ﲀ ﲁ ﲂ ﲃ ﲄ ﲅ ﲆ ﲇ ﲈ ﲉ ﲊ ﲋ ﲌ ﲍ ﲎ ﲏ ﲐ ﲑ
When the hypocrites come to you, [O Muhammad], they say, "We testify that you are the Messenger of Allah." And Allah knows that you are His Messenger, and Allah testifies that the hypocrites are liars.
Tafsir
Verse range: 63:1
It is Medinan, and its number of verses is eleven, without disagreement. The reason for its connection [to the preceding Surah] is that in Surah Al-Jumu'ah, the believers were mentioned, and in this one, their opposites are mentioned, namely the hypocrites. For this reason, Sa’id ibn Mansur and Al-Tabarani in Al-Awsat recorded, with a hasan (sound) chain of narration from Abu Hurayrah, who said: "The Messenger of Allah (may Allah exalt his mention and grant him peace) used to recite in the Friday prayer Surah Al-Jumu'ah, thereby inciting the believers, and in the second [rak’ah] Surah Al-Munafiqun, thereby rebuking the hypocrites."
Abu Hayyan stated regarding this: "Since the cause of dispersing from listening to the sermon was perhaps brought about by the hypocrites, and many people among the believers followed them in that due to their joy over the caravan that had arrived with provisions—as the time was one of famine—there came the mention of the hypocrites and what they possessed of hatred for the people of faith, followed by the vileness of their deeds and their words." The first [view] is more appropriate.
"When the hypocrites come to you" (i.e., when they present themselves in your assembly; and those meant by them are Abdullah ibn Ubayy and his companions).
"They say: 'We bear witness that you are indeed the Messenger of Allah'"—the emphasis using inna (indeed) and the lam (the emphatic prefix) serves the purpose of conveying the importance of the news; it is their knowledge of this reported fact that necessitates emphasizing the testimony. It points to their claim of muwata’ah (concordance between tongue and heart) therein, even if, in itself, testimony can apply to both truth and falsehood. The emphasis in His saying, Exalted is He, "And Allah knows that you are indeed His Messenger," is for the sake of placing greater care upon the reality of the matter of the report; or it is simply to correspond with their own conduct. This sentence is introduced as a parenthetical clause to dispel any misapprehension that might arise from His saying, Exalted is He, "And Allah bears witness that the hypocrites are indeed liars."
The lying mentioned refers to their very act of "bearing witness" from the outset. Al-Tayyibi mentioned that this is a subtle form of tatmim (complementation). An analogy to this is the saying of Abu al-Tayyib: "You despise the world with the contempt of one who has experienced it, seeing all that is in it—may you be protected from it—as perishable." Thus, the falsehood refers to "we bear witness" based on the implicit claim indicated by the emphasis—namely, the claim of concordance (between heart and speech) in their testimony. That is: "And Allah bears witness that they are indeed liars in what they have implied by their saying 'we bear witness,'" which is the claim of concordance and alignment between their tongues and hearts in this testimony.
It may be said: Testimony is a specific type of report, which is that in which the tongue agrees with the heart. As for perjury, it is permissible (linguistically), similar to the use of "sale" to refer to an invalid transaction. Thus, they are liars in their statement "we bear witness," which is derived from their labeling that statement as "testimony." This is the intent of those who said: "They are liars in naming that 'testimony.'" Do not neglect this. According to this view, it is not necessary for their lie to be verified by a claim of concordance, because the word itself is established for one who is in agreement.
It is also possible that the falsehood refers to their saying "that you are indeed the Messenger of Allah" in consideration of the implication of the report—meaning it refers to the implicit information—or that it refers to it in consideration of what they held internally. That is: "They are liars in their saying 'you are indeed the Messenger of Allah' according to themselves," because they believed it was a lie and a report contrary to the actual state of the one being reported about. It is said: According to this, the lie is the "legal/religious" one, which incurs blame. Do you not see that those who exert ijtihad (legal reasoning) are not attributed with lying even if they are attributed with error?
The second scholar suggested that the falsehood might refer to the oath taken by the hypocrites when they claimed they did not say: "Do not spend on those who are with the Messenger of Allah until they disperse from around him, and if we return to Medina, the more honored will surely expel the more humiliated from it." This is based on what is mentioned in Sahih al-Bukhari on the authority of Zayd ibn Arqam, who said: "I was on an expedition with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and I heard Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul say: 'Do not spend on those who are with the Messenger of Allah until they disperse from around him; and if we return from his side, the more honored will surely expel the more humiliated from it.' I mentioned this to my uncle, who then mentioned it to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). He summoned me and I told him, so the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) sent for Abdullah ibn Ubayy and his companions, and they swore that they had not said it. So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) considered me a liar and believed them. I was overcome by such distress as I had never felt before, and I sat in my house. My uncle said to me, 'What did you intend by this, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) considered you a liar and loathed you?' Then Allah revealed: 'When the hypocrites come to you...' So the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) sent for me, read it, and said: 'Indeed, Allah has verified you, O Zayd.'"
Some of the eminent scholars suggested that the meaning is that the characteristic of the hypocrites is lying, even if they happened to be truthful in this specific report. Regardless of which, the argument—that truthfulness is merely the correspondence of the report to the belief of the reporter, even if that belief is erroneous, and that a lie is the absence of such correspondence—does not hold firm for the grammarians. Mentioning the "hypocrites" by name instead of using a pronoun is for the sake of censuring them and indicating the cause of the ruling. The discussion regarding "if" follows the manner mentioned previously.
