(118–120) “O you who believe, do not take as close confidants those outside your own ranks. They will spare no effort to ruin you and wish that you would suffer. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their hearts conceal is far worse. We have certainly made the signs clear to you, if you would but understand. * Here you are—you love them, though they do not love you, and you believe in the Scripture in its entirety. When they meet you, they say, ‘We believe,’ but when they are alone, they bite their fingertips in rage at you. Say, ‘Die in your rage!’ Allah surely knows all that hearts conceal. * If any good touches you, it distresses them; but if misfortune strikes you, they rejoice over it. Yet if you are patient and fear Allah, their scheming will not harm you in the least. Allah surely encompasses all that they do.”
Allah Most High forbids His believing servants from taking as close confidants hypocrites from among the People of the Book or others, allowing them access to their secrets or entrusting them with certain affairs of the Muslims. This is because they are enemies whose hearts are filled with hostility and hatred, which has become manifest in their speech, while “what their hearts conceal is far worse” than what is heard from them. For this reason, “they will spare no effort to ruin you”; that is, they will not hold back from bringing harm and hardship upon you, taking measures designed to harm you, and assisting your enemies against you.
Allah says to the believers, “We have certainly made the signs clear to you”—the signs that contain your religious and worldly welfare—“so that you may understand,” recognize them, and distinguish between friend and foe. Not everyone should be taken as a close confidant. Rather, an intelligent person who is compelled to associate with an enemy keeps that association outward and discloses none of his inner affairs to him, even if the enemy flatters him and swears that he is his ally.
Allah then urges the believers to beware of these hypocrites from among the People of the Book and makes clear the intensity of their hostility: “Here you are—you love them, though they do not love you, and you believe in the Scripture in its entirety.” ⦗145⦘ That is, in all the scriptures Allah revealed to His prophets, whereas they do not believe in your Book. Indeed, when they meet you, they make a show of faith before you: “When they meet you, they say, ‘We believe,’ but when they are alone, they bite their fingertips”—the ends of their fingers—“in rage at you,” because of the intensity of their fury against you. “Say, ‘Die in your rage!’ Allah surely knows all that hearts conceal.”
This contains glad tidings for the believers: those who seek to harm you will harm none but themselves. They are unable to act upon their rage; rather, they will remain tormented by it until they die and pass from the punishment of this world to the punishment of the Hereafter.
“If any good touches you,” such as victory over enemies, conquest, and spoils, “it distresses them”; that is, it grieves and saddens them. “But if misfortune strikes you, they rejoice over it. Yet if you are patient and fear Allah, their scheming will not harm you in the least. Allah surely encompasses all that they do.” Thus, if you adopt the means for which Allah has promised victory—namely, patience and fear of Him—their plotting will not harm you. Rather, Allah will turn their plotting back against them, for His knowledge and power encompass them. They have no escape from this, and nothing about them remains hidden.