«يِصَلِّي الْفَرْضْ وِيِنْقُبِ الْأَرْضْ»

The saying describes a person who mixes good deeds with bad ones. He is careful never to miss his required prayers, yet he also works steadily and secretly to get hold of other people's possessions. The digging is a figure for this persistent, hidden burrowing after buried valuables, not literal excavation.

Its sting lies in the contrast between visible piety and hidden greed. Faithful worship does not excuse or cancel the wrongdoing; instead, it makes the hypocrisy more striking and the person's character more suspect to those who see both sides. In Arabic, farḍ (obligatory prayer) rhymes with arḍ (ground), a jingle that makes the saying memorable.

Use it as a critical remark about someone whose regular, visible worship sits beside covert efforts to take what belongs to others. It mocks the gap between ritual devotion and actual conduct, so it is pointed and not suited to neutral description.