brought out.

And if (la-in: the lām is for oaths) you question them, about their mockery of you and of the Qur’ān while they were journeying with you towards Tabūk, assuredly they will say, making excuses: ‘We were only engaging [in idle talk] and jesting’, in conversation, in order to pass [the time of] the road, and we did not mean it. Say, to them: ‘Were you then mocking God, and His signs, and His Messenger?

Make no excuses, for that. You have disbelieved after believing, that is, your disbelief has become manifest even as you have manifested belief. If We forgive (read passive yu‘fa, ‘it is forgiven’, or active [first person plural] na‘fu, ‘We forgive’) a party of you, because of its sincerity and its repentance, as in the case of Jahsh b. Humayyir, We will chastise (read either [passive] tu‘adhdhab, ‘[it] shall be chastised’, or nu‘adhdhib) another party because they were sinners’, persisting in hypocrisy and mockery.

The hypocrites, both men and women, are of one another, that is, they resemble one another in religion, as pieces of an individual entity, they enjoin indecency, unbelief and acts of disobedience, and forbid decency, faith and obedience; and they withhold their hands shut, from expending in obedience [of God]; they have forgotten God, they have abandoned obedience of Him, so He has forgotten them, He has deprived them of His grace. Truly the hypocrites, they are the wicked.

God has promised the hypocrites, both men and women, and the disbelievers, the fire of Hell, to abide therein: it will suffice them, as a requital and a punishment. And God has cursed them, He has removed them from His mercy, and theirs will be a lasting, perpetual, chastisement.

You, O hypocrites, are, like those before you, who were far mightier than you, and more abundant in wealth and children. They enjoyed their share, their lot in this world. So you enjoy, O hypocrites, your share, just as those before you enjoyed their share, and you indulge [in vain talk], in falsehood and defamation of the Prophet (s), just as they indulged [in vain talk]. Those, their works have become invalid in this world and in the Hereafter; and those, they indeed are the losers.

Has not the tidings, the tale, of those before them reached them — the folk of Noah, and ‘Ād, the folk of Hūd, and Thamūd, the folk of Sālih, and the folk of Abraham, and the dwellers of Midian, the folk of Shu‘ayb, and the Deviant [cities]?, the cities of the folk of Lot, meaning, its inhabitants. Their messengers brought them clear proofs, with miracles, but they denied them, and so were destroyed. God would never have wronged them, by punishing them for no sin [on their part], but they wronged themselves, by committing sin.