As for the fourth category, it is the worst of all: they neither show piety when they have power nor exercise patience when they are tested. Rather, they are as Allah Most High says:

“Indeed, mankind was created anxious:
impatient when evil touches him,
and withholding when good touches him.”

You will find such people among the most unjust and tyrannical when they have power, and among the most abject and panic-stricken when they are overpowered. If you overpower them, they abase themselves before you, behave hypocritically towards you, offer you gifts, and beg for your mercy. To protect themselves, they resort to all manner of lies, self-abasement, and exaltation of the person they petition. But if they overpower you, they are among the most unjust and hard-hearted of people, and the least merciful, kind, or forgiving.

Muslims have experienced this with all those furthest removed from the realities of faith, such as the Tatars whom the Muslims fought, and those who resemble them in many of their ways—even if they outwardly wear the attire of Muslim soldiers, scholars, ascetics, merchants, or craftsmen. What counts is the underlying reality. For Allah does not look at your appearance or your wealth; rather, He looks at your hearts and deeds. Whoever has a heart and deeds like those of the Tatars resembles them in this respect. Whatever Islam he possesses, or outwardly professes, is comparable to the Islam they possess and outwardly profess. Indeed, among those who outwardly profess Islam, other than the warring Tatars, are people whose apostasy is greater, who are more given to the character of pre-Islamic ignorance, and who are further removed from Islamic character than the Tatars.

An authentic hadith reports that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to say in his sermons:

“The best speech is the speech of Allah, and the best