And from the people, some say: “We have entered faith (iman) in The God and in the Last Day,” but they are not believers.
This verse comes after the description of the muttaqīn in verses 2 to 5, and after the verses about those who have committed kufr in verses 6 and 7. Now another group is being shown, but the verse begins carefully with the phrase wa-mina al-nās — and from the people. The Qur’an does not say from the Muslims, from the believers, or from one specific religious group. It opens the field at the level of human beings.
This choice of wording matters. Hypocrisy, here, is not first introduced as a sectarian label. It is introduced as a human condition: a fracture between speech and reality. A human being may speak the language of faith, while the reality of faith has not yet become realized in the heart, orientation, and action.
They say: amannā billāhi wa-bil-yawmi al-ākhir — we have believed in The God and in the Last Day. Outwardly, this sounds like a true and weighty claim. Faith in The God and faith in the Last Day are among the foundational orientations of religion in the Qur’an. But the verse immediately uncovers the hidden reality: wa-mā hum bi-mu’minīn — but they are not believers.
The difference between amannā and bi-mu’minīn is also worth noticing. They say, “we have believed,” presenting faith as a declared claim. But the Qur’an does not merely say that they did not believe. It says they are not believers. In other words, the matter is not only the rejection of a sentence or a verbal claim. It is the denial that the reality of faith has become established within them.
Therefore, faith in the Qur’an is not merely speech, slogan, name, or social belonging. A person may use the right words, while still not having entered into the truth of faith. This verse draws a distinction between the claim of faith and the reality of faith.
This is important for understanding the root of faith. In the Qur’an, faith is connected with security, trust, faithfulness, truthfulness, entrusted responsibility, and standing in the direction of truth. Therefore, one who only says “we have believed,” while the heart, direction, and action do not correspond to that claim, has not yet entered the reality of the believers in the sight of the Qur’an.
The phrase wa-mina al-nās also fits the wider Qur’anic picture of the first community of faith. The field of faith in the Qur’an is not reduced to one later sectarian name. Rather, it places all God-seekers under the test of truth: those who turn toward The God, the Last Day, righteous action, ṣalāt, zakāt, and faithfulness to truth. For this reason, the People of the Book, the ḥanīfs, the Ṣābi’ūn, and other God-conscious seekers may also stand within the field where the claim of faith is tested. The final criterion is not an outward name, but truthfulness before truth.
Two fresh words in this verse also need attention. Al-nās opens the field of people and human society. Within this word, one can hear the sense of familiarity and social closeness, and the idea of the human being as a social creature. If the root N W S is considered, it may also carry a relation to movement, coming and going, and human social motion. So nās in this verse does not point to one religious or ethnic group, but opens the wider field of human beings.
The word yaqūl comes from the root Q W L, whose field includes saying, speaking, expressing, declaring, and making a verbal claim. In this verse, the Qur’an begins with speech. The first sign of this group is what they place upon the tongue: “we have believed.” From the beginning, then, the issue is the relationship between speech and reality.