Description of Hypocrisy and Hypocrites

“‘Hypocrisy has four pillars: Desire, Neglect, Resentment and Greed. “Desire is of four branches: disproportionate behavior, transgression, lust and insubordination. Whoever behaves disproportionately faces great risks,…

“Once I wrote to abu al-Hassan (a.s.) asking him a question and he wrote back to me, ‘The hypocrites try to deceive Allah, but He, in fact, deceives them. They stand up in prayer lazily just to show that they pray, but,…

“Ali ibn al-Husayn (a.s.) has said, ‘A hypocrite forbids others, but himself does not desist from prohibited matters and commands others with what he himself does not perform. When prayer is to begin he (7 ’tarazd)…

“In, Ruku’ position he rests and in Sajdah (the prostration) he acts like a crow picking up grains very fast, and sits on his heels.”

“The Messenger of Allah has said, ‘The case of a hypocrite is like the trunk of a palm tree. His owner wants to use it in a construction but it does not fit where he wants it to fit. He then tries it in another place and…

“The Messenger of Allah has said, ‘If humility expressed physically is more than what is in the heart, in our view it is hypocrisy.’”