Meaning
Hypocrisy, dissension, double-dealing.
Literally: discord; hypocrisy; disunion
Usage & notes
Nifaaq is discord and disunion, and in its Quranic sense hypocrisy, the divided heart. Iqbal denounces nifaaq as a poison that saps a community's life, setting it against the ittehaad he prizes. The hypocrite's split between word and deed is, for him, a private mirror of the public disunity that ruins peoples.