ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl—the head of the hypocrites and the acknowledged leader of both the Khazraj and the Aws—had been unanimously chosen in the Age of Ignorance to be made their king. Once God guided those same tribes to Islam before his coronation could take place, the accursed man almost choked on his own spite,(1) and the matter burned within him. He is the one who declared, “If we return to Madinah, the mightier will surely expel the abased from it” (al-Munāfiqūn 63:8).(2)

Many verses were revealed about him. Concerning him, and also about Wadīʿah—a man of Banū ʿAwf—Mālik ibn Abī Qawqal, Suwayd, and Dāʿis, all members of his clan, God sent down the words, “If they are driven out, they will not go out with them…” and the rest of the passage (al-Hashr 59:12),(3) when they secretly inclined toward Banū al-Naḍīr.

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Ibn Isḥāq(4) then mentioned certain Jewish scholars who outwardly professed Islam as a form of dissimulation while remaining unbelievers at heart; he placed them among the hypocrites—the worst of the lot. They included Saʿd ibn Ḥunayf and Zayd ibn al-Luṣayt, the latter of whom quipped when the Prophet’s she-camel was lost, “Muhammad claims that news from heaven reaches him, yet he does not even know where his camel is!” The Messenger of God ﷺ replied, “By God, I know only what God has taught me. He has informed me that she is in this ravine, detained by a tree that has snagged her rein.” Some Muslims went and found her exactly as he had described.(5)

He also cited Nuʿmān ibn Awfā, ʿUthmān ibn Awfā, and Rāfiʿ ibn Ḥuraymila—about whom the Messenger of God ﷺ said on the day he died, as it has reached us, “Today a great man from among the great hypocrites has died.” Likewise Rafaʿah ibn Zayd ibn al-Tābūt: when a fierce wind blew the day he died, while the Prophet ﷺ was returning from Tabūk, he remarked, “It has blown because a great man from among the great disbelievers has died.” When they reached Madinah they found that Rafaʿah had indeed died that very day.(6)

He further named Salsalah ibn Birhām, Kinānah, and Ibn Ṣūriyā. These were among those who feigned Islam while remaining hypocritical Jews.

He(7) said: These hypocrites would attend the mosque, listen to the Muslims’ conversations, and mock them