[2:10] In their hearts is a sickness; and God has increased their sickness; and there awaits them a painful chastisement because they used to lie.
In the hearts of the hypocrites is the sickness of making partners [with God] (shirk) and God increases their sickness in their imagining that they have been saved by deceiving the Muslims. The pain of their grievous punishment will reach them in the end. The allusion pertains to whoever has confused his ultimate objective (qaṣd) with his worldly concerns (ḥaẓẓ) and mixed his spiritual desire (irāda) with his whims (hawā), taking one step forward with spiritual desire and one step backward with worldly concerns and following the lower self. He is neither a sincere seeker (murīd) nor permanently neglectful. If the hypocrites had been sincere in their beliefs, they would have been safe from the punishment in the Hereafter just as they were safe from paying the jizya tax and the like in this world in the manner of polytheists and dhimmis. Similarly, if the seeker (murīd) had been sincere in his spiritual desire, he would have reached out in his heart to the realities of communion and the blessings of sincerity would have reached him in attaining what he desired. But his state is as it has been said:
We have not been firm
but justice will be firm with us without bending.
If we had been sincere (khalaṣnā),
we would have been saved (takhallaṣnā) from tribulation.
Anyone whose worship has become weak has a barrier between him and the degrees of the Gardens (darajāt al-jannāt). Anyone whose spiritual desire has become weak has a barrier between him and the intimate communications of nearness and whispered confidences (muwāṣalāt al-qurb wa'l-munājāt). As for those who rely on this world and follow whims, their reliance on the abode of illusion is an illness of their hearts. The increase in their disease will be as the increase in their greed. The more they find something from [this world], the more their greed multiplies for what they have not found, hastening the punishment for them.
Therefore, among the immediate punishments for them is the scattering of their concerns, and then their lives becoming troublesome. They are kept by [these punishments] from their Protector (mawlā). There will be no enjoyment for them nor rest in what they have preferred in following their own whims. This is the requital for anyone who abandons the companionship of his Protector. It is said regarding this:
She changed and we changed.
Alas to anyone who
has sought but did not find a
replacement to make him forget.
The allusion in [the words] the painful chastisement because they used to lie is to the grief on the Day of Unveiling when they see how those like them who were sincere have arrived (waṣalū) and they see themselves and how they have lost (khasirū) .