18
From here to verse 10 continuously the hypocrites have been taken to task for the attitude they had adopted in the Muslim society. Although apparently they were a part of the Muslim community, secretly they were a separate group from the believers, Whenever the Muslims saw them, they found them whispering secretly together. That is hew they conspired and made all sorts of plans in order to create rifts in the ranks of the Muslims, and to cause alarm and spread mischief among them.
19
The question may arise Why have three and five been mentioned here instead of two and three? Why has two, and then four, been left out? The commentators have given many answers to this question but in our opinion the correct answer is that this style has been adopted for maintaining the literary beauty of. the Qur'iin. Without this the style would have suffered from blemishes. Therefore, after making mention of three and five whisperers the gap has been ,filled up in the following sentence by saying: whether the whisperers are fewer than three, or more than five, in any case Allah is always with them.
20
This Allah's being associated with them is, in fact, in the sense of Allah's being All-Knowing and All-Aware, All-Hearing and All-Seeing, and His being absolute in power, and not in the sense that Allah, God forbid, is a person who is secretly and invisibly present among the five persons as their sixth associate. This, in fact, is meant to make the people realize that they may be holding secret counsels in safe and hidden places and may be able to conceal their plans from the world but they cannot keep them concealed from Allah, that they may escape from every power of the world, but they cannot escape the grasp of Allah.
21
This shows that before the revelation of this verse the Holy Prophet (upon whom by Allah's peace) had forbidden the people this practice. Yet when they did not desist, Allah directly sent down this verse containing His warning and wrath for such people.
22
This was the common practice of the Jews and the hypocrites. According to several traditions, some Jews came before the Holy Prophet (upon be Allah's peace) and said: "As-sam alaika ya abul-Qasim. " That is, they pronounced as-sam `alaika in such a manner as to give the impression that they had said as-salam alaika (peace be on you), which is the Islamic way of greeting. But actually they had said "Sam ", which means death. In response the Holy Prophet said: "wa alaikum. "Hadrat `A'ishah retorted: "May death visit you and the curse of Allah!" The Holy Prophet warned her, saying: " `A'ishah, Allah does not like abusive language," She submitted: "Didn't you hear, O Messenger of Allah what they said?" The Holy Prophet replied: "And didn't you hear what reply I gave? I said: and the same upon you." (Bukhiiri, Muslim, Ibn Jarir Ibn Abi Hatim). Hadrat `Abdullah bin `Abbiis has stated that both the Jews and the hypocrites had adopted this very way of greeting. (Ibn Jarir).
23
That is, they regarded it as a proof of the Holy Prophet's not being a Messenger. They thought that if he had been a true Messenger, they would be punished by a torment as soon as they greeted him in that way. Since there was not torment while they were greeting him day and night like that, he was not a Messenger of Allah.
