Hypocrisy, Ibn al-Qayyim writes, is a deep-rooted and all-pervading spiritual disease, and one so subtle that a heart can be overflowing with it and stay oblivious of it. This short work gathers what the Qur'an and the Sunnah say about the hypocrites and divides the disease in two: the major kind, which is disbelief concealed behind an outward profession of faith, and the minor kind, which shows in conduct. Ibn al-Qayyim notes that at the opening of Surah al-Baqarah four verses are given to the believers, two to the disbelievers and thirteen to the hypocrites, because of the harm they do to Islam from inside it while claiming to support it. The book is read less as a description of other people than as a list of tendencies a believer looks for in himself.
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