Even a long time before being rewarded with Prophethood Rasool Allah (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) was a reputed and honored person of Makkah. He was known as “Sadiq" (truthful) and “Ameen" (trustworthy). People used to trust him the most in the tribe. Hazrat Khadija (R.A) proposed to him for marriage because of his (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) honesty. He (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) always encouraged honesty in his (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) ummah as well.

The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said,

“The signs of a hypocrite are three: Whenever he speaks, he tells a lie. Whenever he is entrusted, he proves dishonest. Whenever he promises, he breaks his promise.”

(Sahih Bukhari, 2749)

He (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) mentioned a dishonest man as a hypocrite. That means he is not a true believer. But what does honesty mean actually?

Honesty implies speaking the truth always, under any circumstances, be it in one’s favor or not. It implies accomplishing the promises, be it verbal, textual, or spiritual.

Let’s say your sister seeks advice to choose a dress and you being uninterested or biased, gave her insincere advice. THIS, my friend, is Dishonesty!! Yes, these little things count! Insincere advice makes you a dishonest person.

You are given a task at work. You spend most of your office hours playing games, and at the end of the day, you complete it perfunctorily. It counts as Dishonesty. Similarly, if you hide the flaws of your product while selling it, Allah’s Rasool (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) has warned about it.

“Both the buyer and the seller have the option of canceling or confirming the bargain unless they separate.” The sub-narrator, Hammam said, “I found this in my book: ‘Both the buyer and the seller give the option of either confirming or canceling the bargain three times, and if they speak the truth and mention the defects, then their bargain will be blessed, and if they tell lies and conceal the defects, they might gain some financial gain, but they will deprive their sale of (Allah’s) blessings.”

(Sahih Bukhari 2114)

“If your sister seeks advice to choose a dress and you are uninterested or biased, gave her insincere advice. THIS, my friend, is Dishonesty!! Yes, these little things count! Insincere advice makes you a dishonest person”

Honesty means justice in judgment, objectivity in assessment, and fairness in all types of decisions. It implies appointing people for a designation based on merit. No nepotism is appreciated.

Disclosing someone’s secrets, revealing something from a private meeting, talking about the private stuff between spouses, sharing anyone’s pictures or data without their consent, plagiarizing an author’s writing without acknowledgment, not paying the debts, or refusing to give someone’s rights, all these come under the label of “dishonesty“.

Allah and his Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) have several warnings for the dishonest.

“O those who believe! Do not eat up each other’s property by false means unless it is a trade with your mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves. Indeed, Allah has been Very-Merciful to you. And whoever does that out of aggression and injustice, we shall cast him into Fire. And this is an easy thing for Allah.”

(Surah Nisa Verse 29, 30)

If a true believer is not dishonest and insincere, a Muslim society shall not have any element of deception, insincerity, fraud, and cheating. We should work towards making ourselves better Muslims in order to constitute a better society and the best nation in the world because we have our role model Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, in front of us.