﴿8-9﴾ “Have you not considered those who were forbidden to confer privately, yet then return to what they were forbidden and confer privately in sin, aggression, and disobedience to the Messenger? When they come to you, they greet you with words by which Allah has not greeted you, and they say to themselves, ‘Why does Allah not punish us for what we say?’ Hell is sufficient for them; they will burn therein. What a wretched destination! * O you who believe, when you confer privately, do not confer in sin, aggression, and disobedience to the Messenger, but confer in righteousness and piety. Fear Allah, to whom you will be gathered.”
Private conversation is when two or more people confer together. It may concern either good or evil.
Allah Most High therefore commanded the believers to confer privately about righteousness—a comprehensive term encompassing every good deed, act of obedience, ⦗846⦘ and fulfillment of the rights owed to Allah and His servants (1)—and about piety, which [here] is a comprehensive term for refraining from every forbidden deed and sin. A believer obeys this divine command, so you will find him conferring and speaking only about that which draws him nearer to Allah and distances him from His wrath. An evildoer, however, takes Allah’s command lightly and confers in sin, aggression, and disobedience to the Messenger, as do the hypocrites, whose habitual practice and conduct toward the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) are of this kind.
Allah Most High says: “When they come to you, they greet you with words by which Allah has not greeted you.” That is, they behave disrespectfully toward you in the greeting they offer you. “And they say to themselves”—that is, they conceal within themselves (2) what the Knower of the unseen and the seen has mentioned concerning them, namely their words: “Why does Allah not punish us for what we say?” This means that they take the matter lightly and infer, from the fact that punishment is not hastened upon them, that there is nothing objectionable in what they say. Allah Most High explains that He grants respite but does not neglect: “Hell is sufficient for them; they will burn therein. What a wretched destination!” That is, Hell is sufficient for them. It contains every misery and punishment [for them], surrounds them, and will be the means of their torment. “What a wretched destination!”
Those mentioned are either hypocrites who profess faith and address the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in this manner, pretending that they intend something good by it (3), although they are lying; or members of the People of the Scripture who, when greeting the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), say, “Death be upon you, Muhammad,” intending death by it.