Nearer to Disbelief Than to Faith

As for the hypocrites, Allah (swt) says:

What struck the believers on the day the two armies met at Uḥud was by the permission of Allah, so that the true believers might be made evident and the hypocrites be made evident too — those to whom it was said, "Come, fight in the way of Allah, or at least defend," and who answered, "If we had known there would be fighting, we would have followed you." They were nearer to disbelief that day than to faith, saying with their mouths what was not in their hearts, and Allah knows best what they conceal. That was it: it was exposing them, but they were not punished — exposure was the point.

So an important lesson is to be brought up here. There are some Muslims — in fact there are entire movements — that are based upon this false hypothesis. There are some Muslims who say that for the Ummah to succeed and be victorious, all of them have to be invited to the truth, and all of them have to obey Allah and avoid sins; and that as long as there are Muslims who do not pray, Muslims who are committing sins, we are not going to win; and we are not going to win until the Muslims who pray Fajr are equal in number to the Muslims who pray Jumuʿah. And then they bring the saying of that rabbi who went and visited the holy mosque of Jerusalem and said that Jerusalem will fall into Muslim hands when the people who pray Fajr are equal to the people who pray Jumuʿah — and people start listening to all of this: the rabbi said this, and this rabbi said that, as if it is the rabbis who are receiving the revelation of Allah (swt). That is not a correct hypothesis. There will always be more Muslims who pray Jumuʿah than Muslims who pray Fajr, and there will always be Muslims who commit sins — Muslims who commit major sins, Muslims who are not fulfilling the obligations. That will always be the case, and if victory is waited for until all Muslims are righteous, it will never come. And to prove that this way of thinking is wrong is the fact that a third of the Muslim army defected — those were the hypocrites — and this did not affect the outcome of the Battle of Uḥud. The hypocrites who left with ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy were not the reason for the Muslim defeat: this is not mentioned as a reason in the Sunnah, and it is not mentioned as a reason in the Qur'an. It is not the reason; it is not even one of the reasons the Muslims lost. Their joining, or their defection, would not have made a difference, and since there will always be hypocrites living among the Muslim Ummah, they will not affect the outcome of the struggle between good and evil. The outcome is affected by the core group of Muslims, described in a hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) as the Ṭāʾifah al-Manṣūrah — the saved group, the aided and victorious group that continues upon the truth. It is these who have to be on the straight path; if they start sinning, the Muslims lose. So the outcome depends on them; it does not depend on the whole of the Ummah. The Ummah contains within its ranks both the righteous and the sinners, both believers and hypocrites, and this will always be so until the Day of Judgment. But the ones who must stay united, who must be one, who must not disobey Allah, are the Ṭāʾifah al-Manṣūrah — they are the ones who need to be united, because their disobedience toward the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) on the hill was what brought defeat to the Muslims. It was the action of those forty men on the mountain that brought defeat to the Muslims, not the three hundred who left with ʿAbdullāh ibn Ubayy. Allah (swt) says:

It was when you disunited, and you failed, and you disobeyed the Messenger of Allah — that is when you lost.