1220 – Abu Bakrah (may Allah be pleased with him) related that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) “listed bearing false testimony among the most grievous of the major sins.” Agreed upon, within a longer narration (1).
What is drawn from the ḥadith:
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Al-zūr (falsehood) is to embellish a matter and describe it contrary to its reality so that the listener or onlooker imagines it to be other than it truly is; in other words, it is the disguising of falsehood in a form that suggests it is truth. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) placed the utterance of zūr on the same level as polytheism, for bearing false witness entails many grave evils:
– it becomes a means of devouring people’s wealth unlawfully;
– it misleads judges, causing them to rule by other than what Allah has revealed;
– it results in the loss of rights and deprives the rightful claimant of what is his. -
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) showed special concern when warning about false testimony: he sat up after having been reclining, used a particle of alert, and repeated the warning. He did so because uttering or giving false testimony is easy on the tongue, people tend to belittle it, and its harms are enormous. Many motives—enmity, envy, and the like—can drive a person to it, hence the need for such emphatic caution.
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Al-Bukhārī (6919) and Muslim (87) record that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Shall I inform you of the most grievous of the major sins—three of them?” They replied, “Indeed, O Messenger of Allah.” He said, “Associating partners with Allah, and disrespecting one’s parents.” Then he sat up—he had been reclining—and added, “And false speech,” and he kept repeating it until we said, “If only he would stop.”
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Consequently, bearing false witness ranks among the gravest of the major sins and the most serious of transgressions.