[2:20] The lightening well-nigh snatches away their sight; whensoever it gives them light, they walk in it; and when the darkness is over them; they stop; had God willed, He would have taken away their hearing and sight; Truly, God has power over all things.
Part of the similitude of the hypocrites - as also the heedless - is that when they attend the places of admonition, or their hearts incline to gentleness, or some terror overwhelms them, their states move closer to repentance and their longing to turn [to God] becomes stronger. But when they revert to their own planning and seek counsel from those close to them, their family and offspring urge them to return to their world. They offer their advice, frightening them with weakness and dependency, so that their resolve becomes weak, their spiritual desire (irāda) declines and they become as it is said:
Whenever he repents
he returns to his ignorance,
just as the one who is feeble
suffers a relapse.
He said, 'had God willed, He would have taken away their hearing and sight', meaning the outward hearing and seeing of the hypocrites as well as their being deaf and blind inwardly. Similarly, the heedless and those who are content with the external aspects of Islam - God Most High has the power to negate the positive outcome (tawfīq) of their practice of outward acts of obedience (ẓāhir al-?āʿāt), just as He has the power to negate the realization (taḥqīq) of what they have discovered from the purest of states (ṣafāÌ al-ḥālāt).