and among them are some who look at you; can you then guide the blind, even though they do not see? The Exalted likewise says in al-Anʿām: “Among them are some who listen to you, yet We have placed coverings over their hearts so that they do not grasp it, and a heaviness in their ears. Even if they were to witness every sign, they would still not believe in it; and when they come to you disputing with you, those who disbelieve say, ‘This is nothing but the legends of the ancients.’” —the verses.

Thus He has informed us that they neither understand with their hearts, nor hear with their ears, nor believe even when they are shown the Fire. He also related of them, when they said, as recorded in Fuṣṣilat: “Our hearts are veiled from that to which you call us, in our ears is a deafness, and between us and you is a barrier.” They themselves enumerated the obstacles that block the heart, the hearing, and the sight. Their bodies are alive, able to hear sounds and see forms, yet life of the body without life of the heart is like the life of cattle: they have hearing and sight, they eat and drink and mate.

For this reason Allah says in al-Baqarah: “The likeness of those who disbelieve is that of one who calls out to what hears nothing but a cry and a shout.” He likened them to sheep at which the shepherd hollers; they hear nothing but a voice. In another verse, al-Furqān, He says: “Do you think that most of them hear or understand? They are but like cattle—indeed, they are further astray from the path.” And He, exalted is He, says in al-Aʿrāf: “We have created for Hell many of the jinn and humankind: they have hearts with which they do not understand, eyes with which they do not see, and ears with which they do not hear. They are like cattle; rather, they are even further astray.”

A group of commentators maintain, regarding these verses and others like them—such as His words in Yūnus: “When harm touches a human being he calls upon Us, whether lying on his side, sitting, or standing; but when We remove his harm he passes on as though he had never called upon Us concerning the harm that afflicted him,” and similar passages in which Allah mentions human faults and censures them—that the verses concern only the disbelievers, and that the word “human” here refers exclusively to the unbeliever. Whoever hears this will then imagine that a person who outwardly professes Islam has no share in that censure and threat; his mind turns instead to those openly guilty of idolatry among the Arabs, or to the disbelievers he knows—the Jews, the Christians, the idol-worshippers of the Turks or the Indians, and the like—and so he derives no benefit from the verses that Allah sent down to guide His servants.

We say, first: those who outwardly profess Islam include both believers and hypocrites, and hypocrites are numerous in every age; indeed, the hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the Fire. Second: a person may possess a portion of hypocrisy and disbelief even though he also possesses faith, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said in the agreed-upon hadith: “Four traits—whoever possesses them is a pure hypocrite; and whoever has one of them has a trait of hypocrisy until he abandons it: when he speaks, he lies; when he is entrusted, he betrays.”