leaving for Shaam

salams

Will be leaving for a week with my family to the blessed lands of Shaam ash-Sharif (Damascus). May Allah make it easy. Allahuma anta sahibun fi safarina wa khalifatun fi ahlina, fa'ghfir lana wa'rhamna bi-hurmat al-habib.

In the meantime, here is the first hadith on truthfulness in Imam Nawawi's Riyad as-Salihin with commentary:

green is the commentary of Nuzhat al-Muttaqin
blue is the commentary of my hadith teacher, Allama Rasul Baksh Sa`idi
purple is my comments

Hadith 1/54.

Ibn Mas'ud reported that the Prophet (s) said,

“Truthfulness leads to piety and piety leads to the Garden. A man is [consistently] truthful until he is written down as a truthful one (siddiq) 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 an inveterate liar in the sight of Allah.”

[Agreed upon]

piety (al-birr): goodness and consciousness of Allah. In Misbah [al-Lughah, a dictionary] it is said, ‘al-birr is a collective noun for all [forms of] goodness.’

Leads (yahdī): meaning both ‘guides’ and ‘causes to arrive.’

Is truthful: ‘la-yasduqu’ means ‘consistently truthful’ with a particle of emphasis (la) and this is the preferable vocalization; some scholars however use the subjunctive of desirability ‘li-yasduq,’ meaning, ‘he should be truthful.’

A truthful one (siddiq): it is written on the scale of intensity (mubālagha) [ie: extremely or innately truthful, like ar-Rahīm means exceedingly tender]. It means one who is truthful time and again, until it becomes habitual, and a character trait of his.

Deviance (fujūr): sinfulness. It is written in al-Misbah, ‘al-fujūr is wicked actions’ [those proscribed by the Divine Law].

An inveterate liar (kadhāb): also formulated on the scale of intensity [like al-Wahhāb]. It means [similarly] one who persists in lying to such an extent that it becomes second nature and a characteristic of his.

Written down: the meaning of this is that he is adjudged as this [either a truthful one or a liar] in Allah’s presence and is deserving of this ascription, as well as the reward [or punishment] that accrues to one such person. [In the case of a liar it also means that] this character trait of his is so well-known that it is permissible to attribute it to him. For example, if a person is commonly known to be a drunkard, one will not be deemed sinful to describe him as this, for it is common knowledge. However, if there is a slight doubt as to whether or not he is deserving of this attribute, or if one is possessed of certain knowledge, but it is not well-known among people, then it is necessary to hide his sins and conceal his flaws. The path of precaution and humility is to refrain from describing people by their weaknesses unless it is necessary, such as in a legal setting.

Lessons

1. Encouragement towards truthfulness, for it is the cause and means to all goodness; and admonition against lying, for it is a means to all evil.
2. If one becomes famous [or notorious] for something, then it is permissible to attribute it to him [as described above].
3. Reward and punishment proceed from whatever actions human beings establish, whether for good or for ill .
4. The recompense of truthfulness is paradise; the recompense of falsehood is hellfire.

Truthfulness in speech is correlation of one’s narration with the actuality; truthfulness in action is to perform what is expected of one in the best possible way; [and truthfulness in state is evenness between visible and hidden states, and to worship Allah with complete presence of heart.]


Insha-allah, more later on the psychology and wisdom of this beautiful hadith.

was salam
`abd da`if
talib