The Description of the Situation of the Hypocrites and the Command to maintain Tawhid and seek Forgiveness

Allah describes the hypocrites' stupidity and limited understanding. They used to sit before Allah's Messenger ﷺ and listen to his words without understanding anything. Then when they left from his presence,

قَالُواْ لِلَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ الْعِلْمَ

Commentary

The lexical item اشراط "ashrat" occurring in this passage means "signs". The portents of the last Hour starts with the very advent of Khatam-un-Nabiyyin ﷺ [ the Last of the Holy Prophets ] as the end of the Holy Prophethood is the sign of the approach of the last Hour. The miracle of the splitting of the moon by the Holy Prophet ﷺ has been described thus in the Holy Qur'an [ 54:1]: اقْتَرَ‌بَتِ السَّاعَةُ "The hour has drawn near and the moon has split." - indicating that this miracle is also one of the signs of the last Hour. These are initial portents of the Hour which appeared at the time of the revelation of the Qur'an. Besides, there are many other portents that have been predicted in authentic Ahadith, one of which is reported by Anas in which he says that I have heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: "Among the signs of the last hour is the removal of knowledge, abundance of ignorance, the prevalence of fornication, the prevalence of wine-drinking, the small number of men and the large number of women so that fifty women will have one man to look after them". (Bukhari and Muslim) A version has "knowledge will dwindle and ignorance will be widespread."