Guidebook to God
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Ep. 17: Truthfulness with Allah, Yourself, and Others | Guidebook to God
Truthfulness is not just a beautiful virtue to have, it’s a crucial trait for a believer. Learn the levels of truthfulness and what its absence leads to.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Honesty, truthfulness, subhanAllah. Beautiful beautiful sentiments, as-sidq. To be a person of substance and truth is one of the great ideals and Muslim characters that makes us from the righteous, that makes us from those who are loved by Allah, loved by humanity, and loved by the angels. The Prophet ﷺ was sent with a message that was built upon truthfulness and upon sincerity of heart. He was referred to even before his message was delivered to him by the people of Quraysh as as-sadiq al-ameen, the one who was truthful in his words, truthful in his actions, truthful in his intentions, and therefore was trusted and trustworthy in his society. One of the things that has departed from our upbringing as Muslims is the importance of being sadiq, truthful. And sidiq is one of the pathways to leading us to true worship of Allah. Before we can become sincere worshippers of Allah, we must be sadiq with Allah. Notice when Allah speaks about truthfulness, he speaks about it not just in something you possess but as a totality of our experience. So Allah tells us to speak the truth, to act with truth, to be kunu ma'as sadiqeen, be with those who are truthful, to turn away from those who are untruthful, to not be in company of those who are not truthful, that our truthfulness should be demonstrated with evidence and of the evidence that we are is our charity, our sincere advice to others. All of those are different elements of what it means to be truthful. When we speak about honesty, truthfulness of purpose, it's actually three important levels.
The first level is in the heart, and that's the intent and sincerity. SubhanAllah, you can say as many words as you want, you can do as many things as you want, but if in your heart you're not believing in what you're doing, if you are not committed in it, then it's for naught. It's for no purpose and it's of no reward with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala if it's a spiritual pursuit you're seeking. The sadaqah that is in the heart is that you have a determined intent and that there is a reason for why I'm doing what I'm doing, a reason for why I'm saying what I'm saying. Hypocrisy, of course, a hypocrite, munafiq, its greatest telltale sign is dishonesty, the opposite of truthfulness. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says in the very famous hadith, ayatul munafiq al-thalaaf, the sign of a hypocrite, it's these three things, idha haddatha kadhab. The first sign is that when they speak, they have lied, meaning that when they speak, it shows the betrayal of their heart has come out in their words. And most of the ulama, they say that people who lie with their tongue, it doesn't begin with their tongue, it actually begins with the insincerity of heart. Because if I felt that you were somebody who I should respect, if I felt you were somebody who I should hold in honor, if I felt that you were somebody who I should have regard for, I would not ever dare to mistreat you and abuse you by telling you a lie to your face. And sometimes your parents, my parents, you know, they would get upset with us. Sometimes our friends, our family, our loved ones, our teachers, our husbands, our wives, they get upset because it's not just that you lie, but it was that you lied and that lie was because you did not respect our position in your life. And it's almost as if you say, you lied to my face, you looked me in the eye and you spoke those words, which means that you don't respect me.
It's not about what you lied about, but it's the intent of your heart in that word that you misused and misspoke and shared with me that should not have ever been spoken. So the truth of lying is that it begins in the heart and it begins because you've underestimated the person in front of you as having any weight in your life and you've assumed that they're not important. And therefore the hypocrites at the time of the Prophet, they did not value Allah. They did not value Muhammad. So they felt comfortable lying and cheating and pandering, even saying that they were believers when inside they did not have faith. The second attempt of lying, of course, comes in the words we choose, not just in what we say, not just in how we say it or what we say, but in the very fact that we have spoken words that are of deviance and of dishonesty. And it means that we have taken liberty with those who we were ordered to maintain good ties with. And when a person speaks in that way, speaks a dishonesty, whether that dishonesty with the tongue is an exaggeration or an omission, some people, they don't understand that lying is not just inventing something. It's not just that I told something that's a whopper, you know, like a big lie. It has no basis in reality. No lying can also be that you exaggerated. You added what shouldn't have been added. You shared what wasn't actually there. And it's not that it had no root in reality, but you shared something that really was beyond what should have been spoken. Also that you've neglected something, you've held something back that really was material to the discussion. That you should, you know, there was something that really should have been spoken, but you were obtusive and obstructionist and you held back something that was important to be declared. And lying, therefore, with your tongue takes on those two characteristics, which is the addition and the subtraction, not just the fabrication.
The third type of lying is with our movements, with our body, with our intent, with the places we go and the places we don't go, is that we made a demonstration of our ideals and habits that we have disregard for the truth on account of our material actions and processes. How we turned our face from someone, how we observed someone, how we looked at someone, how we made somebody see disgust from us, or we pretended to be happy. And the Prophet ﷺ says, of the ones who are most hated by Allah is Dhul Wajhain, is the person with two faces, that two-faced person. يأتي بقوم بوجه و بقوم بوجه. That they come to one group of people with one face, showing one attitude, and another people with another face and another attitude. May Allah protect us from being duplicitous in our habits and in our lifestyle. And therefore, to be Sadiq. كونوا مع الصادقين. The greatest sign that you're a truthful person is that you don't tolerate untruth from other people and you associate yourself with truthful people. The greatest sign that you value truth is that you're willing to speak it against yourself. كونوا قوامين لله شهداء بالقصد. Be truthful people, upright, moral, standing upright for that which is dust, and speak the truth, ولو على أنفسكم. Even if it is a self-indictment and a self-accusation where you admit your fault, admit your mistake, and are willing to take it. And therefore, I say to anyone, young and old, especially the young, learn from your mistakes, not try to overcome them. It is better, Wallahi, will always be better for you. I say this to my children, to my students, it is always better for you to be humble and say I made a mistake, I recognize it, and I know this has upset you, but it won't happen again. I would rather hear my son, my daughter, say that to me than to give me a line that isn't
true and that makes me feel that they don't understand the gravity of it and the disrespect that I receive on account of them not trusting that I will be able to deal with them in an effective and forgiving manner. Truthfulness is the hallmark of faith. The Prophet ﷺ said, إِنَّ الصِّدْقِ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْبِرِّ We spoke about birr and righteousness. Truthfulness leads to righteousness. وَإِنَّ الْبِرَّ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْجَنَّةِ And righteousness will lead you to Jannah. وَإِنَّ الْكَذِبَ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْفُجُورِ Dishonesty and lying leads to greater sin and greater sin leads to Jahannam. May Allah protect us from this. Allahumma Ameen. إِنَّ الْرَجُلَ لَيَصْدُقُ The Prophet ﷺ also said in Sahih Bukhari, a person will speak the truth وَيَتَحَرَّ الصِّدْقَ And always try to speak the truth حَتَّى يُكْتَبَ عِندَ اللَّهِ صُدِّيقًا Until Allah writes their name in the account of those who are truthful and verifiers of truth وَإِنَّ الْرَجُلَ يَكْذُبُ An individual will lie وَيَتَحَرَّصُ الْكَذِبَ And always make attempts to lie and find room to exaggerate or omit حَتَّى يُكْتَبَ عِندَ اللَّهِ كَذَّابًا Until they are recorded with Allah as treacherous sinful liars. May Allah protect us from that. وَصَلِّ اللَّهُمَّ وَسَلِّمْ وَزِدْ وَبَارِكْ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا وَنَبِيِّنَا مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى صَحْبِهِ وَسَلِّمْ Your brother Yahya Ibrahim.
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