Honesty

Rasullulah (pbuh) was a very truthful and trustworthy person. Even before he was called by Allah (s.w.t.) to be His messenger, people liked his honest character. They even called him “Al-Amin” , which means, “The Trustworthy”, and As-Sádiq , which means the “The Truthful One”.

Rasullulah (pbuh) is also reported to have said:

If anyone is pleased to love Allah and His Messenger, or rather to have Allah and His Messenger love Him, he should speak the truth when he says anything, and fulfill his trust when he is in a position of trust.

(transmitted by Baihaqi)

A Muslim must stop himself from telling lies. One lie often leads to another. Sooner or later, when the truth comes out, the only one hurt is the liar himself . A Muslim must make sure that whenever he makes a promise, he keeps it to the best of his ability. Only then will others respect him and trust his word.

A community without trust can never work together to improve their lives, because everyone questions the other’s motives. Only people that are trustworthy can succeed in building a successful community.

The Qur’an tells us to be truthful and trustworthy in many places.

Allah considers only several crimes so serious that He has said what the punishment is to be. Stealing is one of those crimes that Allah tells us is most serious. It isn’t because Muslims care so much about their money or property, that stealing is so serious because when it is happening in our community, we start to feel that we cannot trust our Muslim brothers and sisters. Once we can’t trust our Muslim brothers and sisters, the Muslim community falls apart and we begin to loose our Islam (Deen).

As Khalifah of Allah, we can not allow the Muslim community to lose its Islamic Way of Life. We must as Khalifah of Allah find some way to convince those who steal that what they are doing is so shameful and harmful and that they must stop.

Muslims have a responsibility to help the needy, so no one steals because they are poor. This is one of the reasons we have zakah (welfare tax), Hadyah (gifts) and sadaqah (charity).

Also, all Khalifah of Allah must remember their own responsibilities to look after their own property so that none of our Muslim brothers and sisters will be tempted to steal.

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said:

“By God, I do not fear that when I am gone you will set up others beside Allah. What I do fear is that greed for worldly things will make you fight among yourselves: that is what will destroy you as it destroyed those before you.”

(Al-Bukhari, Muslim)