At-Tawba (The Repentance)

124. “And whenever a Surah is sent down, there are some of them (the hypocrites) who say: ‘Which of you did this increase in belief?’. As for those who have Faith, it increases them in belief and they rejoice.”

The hypocrites always and in any opportunity tried to weaken the spirit of the Muslims. One of their methods was that they used to mock the verses of the Qur’ān in order to both disturb their sacredness and hurt the Muslims.

This verse states the indecent reaction of the hypocrites at the time of the revelation of a Surah of the Qur’ān. Whenever a Surah was revealed, some of them mockingly asked some others whether that Surah increased in belief of either of them. By that manner, they wanted to mock the Muslims among themselves.

After narrating this meaning, the Qur’ān gives them a suitable answer, which is recited in the next verse.

Whenever a Surah of the Qur’ān was sent down, there were created two reactions in the believers and two other reactions in the hypocrites. Every couple of those reactions were just opposite to each other. The reaction of the believers before the revelation of a Surah of the Qur’ān was two things:

The first was that it increased in the belief of them and made their Faith firm.

This statement indicates that belief can be both decreased and increased, and the revelation of the Qur’ān causes the belief to be increased in the receptive believing hearts.

The second was that it made them happy. When they heard the verses of the Qur’ān, and they were aware of the great rewards which were mentioned in them for the believers, they rejoiced and they became hopeful that they would be included in the favours of Allah.

The verse says:

“And whenever a Surah is sent down, there are some of them (the hypocrites) who say: ‘which of you did this increase in belief?’. As for those who have Faith, it increases them in belief and they rejoice.”