and he finds Allah there to settle his account in full.
Likewise, Allah likens the expenditures of the sincere to that fragrant, luxuriant garden, while He likens the spending of those who show off to a smooth rock coated with a thin layer of dust. A heavy downpour strikes it, leaving the rock bare and hard, with nothing upon it. The heart of the ostentatious giver contains neither faith, nor true conviction, nor sincerity; it is as hard as stone. Because his spending does not spring from faith but from ostentation and the desire to be seen, it brings no life or blessing to his heart—just as that rain leaves the polished stone completely unaffected.
When these parables are applied to the realities they represent, they disclose and clarify them, laying bare their degrees of good and evil, perfection and deficiency.
Allah also portrays the state of the hypocrites as that of a person engulfed in darkness who kindles a fire borrowed from others. Once the fire lights up what is around him and the path becomes clear, their light suddenly disappears and their flame is extinguished, leaving them in a darkness deeper than the one they were in at first. The hypocrite was momentarily lit by the light of faith, but when true guidance became clear to him, wretchedness gained the upper hand and confusion overwhelmed him; his light was taken away at the very moment he needed it most, and he remained bewildered in pitch darkness. They will not return, for Allah’s established way with His servants is that when a person is shown guidance, the truth becomes evident to him, and yet he turns away, he is thereafter denied success toward guidance: he saw the truth and abandoned it, recognized falsehood and chose to follow it.
This parable applies to those hypocrites who once perceived and understood, but then harmful desires prevailed over them and they abandoned faith.
The second parable—His words, “Or like a rainstorm from the sky within which are layers of darkness, thunder, and lightning; they thrust their fingers into their ears against the thunderclaps, fearing death, yet Allah encompasses the disbelievers” (Qur’an 2:19)—fits the misguided, confused hypocrites who hear the Qur’an yet grasp nothing of its intent, because they have turned away from it and loathe listening to it in blind obedience to their leaders.