Surah Al-Munafiqun, The Hypocrites

Surah 63 · 11 verses · revealed at Medina

Al-Munafiqun is eleven verses about the people in Medina who had joined the community with their mouths and not with anything else.

Its occasion was an expedition on which a leading man of Medina said that when they returned, the stronger would drive out the weaker. A young Muslim who heard him reported it, was accused of lying, and was vindicated when the surah came down repeating the words.

The surah's description of them is unusually physical. When you see them their appearance pleases you, and when they speak you listen to what they say — they are like propped-up timbers, thinking every shout is against them. It is a portrait of people permanently afraid of being found out.

It notes that they said they would not spend on those with the Messenger until they scattered, and answers that the treasuries of the heavens and the earth belong to God, but that the hypocrites do not understand.

It closes by turning to the believers instead, telling them not to let their wealth or their children distract them from the remembrance of God, and to spend from what they have been given before death comes and a person says, my Lord, if only You would delay me a little longer.

The Prophet is reported to have recited this surah at the Friday prayer together with Al-Jumu'ah, which comes immediately before it. The pairing is deliberate: one describes people hurrying away from the sermon to a passing trade, and the other describes people who were never really there at all.

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