come to you.”
[Al-Mā’idah: 41]

That is, they listen to lies, accept them, and believe them; and they listen to other people who have not come to you and heed them. He thus explained that they believe lies and heed those who oppose the Messenger.

As for anyone who supposes that His words, “They readily listen to them,” mean that they act as spies for those who are absent, and derives the legal ruling concerning spies from this verse, he is mistaken. What the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, made public for the hypocrites and Jews to hear was not something he kept secret, such that conveying it would constitute spying on him. Rather, the meaning is that they readily listen to lies—that is, they believe them—and readily listen to other people who oppose the Messenger—that is, they heed them. This is the condition of everyone who departs from the Quran and Sunnah: he inevitably believes lies, thus becoming one of those who readily listen to falsehood; and he inevitably heeds someone other than Allah and the Messenger, thus becoming one who readily listens to other people who have not followed the Messenger.

These people have their share in the words of Allah Most High:

“On the Day when the wrongdoer bites his hands, saying, ‘If only I had taken a path with the Messenger! * Woe to me! If only I had not taken so-and-so as a close friend! * He led me astray from the Reminder after it had come to me.’ And Satan ever abandons man.”
[Al-Furqān: 27–29]

And His words:

“On the Day when their faces are turned about in the Fire, they will say, ‘If only we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Messenger!’ * And they will say, ‘Our Lord, we obeyed our leaders and our great ones, and they led us astray from the path. * Our Lord, give them double the punishment, and curse them with a mighty curse.’”
[Al-Ahzāb: 66–68]

It thus becomes clear that the underlying approach of anyone who opposes the prophetic texts with his own opinion