The Family of ‘Imrân

Surah: 3

Ayat: 119

Verse:

Lo! ye are those who love them though they love you not, and ye believe in all the Scripture. When they fall in with you they say: We believe; but when they go apart they bite their finger-tips at you, for rage. Say: Perish in your rage! Lo! Allah is Aware of what is hidden in (your) breasts.

Tafseer:

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.