Their hearts were sealed over, and they do not understand

Think of a pendulum swinging back and forth. Or Newton’s cradle, where one ball strikes and sets the others in motion—eventually, that motion dies out.

Consider a person who cannot swim: he comes up, goes down, comes up, goes down, comes up… and then stays down. There’s movement back and forth until it ends in life or death, because motion is life and stillness is death.

Imaan is life, kufr is death.

The hypocrite has days of imaan, then days of absolutely no imaan at all. Days of imaan, then zero imaan. This turbulent spiritual life goes up and down, up and down, until it eventually just dies.

You’re not able to resuscitate it anymore. No jolt works.

Hanzala (may Allah be pleased with him), one of the scribes of revelation for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), once noticed a change in his own spiritual state and was overcome with worry. When Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) met him on the road and asked how he was, he replied, “Hanzala has become a hypocrite!”

Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) asked in astonishment, “SubhanAllah! What are you saying?”

Hanzala (may Allah be pleased with him) explained:

“When we are with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), he reminds us of Paradise and Hellfire, until it is as though we are seeing them with our own eyes. But when we leave him and busy ourselves with our wives, our children and our worldly affairs, this state changes and we forget much of what we heard.”

Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “By Allah, we experience the same thing!”

The two of them went together to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and voiced their worry. When Hanzala (may Allah be pleased with him) described what he was going through, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said:

“By the One in whose hand is my soul, if you could always keep the state you are in when you are with me and remembering Allah, the angels would shake hands with you in your beds and on your paths. But, O Hanzala, there is a time for worship and remembrance, and a time for worldly affairs.”

There’s a difference between normal fluctuation and what this ayah describes. We all have good days in imaan where during salah you’re crying, and other days where you can’t even remember how many rak’ahs you prayed. Those ups and downs are normal.

But what this ayah addresses is more extreme: people who stop praying altogether for a while, saying “I’m just having a tough time right now, I’m not really into the deen thing. I’m about to pick it up again.” Then they take another vacation from religion, then pick it up again.

That could be an avenue to hypocrisy: ‎ءَامَنُواْ ثُمَّ كَفَرُواْ‎

Another meaning of this phrase is that they came to Islam and realized it was asking too much. For all practical purposes, they weren’t going to give themselves to Islam, but they would hold onto the title.

The hardest part for the hypocrite was obeying the Prophet (peace be upon him). They didn’t obey him. That’s why they went out of their way to show people, “No, we like him. We believe he’s a messenger.” But following him? That’s fuzzy.

There’s a growing population of Muslims like this today—people who see Islam as a spiritual outlet, a way of connecting to God. Prayer exists, some rituals exist, the phrases “insha’Allah,” “masha’Allah,” “subhanAllah” are there. But their worldview and their definitions of right and wrong, their ethical standards, are not shaped by Islam at all.

Ask them about various contemporary issues and you’ll find their thoughts are not shaped by Islam whatsoever. There’s some level of imaan theoretically, but practically it’s a denial of these teachings.

What they want is simply to connect to God while living life their own way—essentially spiritual agnosticism. God exists, but not in anything practical in life, just in theory. “I believe in God, and religion is good, so long as it doesn’t interfere with my lifestyle.”

It’s superficial, cultural Islam, social Islam. They care about Muslims—they do—but it’s not connected to the religion at all.

I’m not telling you to hate such people. I’m telling you we have to recognize this reality because these people are going to be in your own family—cousins like this, uncles like this.

We have to reach out to them. This won’t be addressed through televised debates. These are people within our own families.

The ayah continues:

Seals are placed upon their hearts.

There are two kinds of cleansing: spiritual and intellectual. Hypocrisy is a spiritual problem, so ‎طُبِعَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمۡ‎ means their hearts are sealed—spiritual cleansing is no longer accessible.

But you would think if the spiritual problem is permanent, at least they could still have hope for intellectual cleansing. Yet the next part says:

They are not able to understand.

Understanding is an intellectual thing, not a spiritual one. But Allah is telling you that once you’re spiritually closed off, your mind is shut from it too.

It doesn’t matter how intellectually you argue about Islam with these people—it’s not going to reach them because the heart is sealed.