An Islamic Perspective on Self Honesty

Mariam Al-Haydari
 

In His holy book, Allah [swt] has said: “And by the soul and Him who made it, then He inspired it to understand what is wrong and right for it” (91:7-8).

It is very important for us to remember that Allah is the one who has made our hearts and He is aware of what lie within. “He has full knowledge of whatsoever is in the hearts” (57: 6) Knowing this, reminds us that we can lie to our selves, but we cannot lie to Allah [swt]. Lying is among the acts not only considered wrong by all faiths, but also by all of mankind. Interestingly, no one likes to be lied to, yet we all still lie.  Without being truthful to oneself, one cannot find or receive the truth.

“He, who knew himself, knew his God.” The path to Allah is through knowing yourself as the narration of Imam Ali [as] implies. You want others to be honest to you because that helps you perceive the truth and this is what should motivate you to be honest to yourself; to know the truth.

Help me make this very perplexing article clear by remembering something you do and know is unlawful. What makes you still do it if you know it is haram? The answer is you either avoid confronting yourself about this wrong doing and therefore, you just continue to commit it, or you try to come up with some excuses as to why you did it.  While remembering that Allah knows what is in you hearts, ask yourself, “Am I lying to myself about these excuses?” We know that for us to solve any problem we need to face it. This is also the case with our wrong doings.

Some of the excuses that we might come up with when doing something we know we are not supposed to do include: “I do not have the ability to stop doing it”, or “I can not see why I should stop”. These two excuses are very weak.  Allah will not require us to do something we can not handle. Hence, He says in the Holy Quran, “We do not impose on any soul a duty except to the extent of its ability” (7:42). In that case, who are we to argue Allah’s laws? Yes, we might not see or understand it but we know that our knowledge is nothing compared to the One who has created us. “He has knowledge of all things” (2:29). It is important to understand our religion and not just follow blindly, “Are the blind and the seeing one alike?” (6:50). However, when we don’t fully understand the reason why something is haram, we should trust Allah’s knowledge about what is good for us “And it may be that you dislike a thing while it is good for you, and it may be that you love a thing while it is evil for you, and Allah knows, but you do not know.” (2:216).

For example, when a woman refuses to wear hijab, she knows inside her the importance of wearing hijab but she does not wear it because she does not want to cover her beauty. It would not be easy for her to admit that this is the reason, instead she might say, “I don’t understand why we should wear hijab” or “it is hard to wear it in this community and in this era”. Unfortunately, for many this is the case due to lacking the ability to be honest with your own self. Even if you can lie to yourself about this, Allah knows what is in your heart.

Imam Ali [as] has said, a person is in loss if his day is same as the day before. We should think how we can improve ourselves so that tomorrow we are better than today. In order for this to happen, the first thing we need is to be honest with ourselves.