{"id":164,"date":"2012-07-15T08:31:33","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T06:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/web\/?p=164"},"modified":"2012-07-15T08:31:33","modified_gmt":"2012-07-15T06:31:33","slug":"the-malice-of-lying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/?p=164","title":{"rendered":"The Malice of Lying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lying is a common part of human relationships.\u00a0 People lie for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 They may lie as part of self-presentation, in order to present a more favorable image to others.\u00a0 People may also lie in order to minimize conflict, because lying may make disagreements less obvious.\u00a0 Although lying may serve useful functions in these respects, it can also be damaging to relationships.\u00a0 An exposed lie undermines trust and sows suspicion, because a person who has been lied to is likely to mistrust the person who lied in the future.<\/a>[1] \u00a0Some people even lie due to habit at first impulse.\u00a0 \u2018Everyday lies are really part of the fabric of social life,\u2019 says Bella DePaulo, a psychologist and lying expert at the University of Virginia.\u00a0 Her research shows both men and women lie in approximately a fifth of their social exchanges lasting 10 or more minutes; over the course of a week they deceive about 30 percent of those with whom they interact one-on-one.\u00a0 Furthermore, some types of relationships, such as those between parents and teens, are virtual magnets for deception.\u00a0 Lying is considered integral to many occupations: we see lawyers constructing far-fetched theories on behalf of their clients or reporters misrepresenting themselves in order to gain access to good stories.<\/a>[2]<\/p>\n

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Lying is a despicable vice, rampant in our societies.\u00a0 Deceiving others with the canny use of words is seen as clever.\u00a0 Public figures lie.\u00a0 Governments lie.\u00a0 One of the distinctions of our age is that lying no longer carries the stigma it once did.\u00a0 Today lying has become institutionalized.\u00a0 It is the way many of us live now, right from the top, because we figured out that if we are persuasive enough, lying works.\u00a0 Countries are invaded and wars are started based on lies.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u201d never lie, we just bend the truth a little, put a spin, having no intention to mislead, but the \u201cothers\u201d are liars. \u00a0Ours is a society that has perfected the \u201cart\u201d of lying.\u00a0 Gone are the days when a lie destroyed the liar\u2019s dignity and deprived him of our trust.<\/p>\n

Islam views lying as a serious vice.\u00a0 God says in the Quran:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd do not say that of which you have no knowledge.\u201d (Quran 17:36)<\/p>\n

The Prophet, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, stressed the importance of always being truthful and the seriousness of habitual lying, \u201cTruthfulness leads to piety and piety leads to the Paradise.\u00a0 A man should be truthful until he is written down as truthful with God.\u00a0 Lying leads to deviance and deviance leads to the Fire.\u00a0 A man will lie until he is written down as a liar with God.\u201d<\/a>[3] \u00a0Truth is to state what corresponds with reality, how things are, and is the opposite of lying.\u00a0 The malice of lying is tied to hypocrisy as described by the Prophet Muhammad, \u201cIf anyone has four characteristics, he is a pure hypocrite, and if anyone has one of them, he has an aspect of hypocrisy until he gives it up: whenever he is trusted, he betrays his trust; whenever he speaks, he lies; when he makes an agreement, he breaks it; and when he quarrels, he deviates from the truth by speaking falsely.\u201d<\/a>[4] \u00a0The Prophet\u2019s teaching is that we try our best to free ourselves of hypocrisy by keeping our trusts, telling the truth, keeping our promises, and not speaking falsely.<\/p>\n

Islamicly, the most heinous lie is against God, His prophets, His revelation, and bearing false witness.\u00a0 We should be careful not to make false excuses like \u2018I was too busy <\/em>or I forgot,\u2019<\/em> or say words that can be taken as promises by others like \u2018I\u2019ll call back tomorrow,\u2019<\/em> with no such intention.\u00a0 At the same time, not lying should not be confused with impoliteness, \u2018saying at it is,\u2019 but we should be careful not to lie about little things when no one apparently gets hurt.\u00a0 This can be done by carefully choosing our words.<\/p>\n

Is \u201cNever lie!\u201d an absolute principle of Islam or are there exceptions? \u00a0Suppose that a would-be murderer comes knocking on your door, looking for his victim.\u00a0 Is the morally correct answer, \u201cShe\u2019s hiding upstairs, hoping you will go away\u201d? \u00a0Philosophers like Kant wrote as if this was in fact the morally correct thing to do, but Islamicly, lying is justified in such cases.<\/p>\n


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Footnotes:<\/p>\n

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<\/a>[1] \u2018The Right to Do Wrong: Lying to Parents among Adolescents and Emerging Adults,\u2019 by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Elizabeth Cauffman, S. Shirley Feldman, Lene Arnett Jensen; Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 33, 2004.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[2] \u2018The truth about lying,\u2019 by: Allison Kornet. Psychology Today, Publication Date: May\/Jun 97<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[3] Saheeh Al-Bukhari<\/em>, Saheeh Muslim<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>[4] Saheeh Al-Bukhari<\/em>, Saheeh Muslim<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

By IslamReligion.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lying is a common part of human relationships.\u00a0 People lie for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 They may lie as part of self-presentation, in order to present a more favorable image to others.\u00a0 People may...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[44,27,29,30],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics-in-islam","tag-community","tag-ethics","tag-human","tag-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}