you discover that he never said it. The gravest form of this crime is when it concerns Allah’s rulings and His law: a person lies about Allah, expressing his own opinion about the Quran and interpreting it in a way Allah never intended, or he lies about the Messenger ﷺ, saying, “The Prophet said such-and-such,” while he knows it is untrue. Another case is when someone transmits a hadith he believes to be fabricated; even though he did not invent it himself, he still declares, “So-and-so related such-and-such from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ,” while convinced it is false. In that situation he becomes one of the two liars, as the Prophet ﷺ made clear.

The sin of such false claims becomes even greater when a person pretends to enjoy favors he was never granted. Consider the report about a woman who has a co-wife: she says, “My husband gave me this and that,” though she is lying, merely to provoke and spite her co-wife and to alienate her from their husband. About this the Prophet ﷺ said: “al-mutashabbiʿu bimā lam yuʿṭa, kalābisi thawbay zur”—“Whoever pretends to have been given what he was not given is like someone wearing two garments of deception.”

In short, one must verify whatever he says and verify the source from whom he receives information: is the reporter trustworthy or not? Allah the Exalted says, “O you who believe, if a rebellious person comes to you with news, ascertain the truth, lest you harm people in ignorance and then regret what you have done” (al-Hujurāt 49:6). This duty is even more pressing when whims proliferate, people flounder, and gossip and hearsay spread without scrutiny or proof. In such times, verification becomes all the more obligatory, so that a person does not plunge into ruin.

Allah alone grants success.