57لَو يَجِدونَ مَلجَأً أَو مَغاراتٍ أَو مُدَّخَلًا لَوَلَّوا إِلَيهِ وَهُم يَجمَحونَMuhammad Asadif they could but find a place of refuge, or any cavern, or a crevice [in the earth], they would turn towards it in headlong haste.1Thus the Qur'an shows that the innermost cause of all hypocrisy is fear - fear of a moral commitment and, at the same time, fear of an open breach with one's social environment. In their overriding, immoral desire for social conformity, "the hypocrites seek to deceive God - the while it is He who causes them to be deceived [by themselves]" (4:142); and as "they are oblivious of God, so He is oblivious of them" (9:67). One should note, in this connection, that the Arabic term munafiq - which, for want of a better word, is rendered as "hypocrite" - applies both to conscious dissemblers bent on deceiving their fellow-men, as well as to people who, out of an inner uncertainty, are deceiving themselves. For a fuller discussion of this term, see note 7 on 29:11, which probably represents the earliest instance of its use in the Qur'an.