[2:14-15] When they meet those who believe, they say, 'We believe'; but when they go apart to their devils they say, 'We are with you; we were only mocking'. * God [Himself] mocks them, leaving them in their insolence, bewildered.
The hypocrites wanted to combine their relations with disbelievers with their companionship with Muslims, so when they appeared before Muslims they said, 'We are with you' and when they were alone with those like them among the disbelievers, they voiced their loyalty to them. They wanted to combine the two situations but they were excluded from both. God Most High said, 'Wavering, all the time - not to these, neither to those' [4:143]. Similarly, anyone who wants to combine the path of spiritual desire (irāda) and what he has from the people of habit (ahl al-ʿāda), [should know that] these cannot go together since two opposites cannot be combined. 'The servant who has contracted with his master to be freed is still a servant to the last dirham'. When night draws nigh, day slips away. Anyone who has a hodgepodge (khalī?) in every corner (nāḥiyya) and a heart bound (rabī?) in every nook (zāwiyya) is headed for disaster. First one group and then another take turns dwelling in his heart, so that it is forever ruined. There is no pleasure for him in life nor does he possess any provision from his heart in truth. The one who spoke for them said:
I see you as someone left over
from the people of Moses
for they do not wait
patiently for food.
When the hypocrites said, 'we were only mocking', God Most High said, 'God [Himself] mocks them', i.e., He requites them for their mocking. Similarly when the people put their reins in the hands of carnal desires, they are lured into the wadis of separation. Their feet are not firmly planted in a place, so they wander in the labyrinth of absence. Just as he leaves the hypocrites in their insolence, bewildered, he prolongs the period of their confused hopes. So when the time of their deaths draw nigh, their hopes are at their highest, while their actions are at their worst. That is the requital for what they did and the noxious result of what they produced. The beautification of their ugly acts in their eyes is the worst of their punishments, and their being content with their listlessness is their greatest misfortune.