When they meet those who believe: a literal quotation of their hypocrisy that is a concomitant of the presence of two [kinds of] preparedness within them, a primordial luminous one that is weak, vanquished and close to being extinguished, and by which they correspond to the believers; and an acquired dark one that is strong and vanquishing by which they are in harmony with the disbelievers. For if they did not possess a minimum of light they would not be able to mix with and befriend believers in the first place as is the case with others like the disbelievers, because of the self-evident mutual incompatibility between light and darkness in all aspects. [The word] shay?ān is constructed to the paradigm fayʿāl from [the infinitive] al-shu?ūn which means 'to go far away', their devils being profoundly removed [from the divine], banished, while their leaders have attained the utmost degree of hypocrisy. Their mocking of the believers is proof of the weakness of the light aspect within them and the strength of the dark aspect, for the one who belittles something is one for whom that thing is slight, of little weight or worth. Thus they belittle those luminous individuals because of the littleness of light within them, since it is [only] by light that the value of light can be known. Given the preponderance of darkness within them, they resort to the disbelievers and become friendly with them.
[they say, 'We believe'; but when they go apart to their devils they say, 'We are with you; we were only mocking'.]