the sincere fighters risk their very lives, for they have sold them to Allah: “Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth in exchange for Paradise. They fight in the way of Allah, kill, and are killed—a promise truly binding upon Him in the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran. And who is truer to His covenant than Allah? Rejoice, then, in the bargain you have concluded, for that is the supreme triumph” (al-Tawbah 9:111).

This is the contract of sale: the Buyer is Allah, and He is already the Owner of all souls. Yet, out of His gracious bounty, He deemed the believers’ voluntary offering of their lives and their wealth a sale, called His acceptance of it a purchase, and set Paradise as the price.

Thus the believing combatants dislike death, but they love whatever Allah loves. Since Allah loves jihad, they too love it and find it sweet because Allah—glorified and exalted—loves it. Their natural aversion therefore melts away and grows so faint that the sincere believer hardly feels it at all. This testifies to the strength of faith and the truthfulness of their desire. The same is true with charity and spending for Allah’s sake: everyone is naturally reluctant to part with money, but when faith is strong he feels an inner ease, gladly hands over his wealth, his heart expands, and his face shines with joy. The pattern holds for every strenuous righteous deed: by nature such acts are hard on the soul. This is the aversion referred to in the Prophet’s ﷺ saying, “Paradise is surrounded by hardships.” (1)

As for the hatred that constitutes disbelief and hypocrisy, it is the outlook of one who thinks that if he prays he is merely playing around, yet he still performs the prayer to show off. Living among Muslims, he fears their criticism if he abandons it—just as some hypocrites in the Messenger’s ﷺ time used to pray and even go forth to fight, so much so that their reality was hidden from many believers, and indeed the condition of some of them was concealed even from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.