As for those guilty of major hypocrisy, Allah says about them, “Deaf, dumb and blind—so they do not return” (Quran 2:18), meaning that inwardly they never return to Islam. He also says, “Do they not see that they are tested once or twice every year, yet they neither repent nor take heed?” (Quran 9:126).

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah said, “The scholars have differed over whether their repentance may be accepted in outward legal terms, since this cannot truly be known, for such people always display Islam.” (1)