Hearts Reaching the Throats

So it was very difficult on the Muslims, extremely difficult, probably the most difficult situation they had been through. Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, describes it to us. Allah says:

So here, the eyes were shifting in fear; there was this disorientation going on. And Allah says that the hearts reached the throats, which means that the hearts were pounding so fast it was as if you could feel it in your throat. That was how difficult the situation was. And you assumed about Allah various assumptions: so some people were making assumptions about Allah, like, Allah has promised us in vain, and Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, will not give us victory, and this religion isn't true, and we made a mistake; and so all of these doubts were coming into the hearts. And obviously the ones who were having these dangerous doubts in the religion were the munāfiqūn. Ibn Kathīr cites al-Ḥasan on this āyah: the thoughts differed; the hypocrites thought that Muḥammad and his Companions would be uprooted, while the believers were certain that what Allah and His Messenger had promised was true.

Allah, Glorified is He, also says in these āyāt from Sūrat al-Aḥzāb:

This was the response of the believers. When the believers saw all of these dangers being thrown at them, that increased their īmān rather than decreased it, because they knew that Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, will test them, so they saw this as part of the test. Therefore, it only confirms what they already knew would happen. But with the munāfiqīn, it made them doubt even more in the authenticity of Islam. So you can see how one event brought forth different reactions from the two camps, the believers and the unbelievers.

When it comes to fear, the fear was across the board. The believers were afraid and the munāfiqūn were afraid. But what is different is the reaction to that fear. Fear is a natural human instinct. It is natural for a human being to feel fear. Mūsā (peace be upon him) himself felt fear: fa-awjasa fī nafsihi khīfatan Mūsā. Allah, the Almighty, said that he felt fear in his heart: "So, Mūsā concealed some fear in his heart" (20:67). But the thing is, with Mūsā (peace be upon him), the fear was restricted to the heart. It didn't show up on his actions. His actions were full of īmān. So that is the difference between al-mu'minūn and al-munāfiqūn. The munāfiqūn acted negatively upon their fear, while the believers acted positively. They said, "This is what Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, has promised us. We expected this would happen."

Ibn Isḥāq said: "Thereupon the anxiety and fear increased. Their enemy came at them from above and below, so the Muslims were very confused. Dissension arose to the point where Muʿattib ibn Qushayr commented, 'Muḥammad used to promise us that we would eat the treasures of Kisrā and Caesar, and now we don't even feel safe going to the toilet.'" So this is an example of the response of a munāfiq. He said: what is Muḥammad (peace be upon him) talking about? The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and this will be discussed later, had given glad tidings when they were digging the trench that this Ummah would open the Persian Empire and the Roman Empire. He said: what is Muḥammad talking about? We can't even feel safe going to the toilet, and he is promising us that we will conquer lands thousands of kilometres away from us?