Honesty with the meaning of
trustfulness is a sublime human value and a highly moral standard
which lifts man up to the superior ranks in both of the worlds:
in this temporal world and the world of the hereafter. Allah
(Glory be to Him) in His holy Book said that the believers have
succeeded: " Those who are faithfully true to their Amanat (all
the duties which Allah has ordained, honesty, moral
responsibility and trusts) and to their covenants.)
(Al-Muminun:8) and he also said:"
"Verily, Allah commands that you
should render back the trusts to those to whom they are due; and
that when you judge between men, you judge with justice. Verily,
how excellent is the teaching which He (Allah) gives you! Truly,
Allah is, All-Hearer; All-Seer."(Al-Nisa-58) Allah's Messenger
said: "Render back the trust to the one who trusted in you and
betray not who has betrayed you." It came too from the Prophet
(P.B.U.H.) that he said: "Don't look at the increasing numbers of
their prayers, fasts, haj and charity and their night murmurings
but look at the verification of their hadith and the rendering
back the trusts.
The opposite of honesty is
betrayal which is regarded as one of the vicious qualities and
one of the forbidden deeds in Islam, of course. To give you an
example listen to the following verse: " O you who believe!
Betray not Allah and the Messenger and you betray not your trusts
while you know." Trustfulness involves all that Allah has kept in
trust with you and ordered you to abide by them by unrevealing
what is to be covered of your body like the private parts, limbs
and different stirring parts of the body as well as what people
entrust with you of rights and consignments and many other
things.
Honesty which denotes trustfulness
have different forms –the significant of which can be the
following ones:
1. Keeping trustful of the people's belongings
and rendering them back to their owners whenever demanded,
well-kept and secured as they were before being kept in trust and
the trustful person should be in full charge of them until the
return of their legal owners. If there happened to be some damage
due to negligence, the trustful person would cover the damage and
in this way the verification of honesty is achieved and this is
the common verification of the meaning of honesty or trustfulness
within the social and religious conventions.
It was narrated from Imam
Al-Sajjad (P.B.U.H.) that he said: " It is incumbent upon you to
render back the trusted things. I swear by the one who sent
Muhammad by right as a Prophet that if the killer of the father
of Al- Hussain bin Ali has kept a sword in trust with me with
which he has killed him, I would have given it back to
him.)
2. Honesty in preaching the message, for
instance: The bulk of work done the prophets and the Messengers
in preaching the heavenly messages so, the Messenger is being
trusted in all its dimensions and in a perfect manner without any
increase or decrease because any increase or decrease can cause a
disturbance or a defect in religion and far be it from Allah to
send down a religion which is incomplete or
imperfect.
It is inevitable to remark here
that the Prophet should, out of necessity, be infallible from any
wrong because in case of any mistake a prophet may make will
cause a defect in religion and this is something which never
happens in all divine legislatures as all of them are perfect and
complete because they are ordained from a thoroughly perfect one;
therefore, all the prophets must necessarily be infallible from
oblivion, falsehood and slips.
3. Honesty in judgment and rule of the country:
as it is necessary for the magistrate or the ruler to be
integrated, composed, honest and keen on the administration of
his country's affairs and the management of the Muslims' matters
in the State. If the ruler is not zealous enough on his country
and the interests of his people, oppression, corruption and
demolition would then become a dominant feature in that country,
and one would then witness the robbery of its wealth and
oppression of its people. In our country we have many evidences,
proofs and justifications in confirmation of
that.
4. Scientific honesty: This kind of honesty is of
great significance and of real danger with regard to recording,
history or copying especially when that recording, or copying
relates to historical events and prophetic hadiths or else some
alterations would take place within the texts that assumed to be
referring to the Prophet (P.B.U.H.) for instance or to other
guardians and righteous people.
In Islamic history there happened
to be so many violations, opposition, hot disputes, acts of
betrayal and discords by fabricating hadiths, omission of others
increase of some and decrease of others that is by being
subservient to the desires of the ruler and his orders. The
Umayyad age has witnessed so many of these false hadiths which
led to distorting a lot of facts and distract people's attention
from what really took place on the ground of reality and bury
most of them in oblivion either by flattery and lip-service to
the ruler or by being subservient to his wishes and submissive to
his orders.
So, by building on these two
criteria, we can say: both have been violated and the betrayal
has been occurred.
Sun -
22 Jamadilawal 1446H -
