March 05 , 2010
Lies, Deception and Hypocrisy
Al-Amin was a title that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was known by even before he became the Prophet of Islam. And Amin has such amazing gravitas. It encompasses honesty, integrity and trustworthiness, all in a word.
As far as Allah goes “there is nothing whatever unto like Him” (Ash-Shura 42:11). The 99 names of God attempt to describe His myriad qualities and we are enjoined to acquire God-like qualities like kindness and forgiveness. It is however Muhammad (pbuh) who was sent as a mercy for mankind (Anbiya, 21:107) and as a model of the perfect human being.
Islam, being a way of life, aims to mold character, family units, communities and global interaction. The Qur’an alludes to this in Surah Hujarat (49:13): “We have made you into nations and tribes that you may recognize one another”.
One of the most vital features in character building is honesty and trustworthiness. Honesty actually deals with the premise of cause and effect. As a child develops, this quality must be ingrained so that the secondary issues of trust and security build within the child as well. When telling the truth is not insisted on, the child grows up on a shaky foundation of, initially, lies of casual convenience and then the convoluted lying to cover up the previous untruth, all of which mold a poor character and go on to generate troubled relationships spreading divisiveness and distrust around him. In the family, among friends, in a mosque and the community.
The Qur’an in Surah Noor (24:7) is quite explicit: “and they solemnly invoke the curse of God on themselves if they lie”. Mothers ingrain honesty in their children by bedtime stories such as the one about Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani. He was setting out from home as a young man and his mother gave him a bunch of gold coins. He had been raised with the repeated naseeha or admonition to tell the truth regardless of apparent consequence. He gets held up by bandits who demand to know if he has any money. He says he has gold coins! Floored by his honesty they let him and the gold coins go.
From the quality of honesty flows that of justice and fair play. Even before prophet-hood, Muhammad (pbuh) was known as the honest, just one, and so in the incident of the Black Stone and the disagreement among the tribes of the Quraysh, Muhammad (pbuh) was chosen to problem solve. And he did it in a beautifully effective way by placing the stone in the center of a sheet and having the tribes of Makkah raise it to its location in the Kaaba by holding on to the ends of the sheet.
Another key item in character and community building is keeping promises and standing by one’s word. “Fulfill the contracts that you have made” (Baqarah 2:177 and Muminun 23:8). It is important to remember that the Qur’an does not refer here only to written, legalistic, professional contracts, but when you give your word or make a promise in routine, everyday life. After the promise has been made and there is a change of mind, it must be discussed with the one that the promise was made to; if it is not, it is a broken covenant.
The Qur’an asks simply in Surah Saff (61:2): “O you who believe! Why do you say that which you do not? Most hateful is it in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do.”
Imagine the chaos that would result from broken promises and careless “changes of mind”. Resentment for what is perceived as deception, anger at feeling manipulated and bitterness over heartbreak. And when so many negative emotions are born the ripples go beyond the confines of the promise between two people and envelop communities.
Deception is something of an extrapolation from the mindset that breaks promises easily - a sort of feeding off of one another. “Would they deceive God and those who believe?” (Baqarah 2:177) is a spine-chilling reminder of how hated deception is in Islam. While some people go out of their way to try and do a smooth cover-up job, it seems so pathetic to forget the fact that there are three entities with us at all times, recording relentlessly all that we say and do: the angel on the right shoulder, the one on the left shoulder and of course always God.
In Islam it is not the end alone that is important, it is the means to the end. So however “pure” our niyyah or intention may be, if the road to achievement of our goals is lined with a little lie to one person, a bigger untruth to another, some deception with this one and a bit of a backstabbing in the other, we have not been accumulating any brownie points with those ever-present recorders, namely the two angels and God.
I am not embarrassed to admit that I have always wondered why a hypocrite (munafiq) is thought to be worse than a disbeliever (kafir). I understood just recently, even though it may have been obvious to many. Perhaps personal experience teaches most effectively. With a kafir you know where you stand, with a munafiq you are with a slimy chameleon that changes color with the surroundings, and led down the garden path with sweet talk and empty promises, you end up in a spiritual, social and emotional mess.
“The Hypocrites, they think they are overreaching God? But He will overreach them. When they stand up in prayer, they stand without earnestness, to be seen of men, but little do they hold God in remembrance.” (Nisa 4:142). God despises hypocrisy as is made clear by the punishment written in the Qur’an for it: “the Hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the Fire, no helper will you find for them” (Nisa 4:145, Taubah 9:68, Ahzab 33:73).
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) describes the attributes of a hypocrite in faith in a very concise way. The Prophet once said that the signs of a hypocrite are three: Whenever he speaks, he lies; whenever he promises, he breaks it; and if he is entrusted with something, he betrays the trust (Al-Bukhari).
So how does one avoid being a hypocrite? Islamic scholars have the following suggestions: “The best way to avoid being a hypocrite is to ask yourself why you are doing a certain good deed. If, for example, you are praying in a mosque, sincerely ask yourself, ‘Why am I praying here in this mosque?’ If the honest answer is ‘To please Allah’ or ’To receive Allah's forgiveness for my sins,’ then you are doing it for the right reasons. If you find that you are there because you want someone to see that you are a good Muslim who prays in the mosque, you need to get this out of your heart.
“Having the proper intentions is the most important aspect of our actions. If our deeds are for anyone other than Allah, or for Allah and someone else, He will reject them and there will be no reward for them, no matter how great the deeds.
“It is also very important to stay close to Allah at all times, whether we are in prayers or just performing our daily routines. Before doing anything, we need to always ask ourselves, ‘Is this an action that is acceptable in Islam? Is this the way that Allah would like me to do this?’ If the answer is yes, then we should go ahead without fear, even if people may say that we are wrong”.
Islam is premised on the eternity of the next life. We are admonished to remember how ephemeral this world is and how abundant and endless the next one: “short is the enjoyment of this world, the Hereafter is the best for those who do right” (Nisa 4:77) In our short-sightedness and the constant rush that we are in, we tend to forget that all our moves and all our intentions are being recorded and we will have to stand up on The Day of Judgment to account for all of them.
It is important to place God at the top of our list, as suggested above, and in each and every one of our steps in life do a quick question. Would God approve of this? Would He disapprove? And of course a brief moral inventory every night is a great idea, as well put by Umar ibn al Khattab who advised us to “judge yourselves before you are judged (on the Day of Judgment)”.
In His infinite kindness God is likely to waive His rights upon us, commonly known as Huqooq Allah. But it is with Huqooq ul Ibad or the rights of our family, neighbors, friends and community members that we are liable to get stuck. And to be in a bit of a jam on The Day of Judgment would be the ultimate loss.
All that we thought we had gained by our lies, deception and hypocrisy in this earthly world will be sitting in our inventory, stacked against us; a virtual and who knows, possibly a physical wall, toward advancement to that heavenly abode.
Man was certainly made ashraful-makhlooqat, the best of all creation, but aside from the various issues that we have, the one that we fool ourselves the most with is that of arrogance. The arrogance of feeling superior and the arrogance of remembering God only in times of need: “ And if misfortune touches a man he cries unto Us, (while reclining) on his side, or sitting or standing, but when We have relieved him of the misfortune he goes his way as though he had not cried unto Us because of a misfortune that afflicted him. Thus do the deeds of transgressors seem fair in their eyes.” (Surah Yunus 10:12).
It is arrogantly egotistical to think that with our lies and hypocrisy we have successfully deceived our fellow man, and the ultimate arrogance is to envision for even a moment that we have deceived God.
God watches us, every millisecond of every day. Wa yamkuruna wa yamkurullah wallaho khairul makireen: “They plot and plan. And Allah too plans; and the best of planners is Allah”. (Anfal 8:30, Al-Imran 3:54)
