The hypocrites the Prophet spared

Madinah had men who said “we believe” in the mosque and said something else at home. The Qur’an calls them the munafiqun, the hypocrites, and gives them a surah of their own (63) and long passages of al-Tawbah. The Prophet knew who many of them were. He did not kill them.

That fact rarely comes up when people argue about apostasy. I want to set it out with its sources, then say what it proves and what it leaves open.

The man at the head of them

‘Abd Allah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul was a chief of the Khazraj. Before the Prophet reached Madinah, some of his people were ready to make him their king. He accepted Islam in public and spent the rest of his life working against it.

On one campaign, after a quarrel between a man of the Muhajirun and a man of the Ansar, he said: “When we return to Madinah, the more honourable will drive out the meaner.” The Qur’an quotes the line back at him (63:8). Zayd ibn Arqam reported it; Ibn Ubayy swore he had said nothing, and the Prophet at first took his oath, until the verses came down (al-Bukhari 4900).

‘Umar asked permission to strike the neck of “this hypocrite”. The Prophet answered: “Leave him, so that people do not say that Muhammad kills his companions” (al-Bukhari 4905; Muslim 2584).

Read that answer slowly. ‘Umar calls the man a hypocrite in front of the Prophet, and the Prophet does not correct him. He refuses the killing anyway. The reason he gives is about the community: what it would mean for Muslims to kill a man who stood in their rows, and what the people outside would say.

Words of disbelief, said aloud

Hypocrisy in the Qur’an is mostly hidden. One passage in al-Tawbah describes something else, a disbelief that came out in speech: “They swear by God that they said nothing. But they did say the word of disbelief, and they disbelieved after their Islam” (9:74).

“They disbelieved after their Islam” is about as close as the Qur’an comes to defining riddah in a single phrase. The verse goes on: “If they repent, it is better for them. And if they turn away, God will punish them with a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter.”

The punisher named in the verse is God. The verse offers the men a door, repentance, and gives the Prophet and the believers no order to carry anything out.

Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman is remembered as the Companion who knew the names. Muslim reports from him that the Prophet said: “Among my Companions are twelve hypocrites” (Muslim 2779). They went on living in Madinah. The sources I have read record no trial of any of them.

The shirt and the funeral

When Ibn Ubayy died, his son, also called ‘Abd Allah and a Muslim in earnest, asked the Prophet for his shirt to shroud his father in. The Prophet gave it, and went to pray over the body.

‘Umar took hold of him and asked whether God had not forbidden him to pray over the hypocrites. The Prophet said he had been given a choice, and recited: “Ask forgiveness for them, or do not; even if you ask seventy times, God will not forgive them” (9:80). He prayed. Then 9:84 came down: “Never pray over any of them who dies, and do not stand at his grave” (al-Bukhari 1269).

So the last ruling about Ibn Ubayy concerns a prayer over a dead man. It says what the Prophet may do at a graveside. It says nothing about what should have been done to the man while he lived, because nothing was done.

What the jurists made of it

The classical jurists knew every one of these reports and still held a worldly penalty for open apostasy. The guide on the apostasy penalty sets out their evidence and the modern debate. They reconciled the two in more than one way.

One answer is that a court judges what is shown and proved, and hypocrisy is concealed by definition. Another, which Ibn Taymiyyah works through at length in al-Sarim al-Maslul, is that the Prophet held back for a reason tied to his own time: the very harm he named, of people saying he killed his companions.

I think the first answer is weaker than it looks. The line in 63:8 was heard by a witness, and 9:74 describes a “word of disbelief” that people heard. The Prophet had evidence in front of him, and he left the matter with God.

The second answer is honest about the text. It also concedes the point that matters most to a frightened reader. The Prophet held the power to act, had a named man in front of him, and was offered the sword by ‘Umar. He put it aside.

What it does not settle

These reports leave the classical law standing as a position. The jurists had their answers, and there are other reports to weigh, which the rebuttal on apostasy and the classical law takes up.

Two things the story does show. The first community lived for years beside men it knew to be unbelievers, prayed next to them, and buried them. And the Qur’an’s own answer to disbelief after belief, in 9:74, was a call to repent and a warning from God.

If you are reading this because you are afraid, the threat you face comes from families, mobs or states, and the rules where you live are in leaving Islam and the law. If you are in danger now, go to where to find support first.

Compelling Evidence has a longer study of the report most often quoted against people who leave, “whoever changes his religion”. Allahu a’lam.

The Qur’an quotations are my own renderings of the Arabic, and hadith numbers follow the sunnah.com numbering.