Day 24
Hypocrisy and Its Cure
TL;DR:
On day 24 of Be Quranic, the focus is on a new passage from Suratul Baqarah, discussing the characteristics of hypocrites, or munafiq.
The session delves into the historical context of hypocrisy in Medina during the Prophet's time, particularly after the Battle of Badr.
It highlights the munafiq's behaviour of outwardly expressing faith while internally disbelieving, a stark contrast to the consistency in belief and action seen in true believers and disbelievers.
The importance of sincerity, aligning internal and external states, and practicing private acts of worship for personal spiritual development is emphasised as a way to combat hypocrisy.
This is an AI generated transcript. You can watch the video on Instagram or Tiktok, or listen to it on Spotify.
Welcome to day 24 of Be Quranic, where we take short passages from the Quran daily, extract practical lessons from them, and apply them to our daily lives so that we can be more Quranic.
In case you are wondering where I am, I am at Lucky Bay, about 800 kilometres away from Perth. Alright, we continue our study of Suratul Baqarah. Today, inshaAllah, we enter a new passage within this great surah.
We've seen the first five ayahs where Allah describes the characteristics of the people of Taqwa. These are the people, the do's that we should follow. And then we have the first part of the don'ts, the kafir, ayah 6 and ayah 7.
Two ayahs to describe the kafir. And then now we're going to embark from ayah 8 onwards, multiple ayahs. This is quite a long passage. We're going to do it in a few days. The description of the hypocrites.
Who are the munafiq? First of all, if you remember when we were talking about infaq, we were talking about charity, we explained this word nafaka. It means a tunnel in the ground, a hole in the ground where you have an entry point and an exit point.
And when we talk about infaq, we use this word in a positive manner. That means you are transferring your account from one hole and extracting from another hole. You're transferring your wealth from the worldly account and you are withdrawing it in your akhirah account.
But when we're applying it to the munafiq, a munafiq is someone who is neither here nor there. He is trying to play both sides. Let's look at a bit of historical context of who the original munafiq, who the original hypocrites were.
When Rasulullah S.A.W. migrated to Medina, the demographics in Medina were mainly pagan Arabs and Jews. And then slowly more and more of the pagan Arabs converted to Islam. There was still a minority, a small number of pagan Arabs who refused to accept Islam and this group is headed by Abdullah bin Ubai bin Salul.
Abdullah bin Ubai, he was one of the leaders of the Arabs in Medina before Islam. He was hoping to be the one leader of the Arabs in Medina but the people of Medina chose the Prophet ﷺ as the leader.
So he refused to accept the Prophet on that basis. But after the battle of Badr, when the Muslims won a resounding victory in that battle, the pagans realised that there is no future for paganism in Medina.
So they converted to Islam externally while internally they remained disbelievers. Understanding that context, let's look into the ayat that we're going to learn today. The ayat reads... I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan and from the people who say, We believe in Allah and the Last Day, and they are not believers.
They are admonished by Allah and those who believe, and they only deceive themselves and what they feel. They say, They have a painful punishment for what they used to lie. Allah's love for the great.
And from among the people, there are those that claim that they have iman in Allah and the hereafter, and they are not believers when they have never had iman. They are trying to trick Allah and the believers, and they are not tricking anyone except for themselves, and they are not even realising it.
In the ahad, there is a disease, and Allah would add to that disease. For them, it is a painful punishment for what they have lied. So this ayah is telling us, the first description of a munafiq, a hypocrite, is that they claim something that is not true.
They claim that they have iman, yet they actually don't have iman. What they are saying is not the same as what is in their heart. A mu'min believes in the heart, iman will guide and prove it through his action.
His external state and his internal state are the same. A kafir disbelieves internally and proves it, believing through his actions, and so his internal and external state is the same. A munafiq, his internal state disbelieves.
His external state shows belief. His internal and external states are not the same. This is a munafiq. They claim they have iman, yet actually they don't. Wa ma 'hum bi mu'minin. So they are trying to trick Allah and the believers, and Allah is saying, is what they are doing except for themselves.
They are not tricking anyone except for themselves and they are not even realising it. They don't even realise that Allah knows and the believers also know who the hypocrites are. And Allah says in their hearts there is a disease and Allah would add to this disease.
See, it started with them having a disease in their heart and Allah would just add to the disease because that is what they want. When you have iman and you work for more iman Allah will add iman into your heart.
When you have kufr and you have disbelief and you want more disbelief, you work towards more disbelief Allah will add. Allah will give you what you ask for and what you work for in this context. They are working for more disease in their heart.
They choose to disbelieve, they choose to pretend, they choose to be hypocrites. Fazaadahumullahu maradha. Allah will add more disease into their heart and for them is a painful punishment for what they have lied.
Aligning our hearts, being sincere in our actions is really important. The state of Nifaq, the state of hypocrisy not being sincere in our actions, externally and internally conflicting is something that even terrified the Sahaba.
Rasul S.A.W. once gave a list of the Munafiq, of the hypocrites to Sayyidina Hudayfa al-Yaman. Hudayfa al-Yaman is the secret keeper of the Prophet S.A.W. Umar ibn Khattab and this is Umar ibn Khattab.
Immediately he went to Sayyidina Hudayfa and asked for the name in the list. Even Umar is worried because you have this serious hypocrisy, serious Nifaq like Abdullah ibn Ubai who really intended harm for the Muslims but there are also minor hypocrisies where there is incongruence between our states where we do something for other reasons than Allah.
Our internal state and our external state is not the same. This is our continuous struggle in life, trying to achieve sincerity for the sake of Allah. Truthfulness, asadiyyik, whether internal and external are equally true is something that we need to work hard, we need to strive towards.
How do you achieve this sincerity? Make sure that you have certain private acts of worship between you and Allah and no one else. When you do an act of worship publicly, make sure that you do more privately.
If you pray sunnah at the masjid, make sure that you pray more rak'at at home between you and Allah. If you read the Qur'an publicly, people can hear you reading the Qur'an, the ayat of Allah. Make sure that you have private sessions just you and Allah reading the Qur'an and nobody knows about it.
When you give charity publicly, make sure that you give more privately where no one else knows. This is sincerity training. We do more acts of worship privately than what we display publicly. This is how we cultivate ikhlas into our hearts.
Ikhlas is the cure from this disease of hypocrisy, this disease of nifaf.