a lie just to make the listeners laugh—woe to him, woe to him.’ This is a severe warning about a matter that many people take lightly.

All lying is forbidden, and every form of it leads to wickedness; nothing is exempted.

A prophetic report does mention three situations that are excepted: in warfare, in reconciling people, and in what a woman says to her husband and he to her.

Yet some scholars maintain that the ‘lying’ allowed in this ḥadīth refers to tawriya (non-explicit equivocation) rather than outright falsehood. They add that tawriya may be called ‘lying’ in common speech, as in the ḥadīth narrated by Abū Hurayrah in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ‘Abraham told no lie except three: two of them were for the sake of Allah—his statement, “Indeed I am ill” (Qur’an 37:89), and his statement, “Rather, it was this great one who did it” (Qur’an 21:63)—and one concerning Sarah….’ In reality he did not lie; he merely employed tawriya, and in that he remained truthful.

In either case, whether we say it is open lying or permissible equivocation, lying is not allowed except in these three circumstances, according to