Themes in this ayah
Explore in Habl →Scores run 0–100: how strongly this ayah speaks to a theme. 70+ is central, 50+ is clear, under 50 is weak.
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5 ayahs in Aal-i-Imraan are strongly about hypocrisy. This is one of them.
Tafsir
Lo hā ‘lo!’ is for calling attention to something there you are O believers you love them on account of their kinship and their pretence of friendship towards you but they love you not since they oppose you in religion; you believe in the Book all of it that is to say in the Books all of them but they do not believe in your Book and when they meet you they say ‘We believe’ but when they are alone they bite at you their fingertips in rage in extreme fury at what they see of your mutual affection the biting of the fingertips is used to figuratively express the severity of rage even if there be no biting involved. Say ‘Perish in your rage that is be this way until the end of your lives for you shall not see what will please you; God knows what is in the breasts’ what is in the hearts including that which these conceal.