The Virtue of Honesty and Truthfulness

19 February 2021

Honesty is one of the virtues and life principles of a believer. However, there will be times when it becomes difficult to remain honest especially when doing so may hurt the feelings of our friends or family, or even affect our own well-being.
Imam al-Ghazali once wrote in his book Ihya ‘Ulumuddin: “Honesty includes being truthful in one’s words, actions, and intentions”. This means that an honest person is someone who not only speaks the truth, but whose actions are aligned with his words and whose intentions are pure and not distorted.
For example, my brothers, a believer who is honest in giving advice is someone who speaks the truth. He also strives to put his own advice into practice, even if he is unable to do it perfectly. In addition, he should only give advice out of the intent of spreading goodness to others, and not because he thinks that he is better than them, or to bring them down, spread rumours, or humiliate them.