Surah Muhammad, Ayah 31

Exposing the Hidden Secret of the Hypocrites Allah says ...

أَمْ حَسِبَ الَّذِينَ فِى قُلُوبِهِمْ مَّرَضٌ أَن لَّن يُخْرِجَ اللَّهُ أَضْغَـنَهُمْ

(Or do those in whose hearts is disease think that Allah would never expose their ill--wills) meaning, do the hypocrites think that Allah will not expose their affair to His believing servant Yes indeed, He will expose their affair and manifest it so that those with insight will be able to understand it. In that regard, Allah revealed Surah Bara'ah (or At-Tawbah), in which He clarified the hypocrites' scandals, and pinpointed their practices that are indicative of their hypocrisy. Because of that, this Surah (Surah Bara'ah) is also called "The Exposer". Adghan is the plural of Dighn, which means what the souls harbor of envy and hatred toward Islam and its people who support it. Allah then says,

حَتَّىٰ نَعْلَمَ الْمُجَاهِدِينَ مِنكُمْ (...until We know those of you who carry out Jihad,... - 47:31) Allah's knowledge of every person’ s works and deeds is all-encompassing and eternal. It may be noted here that knowledge is of two kinds: [ i ] a priori knowledge or fore-knowledge, knowledge about a thing before its occurrence; and [ ii ] a posteriori knowledge or –in Mariam knowledge, knowledge about a thing after it has actually happened. Here knowledge refers to the second category. Allah’ s knowledge of things is since eternity. In this context, the knowledge about things is a posterioi, after the occurrence of the events in the external world. (ibn kathir) (The purport of this part of the verse is that Allah has enjoined fighting on the believers so that sincere believers may become distinguished from the hypocrites who shrink in horror at the very thought of fighting). Allah knows best.

The hypocrite Muslims were jealous of their pious brethren in religion? The reason was that they felt that all progress made by Islam benefitted sincere Muslims, and this was very distressing to them. They used to wonder why they should sacrifice their lives and property in a campaign which enhanced the position of others, while conferring no greatness on them. The hypocrites hid these inner feelings in their outward behaviour. But this did not remain concealed from people of understanding. Their artificial tone revealed that their connection with Islam was that of outward show and was not in any sense heartfelt.