We now come to a third class of people, the HYPOCRITES, who are untrue to themselves as well as to the others! In a certain part of HISTORY, Islam encountered with a group of people who were insincere. They had not enough insight and discernment to recognize a fact and believe it, nor the intrepid courage and necessary braveness to oppose openly!

      The HOLY QURÄN has called them THE HYPOCRITES, for having two different and opposite faces. They misrepresent their opinions and characters, and pretend to be what they are really not. Such people could not easily be recognized for pretending to be a Muslim, but the HOLY QURÄN, has given their signs and marks by which the Muslims could know them well.

      One phase of the hypocrites which is underlined by QURÄN, is their DUPLICITY, and double - dealing - i.e. their deception by pretending to entertain one set of feeling, and acting under the influence of another:

      And there are some people who say: ``We believe in Allah and the LAST DAY, and yet they are not believers''.

      They know this sort of tricks and tactics an advantage of their wit and quickness of mind. By that stratagem, they think that they deceive Allah and the believers, but they only deceive themselves, and are not aware of that. (VERSE - 9)

      QURÄN, says that there is a special disease in their hearts, and Allah increases their disease as a result of their pretence and hypocrisy. (VERSE NO. 10)

      The insincere man who thinks he can get best of both worlds, by compromising with good and evil, only serves to increase the disease of his heart, because he is even untrue to himself. They are LIARS; and telling lies, is their basic capital, and their best profit and the results of commerce is a dreadful chastisement that awaits them.

      Another phase of the hypocrites indicated in the HOLY BOOK, is that they are MISCHIEF - MAKERS but they call themselves PEACE - MAKERS.

``When it is said to them: `Do not make mischief in the land'. they say: `We are only peace makers.''   (VERSE NO. 11)

      Much mischief is sometimes caused by people who may think to have a mission of peace, while they have not even a true perception of right and wrong! So by their ignorance and arrogance, they blindly depress the good and encorage the bad.

      Another weak point, and mark, of the hypocrite is that: he thinks too much of himself, and too less of the others, being an egotist he knows himself very wise and says that: faith is good enough to fools:

      ``When it is said to them: `Believe as the people have believed' they say: - Shall we believe as the fools have believed?! Know that they themselves are fools if they but knew.''

      Their third symptom is change of colour every now and then, and pretending conformity with this and that, or any class of man whom they meet, They are the jack of all fields and the master of nothing. Wavering all the time - not to these, not to those, they are distracted in mind. When they meet those who believe they say we are believers (VERSE NO. 14) but when they are alone with their devils, they say we are with you, we were only mocking.

      Their dreadful fate and distressing destiny shall be such that QURÄN says: ``Those are they that have bought error at the price of guidance, and their commerce has not profited them, nor are they on the right path.''

To make it short, their duplicity and double - dealing, and the contrast of their inside and outside, which affects their word and work, is an  obvious indication of their hypocrisy: but such a bad disease may have a wider range, and covers a more extensive field of one's character and acts.

      Through a tradition we read: `There are three marked qualifications of hypocrisy. Even if these be found in a Muslim who prays and fasts; he is a hypocrite. These are:

      1) Betrayal in deposits, or anything entrusted to the care of one.

2) Telling lies and being a liar.

3) The break of promise.'

      Imam Sadiq (AS) has said: `Pretence and hypocrisy is nothing but polytheism.'

      Hypocrites deceive their conscience, and ignore BLAME WORTHINESS of their conducts by their internal feelings. They have the false consolation of thinking that they are peace-makers in order to keep quiet the reproachful voice they sometimes hear from their conscience or inner side.