And when Allah Most High commanded the freeing of a believing slave as an expiation, people were not required to free only someone whom they knew to have faith in his heart. That would be like telling them: “Kill everyone except those whom you know to have faith in their hearts.” They were not commanded to probe people’s hearts or cut open their bellies. Thus, if they saw a man outwardly professing faith, they were permitted to free him.
When the owner of the slave girl asked the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, “Is she a believer?” he meant only the outward profession of faith by which a Muslim is distinguished from a disbeliever. Likewise, someone bound by a vow was not required to free only someone whom he knew to have faith in his heart, for he cannot know this in all cases; indeed, no created being can.
Here is Allah’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, the most knowledgeable of all creation, yet Allah says to him:
“Among the Bedouins around you are hypocrites, and among the people of Medina are those hardened in hypocrisy. You do not know them; We know them. We will punish them twice.”
The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, ruled concerning these people just as he did concerning the other believers. Had the funeral of one of them been brought before him, he would have offered the funeral prayer. He was forbidden to offer that prayer only for those whose hypocrisy he knew. Otherwise, he would have been required to probe people’s hearts and know their innermost secrets, something no human being can do.
Thus, when Allah exposed them in Surah Barā’ah through His repeated words, “And among them,” “And among them,” he came to know the hypocrisy of some whose hypocrisy he had not previously known. Allah described them by characteristics that people knew they possessed, but people had not been certain that these characteristics necessarily indicated their hypocrisy. Some suspected it, and some knew it, but their hypocrisy was not known to the community at large, unlike their situation once the Quran was revealed.
Thus, when Surah Barā’ah was revealed, they concealed their hypocrisy. They could no longer display it from time to time as they had been able to do before. Allah Most High revealed:
“If they do not desist