And this narration also shows that hypocrisy, like faith, is divisible and comes in many branches: faith itself has branches, it rises and falls. One whose faith is complete is the person who is characterized by doing good deeds, abstaining from evil, and performing acts of devotion that erase his sins, as the Exalted says: “True believers are only those who, when Allah is mentioned, their hearts tremble …” (Al-Anfāl 2) up to His words, “It is they who are the true believers” (Al-Anfāl 4). He also says: “Prosperous indeed are the believers” (Al-Muʾminūn 1) up to His words, “Those are the inheritors who shall inherit Paradise” (Al-Muʾminūn 10-11).

Beneath such people stand another group of believers who have mixed a righteous deed with one that is evil, and beneath them are the disobedient Muslims. These still retain faith that will save them from everlasting punishment—by Allah’s permission and through intercession.

Have you not heard the mass-transmitted hadith: “People will emerge from the Fire—anyone whose heart contains even the weight of an atom of faith” (1)? In the same way, the branches of hypocrisy include lying, betrayal, licentiousness, treachery, showing off, seeking knowledge so that people will talk about one, the love of authority and prominence, and cultivating close ties with evildoers and Christians.

Whoever commits all of these, while harboring rancor against the Prophet ﷺ, or feeling constricted by his rulings, or fasting Ramaḍān without seeking its reward, or deeming the religion of the Christians or Jews to be a “fine religion” and inclining toward them—do not doubt that such a person is a consummate hypocrite who will be in the lowest depth of the Fire. His detested qualities are many in the Qur’an and the Sunnah: he rises to the prayer sluggishly, pays the zakāt (obligatory alms-tax) grudgingly, and when he deals with people it is through deceit and trickery, taking his Islam merely as a shield. We seek refuge in Allah from hypocrisy. The leading Companions feared it for themselves. So if a person possesses even one branch of practical hypocrisy, he earns a share of divine wrath until he abandons it and repents from it.

As for the one whose heart contains doubt about faith in Allah and His Messenger,