He then went on to relate what the Prophet ﷺ had told him about trustworthiness being removed from people’s hearts. The Messenger ﷺ said, “The trust was placed in the very root of men’s hearts,” meaning in their innermost core. After that, Allah sent down from the Quran and the sunnah what would strengthen and affirm that foundation, so the Quran and the sunnah came in full support of the natural disposition upon which mankind was created. By learning from the Book of Allah and the sunnah of His Prophet ﷺ, they increased in faith, firmness, and in fulfilling the trust.

Yet in the second narration he informed that this trust would be pulled out from men’s hearts—Allah’s refuge is sought—until people would simply say, “Among the clan of so-and-so there is a trustworthy man,” implying that within an entire tribe you would hardly find a single person who is trustworthy, while the rest betray the trust and fail to discharge it.

Today people have witnessed the truth of this ḥadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. If you examine people one by one, counting up to a hundred or even hundreds, you will not find the truly trustworthy man who fulfils the trust as it should be fulfilled—neither regarding Allah’s rights nor the rights of other people.

You might encounter a man who is trustworthy toward Allah: he performs the prayers, gives the zakah, fasts, makes pilgrimage, remembers Allah often, and glorifies Him. Yet when it comes to wealth he is not trustworthy. If assigned a government post he becomes negligent—arriving late, leaving before the end of the shift, wasting many days on his private affairs, caring little—though you will still find him at the forefront in the mosques, in charity, in fasting, and in pilgrimage. From another angle, however, he is not trustworthy.

Likewise, you may find a man devout in Allah’s worship—he establishes the prayer, pays the zakah, fasts, performs the pilgrimage, and gives in charity—yet he is not trustworthy in his employment; he knows that it is not permissible