[2:8] And some people there are who say, 'We believe in God and the Last Day'; but they are not believers.
They stayed firm in their hypocrisy and persisted in deceiving the Muslims, so God tore off their veils by His saying 'but they are not believers'. Thus it is said:
Whoever adorns himself with something
other than what he has inside,
the test exposes
what he is pretending.
When their words were stripped of their meanings, the harm they received from them was greater than the benefit they imagined in them, for God Most High said, 'Verily, the hypocrites will be in the lowest level of the Fire' [4:145] and if it were not for their hypocrisy, their punishment would not have been increased.
It is said that when they lacked sincerity in their states, sincere words were of no benefit to them. God Most High said, 'God bears witness that the hypocrites truly are liars' [63:1] while they used to say, 'We bear witness that you are indeed the Messenger of God'. In a similar way, the one who publicizes from himself what he has not yet realized will immediately be exposed before the masters of realization. It has been said:
O you who claim
love for Sulaymā
You have nothing from her,
not even nail clippings.
You are only like a wāw
in love for her
attached in spelling
in the wrong place to ʿAmr.