Truthfulness puts much peace into your heart and mind, earns you people’s respect, and over and above, earns you the support and satisfaction of Allah the Almighty.
Lying or falsehood, on the other hand, hampers your pursuit to success.
Islam has encouraged truthfulness and the Quran and Sunnah abound with many instances hailing truthful people and cursing falsehood.
Let me mention a few.
In one Hadith, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: Truthfulness leads to piety and piety leads to the Garden. A man should be truthful until he is written down as truthful in the sight of Allah. Lying leads to deviance and deviance leads to the Fire. A person lies to the point that he is written down as a liar in the sight of Allah.”
– [reported by Ibn Mas’ud and agreed upon]
Also Allah Almighty says in the Quran,
“Truthful men and truthful women,” (Quran 33:35)
Abu Muhammad al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib said, “I memorised from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: ‘Abandon anything that gives you doubt for what gives you no doubt. Truthfulness is peace of mind and lying is doubt.” [At-Tirmidhi]
And in another instance, Abu Sufyan Sakhr ibn Harb said in a long hadith concerning what happened with Heraclius: “Heraclius said, ‘What does he order you to do?’ I replied, ‘He says, “Worship Allah alone and do not associate anything with Him and abandon what our ancestors said.” He commands us to pray, to speak the truth, to be chaste, and to maintain ties of kinship.'” [Agreed upon]
And in another Hadith, Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “One of the Prophets, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon them, went on an expedition and said to his people, ‘A man who has contracted a marriage with a woman and wants to consummate it but has not yet done so should not go with me, nor should anyone who has built a house and not yet raised its roof, nor anyone who has bought some sheep or pregnant she-camels and is waiting for them to give birth.’ So he went on the expedition and approached the town at the time of the ‘Asr prayer, or about that time. He said to the sun, ‘You are under command and I am under command. O Allah, hold it back for us!’ And it was held back until Allah gave him victory. He gathered the booty and it, i.e. the fire, came to consume it, but it did not consume it. He said, ‘Some of you have stolen from the booty. A man from every tribe should come and give allegiance.’ One man’s hand stuck to his hand and he said, ‘The theft is among you. Your tribe should give me allegiance.’ The hands of two or three men stuck to his hand, and he said, ‘The theft is among you.’ So they brought a head made of gold looking like the head of a cow and put it down and the fire came and consumed it. Booty was not lawful for anyone before us. Then Allah made booty lawful for us. Allah saw our weakness and incapacity and so He made it lawful for us.” [Agreed upon]
Also Abu Khalid Hakim ibn Hizam reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “The seller and the buyer have the option to withdraw as long as they have not yet separated. If they speak the truth and make things clear, they will be blessed in their sale. If they conceal things and lie, the blessing of their transaction will be wiped out.” [Agreed upon]
So what more proofs do you need?!
Be truthful and enjoy a valueless peace of mind, as well as the satisfaction of Almighty Allah.
Be truthful!
Wassalaam.
By: Maha Youssuf
maha@muslimtribune.org
Posted on: November 1, 2012