ﲔ ﲕ ﲖ ﲗ ﲘ ﲙ ﲚ ﲛ ﲜ ﲝ ﲞ ﲟ ﲠ ﲡ ﲢ ﲣ ﲤ ﲥ ﲦ ﲧ ﲨ ﲩ
The hypocrite men and hypocrite women are of one another. They enjoin what is wrong and forbid what is right and close their hands. They have forgotten Allah, so He has forgotten them [accordingly]. Indeed, the hypocrites - it is they who are the defiantly disobedient.
Tafsir
Verse range: 9:67
This means they are similar in hypocrisy, just as the parts of a single thing are similar to one another; the intent is unity in essence and form, like water and soil. This verse is connected to all their previously mentioned abominations. It is also said that it is connected to His, the Exalted’s, saying: “They swear by Allah that they are indeed of you.” The purpose here is to refute and invalidate their aforementioned claim and to affirm His, the Glorified’s, saying: “And they are not of you.” What follows regarding the divergence of their attributes from the attributes of the believers serves as evidence for that. The particle min (from/of) in both interpretations indicates connectivity, as in the saying of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him: "You are to me as Aaron was to Moses." Mentioning the females is to indicate the complete depth of their roots in disbelief and hypocrisy.
“They enjoin the evil”—meaning: the denial of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace—“and forbid the good”—meaning: the testimony that there is no god but Allah and acknowledging what Allah, the Exalted, has revealed, as narrated by Ibn Abi Hatim from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with both of them.
It is narrated from Abu al-Aliyah that he said: Every mention of "evil" (munkar) in the Quran refers to the worship of idols and Satan. It is not far-fetched that "evil" and "good" (ma'ruf) are intended to encompass what was mentioned and otherwise, with the aforementioned being the primary inclusion. The sentence is an explanatory initiation confirming the content of what preceded, revealing the opposition of their state to the state of the believers, or it is a second predicate.
“And they withhold their hands”—from spending in the obedience of Allah and seeking His pleasure, as narrated from Qatadah and Al-Hasan. Withholding the hand is a metonym for stinginess and avarice, just as extending it is a metonym for generosity, because one who gives extends their hand, unlike one who withholds. According to Al-Jubba'i, the intent is that they withhold their hands from striving in the way of Allah, the Exalted, though this contradicts the common usage of this expression.
“They have forgotten Allah”—"forgetting" is a metaphor for abandonment, and it is a metonym for forsaking obedience; thus, the meaning is that they did not obey Him, the Glorified. “So He has forgotten them”—by withholding His grace and bounty from them. The expression "forgetting" is used for the sake of symmetry (mushakalah).
“Indeed, the hypocrites are the defiantly disobedient”—meaning: they are perfect in rebellion and fisq (defiant disobedience), which is the departure from obedience and the shedding of all goodness, to the point that it is as if they represent the entire category of the disobedient. Hence, the exclusivity derived from the use of the pronoun of separation (hum) and the definiteness of the predicate is valid, otherwise, how many other defiantly disobedient people exist besides them?
