Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Dear brothers and sisters, in a hadith that's narrated in the Muwatta of Imam Malik, Rahimahullah Ta'ala, Safwara bin Sulaym, radiyaAllahu anhu, says, Qala qila li rasulillahi salallahu alayhi wa salam, ayakoonul mu'minu jabanan? The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, was asked, can a Muslim be a coward? Can a believer be a coward? We know that it's not a good trait, cowardice is not a good trait, but is it possible that a person could be a believer, but they suffer from the quality of being cowardly? And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, na'm, yes. Fa qila lahu ayakoonul mu'minu bakheela? Is it possible that a believer could be a stingy person? Obviously stinginess is not a good trait, but at the same time, is it possible that a person could be a mu'min, a believer, but they're struggling with the quality of miserliness, of being stingy? So the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, na'm, he said, yes. Fa qila lahu ayakoonul mu'minu kadhaba? Is it possible that a mu'min could be a liar? The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, no. Now another narration from Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu in Ibn Abi Dunya that's authentically narrated to him, he said, la tajidul mu'mina kadhaba? You will not find that a believer could ever be a liar. And another narration from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqas radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, and it's the last one I'll share, there are multiple ones, which is authentically traced to him, where he says, yutba'ul mu'minu ala kulli khilla ghayra alkhiyanati walkadhab. That a believer may sometimes be afflicted with having every type of trait except for two, khiyana, betrayal, and lying, alkadhab. That these are traits that a believer just cannot have.
Now obviously if you read this narration or you read these ahadith by themselves, the obvious benefit of it is that lying is extremely serious and looked down upon in our deen. That it is impossible to maintain faith, to maintain iman, and to be a liar at the same time. And there's a difference between someone that falls into a lie here or there and someone who habitually lies, lying becomes an addiction. That's why you have the phrase compulsive liar. It works out for you once or twice, three times, four times, and then you realize that you're able to cut corners with lying, and so you start to lie in order to get past certain things, in order to cover up certain things, in order to attain benefits that otherwise do not belong to you, for all types of reasoning, right? There's lying in your career, lying in your contracts, lying in your business, lying to your family, covering up infidelity, covering up a sin, all types of lies exist. But the point is that the Prophet ﷺ is saying there is no way a mu'min, a believer, could be a kathab, could be a liar. It doesn't work. And subhanAllah the traits that are chosen in this narration, Allahumma inni a'udhu bika minal jubni wal bukhul, O Allah I seek refuge in you from being cowardly and from being miserly, from being stingy. These are not traits that are looked upon as minor things. They're things that we seek refuge in Allah from. But at the same time, even those two traits do not take a person to a point spiritually where their belief would almost, you know, would not be able to coexist with that trait in particular. And there are, you know, a few reasons that the scholars mention for this. For one, all of the traits of the hypocrites go back to lying.
And there is al-kathab bil-qawl wal-kathab bil-fi'il. As the scholars say, there is lying with your words and there is lying with your deeds. Portraying something that's not true of yourself and living a double life, right, lying with your deeds and lying with your words. The munafiqun, every time Allah talks about the hypocrites in the Quran, He mentions lying as a necessary trait of hypocrisy. Why? Because the hypocrites took living a double life to its most extreme manifestation. They portrayed themselves to be believers in public and they were the complete opposite of that in private. And they used that portrayal of belief to take advantage of the believers and to harm the Muslim community. That's the most extreme manifestation of lying, the most extreme manifestation of hypocrisy. However, obviously we don't always get there. And may Allah protect us from that. And just like with any other trait of hypocrisy, you want to remove that trait of hypocrisy so that the traits of hypocrisy do not become combined in you to where you could be taken to a place that you never thought that you would be taken to. The hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam where he mentioned the traits of the hypocrites, if he speaks he lies, if he makes a promise he breaks that promise, if he is entrusted with something he violates that trust, right. Those three things are all just forms of lying. The breaking of a promise is a lie that is attached now to a promise. The violating of a trust, someone trusted you with something that was valuable, with a secret or with some sort of contract or a conversation that you would not share but you violated that as well. So it is again a lie that is attached to something more severe. The breaking of an oath in another narration, a person who becomes belligerent when they get into an argument.
All of these go back to this trait of lying. That's why Ibn Umar radiallahu ta'ala explains that lying is the foundation of every one of these diseases in terms of the interactions with people. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam explained it as such. He said alayhi salatu was salam, alaykum bis-sidq. Upon you is to be people of truthfulness. alaykum bis-sidq. fa inna al-sidqa yahdi ilal-birr. When a person is truthful, truthfulness leads to all forms of good deeds. When a person is a truthful person, when they are sincere and truthful, that is going to open the doors to all types of good things. They're going to be honest in their dealings with their family, honest in their dealings with their community, honest in their dealings with their business, honest with themselves when they are confronted with a situation where they know they should act in a certain way. Truthfulness, sidq, fil qawl wal amal, it opens the door to all forms of obedience, all forms of good, all of the things that are praiseworthy in a person's life. It opens those doors. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said wa inna al-birr yahdi ilal-jannah. And birr, righteousness, leads to paradise. And he says wa inna al-rajula layasdiq. A person will continue to be truthful. Hatta yuqtaba inda allahi siddiqa. Until they're written with Allah as a siddiq, as a person of truth. The loftiest title after a prophet is to be a person of truth. Truthful with their words, truthful with their deeds. You know what you're getting when you're dealing with that person, right? This is how we would define a person who is sadiq, siddiq in terms of our dealings with them. You know what you're getting when you're dealing with that person. They're not speaking out of two sides of their mouth. There is no betrayal of their deeds and their words. There is a consistency there. Likewise when that person stands before Allah, there's a transparency, there's a truthfulness with Allah.
So that's a title that you want to have with Allah. May Allah write us from as siddiqeen. May Allah write us amongst the truthful. And he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, wa iyyakum wal kadhib. Beware of lying. Fa inna al kadhiba yahdi ila al fujoor. Lying opens the door to every form of violation and transgression. Everything that is sacred will be violated. Wa inna al fujjara la fee jaheem. Right? Allah azawajal even mentions that people that violate, a thajir is someone that acts out of lying. So you're going to violate one after the other, your contract with your Lord and your contract with the people. Why? Because one thing will open another thing. If you're able to get away with one form of lying, a little lie will lead to a big lie. A lie that worked here, you'll try to impose it here. You'll try to use it to your advantage here. You'll get yourself in a really sticky situation. And in order to get out of that situation, you'll tell yourself, let me lie to get out of this situation. And for whatever reason, you're able to successfully lie and get out of that situation. So what do you do now? You keep lying. The situation is getting bigger. The lying is getting more consistent. You get used to, accustomed to a life of hypocrisy, to a life of double standards. By the way, this is one of the most dangerous things that could happen to a believer, to a person psychologically. You get used to living your life with a separation of values, that you're only this Muslim in this environment, in this context. You're only this compliant with the way of Allah and the Prophet ﷺ in this place. And you get used to that disconnect. You get used to living with those, not just double standards, multiple standards for yourself. And then at some point, you don't even feel guilty anymore. It becomes so easy for you to do.
You know, they say that one of the things about a compulsive liar is that eventually they'll wrap themselves up into a knot that they can't get out of because they'll forget the lie that they told last week. They've told so many lies in the last year, they forget the one that they told you the year before. And so they get themselves caught up into a bind they can't get out of. So the Prophet ﷺ is saying, الكذب يهدي للفجور It opens up doors of disobedience, doors of sin, doors of transgression that you're not going to really be able to stop yourself. Lie to your wife once, it'll become a habit. You know, lie to your family once, it'll become a habit. Lie to your community, lie in your business, lie in your work, lie in this, lie in that, it's going to become a habit. So the Prophet ﷺ said, a person will continue to do so. حتى يكتب عند الله كذاب A person will continue to lie until they're written with Allah as a كذاب, as a liar. It's a horrible thing you want to be written with Allah ﷻ as. May Allah protect us from being amongst them. Allahumma ameen. And Aisha رضي الله عنها, she said, it's a powerful hadith, ما كان خلق أبغض إلى رسول الله ﷺ من الكذب The Prophet ﷺ did not hate equality in a person more than he hated lying. You know, we say, وإنك لعلى خلق عظيم The Prophet ﷺ is on an exalted standard of character. And we're trying to celebrate him and we're trying to be like him and we're talking about his characteristics. Aisha رضي الله عنها said the most despised thing to him was lying. ولقد كان رجل يحدث عند النبي ﷺ بالكذب And a person would be sitting with the Prophet ﷺ and they'd let a lie slip. And she says, فما يزال في نفسه حتى يعلم أنه قد أحدث منها توبة It wouldn't sit well with the Prophet ﷺ. You know, the Prophet ﷺ would not always challenge it there. Sometimes the Prophet ﷺ knew.
I mean, he had hypocrites around him ﷺ in Medina, right? There were hypocrites there. The Prophet ﷺ knew what was happening around him. Allah, you know, divinely guides him when to speak and when not to speak. But the Prophet ﷺ would know someone just told a lie. And it's so nasty to him. It's so despicable to him. It doesn't, it stays inside of him. So Aisha ﷺ said the Prophet ﷺ would not be satisfied until he knew that that person repented from their lie. It would stay with him. It would bother him ﷺ when you lied in his presence until he knew that you repented from that lie. Now someone is saying, well, alhamdulillah, none of that is me. So here's what I want to focus on just for a moment. This is why we hold ourselves to higher standards. There are many things that we might do that are borderline kathib or they're kathib and we're just not paying attention to it. Because we know of greater kathib, people that do much worse than us, right? People that tell much greater lies, much more consequential lies. And so is it a lie if I misrepresent an interaction when I'm talking to someone else? I didn't completely make it up or hide it. I just misrepresented a bit. Well, at what point am I just going to lie and say an interaction never happened? Is it really a lie if I change the words a bit? If I misrepresent the mood of the conversation? Is it a lie in the case that what if I was dealing with a child, with a kid, right? And subhanAllah you find in this chapter in Abu Dawood, Baab fil tashdidi fil kadid, the chapter of the severity of how the Prophet ﷺ would not let these things go. And it's a narration from Abdullah ibn Amr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu. Qala da'atni ummi yawman wa rasoolAllahu ﷺ qa'idun fi baytina. That my mother once called me and the Prophet ﷺ was sitting in our house. Fa qalat haa ta'al u'tiik.
She said come, come I have something to give you. Right? She's calling him from a room or something like that. So just the mother calling her child. Fa qala laha rasoolAllahu ﷺ wa ma arati an tu''tiihi. What is it that you plan to give him? So she said, u'tiihi tamra, I'm going to give him a date. The Prophet ﷺ said to her, ama innaki law lam tu''tiihi shay'an kutibat alaiki kithba. He said if you were lying to your child when you said come I have something to give you and you weren't going to give him anything, a lie would be written against you. You know when you're dealing with children, don't teach your children hypocrisy. Don't teach your children these things from a young age. That messaging is there. Don't teach them that double standard. No. The Prophet ﷺ is saying even when you call your child, be truthful to your children. Be honest with your child. Don't betray the words that you are giving to your children. And of course there are multiple things that though they applied specifically to that society, there's a benefit. The Prophet ﷺ when he says, may Allah curse the one who took the a'ma anis sabeel, who misguided a blind person from the path. You know kids used to play around at the time and they'd see someone that couldn't see and he's looking for help and they'd take him and place him on another path. The Prophet ﷺ said may Allah curse that person. It's not okay. What would that apply to us now? Someone that is looking for help, someone that's in trouble. And you say go that way, over there. You misguide someone that's in need. Someone needs you and you say alright call me tomorrow and you know you have no intention of answering the phone when they call you tomorrow. Someone says you know okay if you can't get the help there I'll help you here. These are things that we can still apply ethically to ourselves and challenge ourselves with. If Ibrahim ﷺ on the day of judgment, Abraham is afraid of his lies that he told which are not actually lies. Who are we to say alhamdulillah you know I don't check any of these boxes. Multiple narrations.
Ibn Abbas ﷺ when he says about the ayah, ya'lamu khaynatu al-aynu ma tukhfis sudur. Allah knows the betrayal of the eyes and let the hearts conceal. He said you know what khaynatu al-aynu is? The betrayal of the eyes. So the woman walks by, mashallah you lower your gaze. As soon as she can't tell if you're looking or not, you stare. So you gave her the impression that you were lowering your gaze and being respectful. But once you saw an opening, you stare. Think about that what that means for us in technology. You show someone respect in person, then you pull out your phone five minutes later. What happened there? You're not showing your true intentions. You're not revealing your true intentions with a person. Khaynatu al-aynu ma tukhfis sudur. Be ethical with people. Don't give them a face in front of them and then a face when they can't see you anymore. Even that Allah ﷻ is telling us to be careful. The Prophet ﷺ saying woe to the person who lies when they joke, to make other people laugh. The Prophet ﷺ saying no one should take the belongings of his brother. Hazan ojada. You know you make someone think that something's been taken away from them. As a joke even. The Prophet ﷺ saying not to jump out at someone. La yahlul li rajalun yurawi'a khahil mu'min. These are all forms of transgression that the Prophet ﷺ is telling us to be careful with. And you say you know it's just, it's hard. That's okay. Perfect standards are meant to be hard. It's meant to be hard. There literally should be something in there to challenge each and every single one of us. That's the point of having a perfect messenger ﷺ. I can do better. Maybe I let things slide. Maybe I got a little bit too comfortable here. Maybe I went too far with this. And if anything else, qala alayhi salatu wasalam kafa bil mar'i kizdan an yuhadditha bikulli
ma sami'a. It's enough of a lie or enough of a share of lies that a person would have on their record that they repeat everything that they hear. That they repeat everything that they hear. I heard this sheikh say this about this sheikh. I heard, I saw this WhatsApp message about this. I saw this and you repeat it. Qala alayhi salatu wasalam is saying that's enough of a share of lies for you on the day of judgment just to repeat everything without verifying anything anymore. Be careful what you spread. Be careful what you repeat without doing your own verification. Do your own verification. Do your own homework. And actually ask yourself if it's even worth studying because some things I don't even need to know in the first place. It's none of my business. Why would I even go and dig into this? I don't need this. But that's enough of a share of kadhib for a person to have. Now someone might ask well what about the hadith about the good lies? Lying permissible lying. Messenger salallahu alayhi wasalam said laisa al-kadhabu allathee yuslihu bayna al-nas wa yaqulu khayra wa yanmi khayra. Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said a person is not a liar when they're trying to bring people together and they want good for the community. Subhanallah in our deen you're forbidden from quoting someone's words to another person if it's going to take them apart from each other. You're going to cause fitna. You're going to cause fire between two people by saying hey you heard what this person said about you? But the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam is saying look naturally when you're trying to bring people together if any of you have ever tried to reconcile between two people you know you've got to kind of exaggerate when you're talking to another person about how saying you know I think that person really loves you. I heard they said this about you. You're trying your best to bring two people together. The prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam is saying that's not a liar. That's a person who's trying to do good. It's a person who's trying to bring people together. And so the three things the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam mentioned, al-harb, in war, wal-islah bain an-nas, and bringing people together, wa hadithu al-rajuli maratahu, wa
hadithu al-marati zawjaha, and the way that a husband talks to his wife or a wife talks to her husband. Now by the way that doesn't mean you can lie to your spouse about where you were last night. Or you can lie to your spouse about what's really on when they say hey who is you know who are you talking to, you can't lie to your spouse that way. That means that you speak and you exaggerate in your praise of your spouse. You exaggerate when you're speaking sweetly and nicely. To your spouse you say good things to your spouse. You bring joy to your relationship. Right? You over praise. That's how a good marriage is going to function. So the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam is saying that mujamal, that type of beautifying a relationship, the discussion between a husband and a wife, that's something that's praiseworthy to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And by the way some of the scholars just for the lack of time I'm not going to go into detail but they said even here the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam was not talking about kadhib sareeh. He wasn't talking about outright making things up but he was talking about exaggerating or concealing certain things. So for example you know brother so-and-so you're trying to bring two brothers together, brother so-and-so said you know that person is a jerk but I really love them. You just convey that I really love them part. It's not kadhib sareeh, it's not you're not lying but you're saying you know I heard him say he really loves you, he does love you, he does miss you, he does miss that friendship. So it's not even kadhib sareeh, it's not just making something up outright. And the opposite end of that by the way is do not show cruelty to your spouse in the name of honesty. Why did you tell her that? I'm a direct person you know I had to tell her that, I had to be real with her. You know so you say something super cruel to your spouse, demeaning. That's how I feel. This isn't in the name of communication and counseling and building and being honest and transparent and trying to work through real problems but I had to say it because that's
how I felt. That's not sunnah, it's not the deen. Self-control is the deen. Holding your tongue until you have something good to say is the deen. Right so there's no cruelty in the name of honesty. Likewise when it comes to quoting people's words to each other you know there's no starting fires in the name of loyalty. Like hey I had to tell you that he said this about you because you know who we are, you know our friendship, you know I've got your back. No you don't. If you had his back you would have stopped the person when they were backbiting him, not quoted his words to that person and start a fire between them. You would have defended him behind his back, not started a fire and said it's in the name of loyalty and that's just who I am. So subhanAllah even then there are ethics and there are goals in the way that we speak. But as we're talking about getting close to the Prophet ﷺ, may Allah ﷻ make us among those that are closest to him in character and this life and in love of him and this life and in closeness to him in the hereafter and in Jannatul Firdaus. Allahumma ameen. As we're talking about that, scrutinize the most hated characteristic to him, the most hated characteristic to him and make sure you don't even have a share of it in your life. May Allah protect us from it in our dealings, in our business, in our family, in our personal relationships, in our community relationship. May Allah protect us from al-kadhib in every way and may Allah ﷻ write us from as-siddiqeen. Allahumma ameen. I conclude this speech and ask Allah ﷻ to forgive me and you and the Muslims.
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