Mentioning the cases in which lying is permissible.

The questioner : A hadith, I think it is Anas ?

The Shaykh : Whose hadith did you say?

The questioner : Anas.

The Shaykh : Anas, yes.

The questioner : The point of asking about this hadith is that the Companion who went to him, I think it was Abdullah ibn Amr or Abdullah ibn Umar, said: I pressed my father until he stayed with him for three days. And after that, meaning he said: I did not press my father, but I intended to find out. So what is the tracing of this?

The Shaykh : What is the problem with this?

The questioner : A lie.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : This lie.

The Shaykh : A lie. I believe that, first, as you all know, lying is originally forbidden, but it has exceptions. These exceptions are not of the kind of lying that reveals itself as lying, do you understand?

The questioner: No, not yet.

The Shaykh : I mean, among the permissible lies is for a man to lie to his wife, for example, to reconcile between two men, and so on. In war, when a man wants to lie to his wife, he wants to tell her, "I lied to you, not what I intended." This is a lie that the Wise Lawgiver has permitted. Now, I will say this is a philosophy of my own; if I am right, it is from Allah, and if I am wrong, it is from me. The Wise Lawgiver has permitted lying, first, because there is no harm, and second, because it achieves reconciliation. And when the original ruling is prohibition, that prohibition is lifted when the cause for which it was prohibited is removed. So lying, without doubt, is a terrible disease; if it takes control of a people or a nation, it leads them to destruction. So when the Wise Lawgiver permitted, in our previous example, for the husband to lie to his wife, because no harm results from this lie, but rather a benefit results from it, and as I wanted to say earlier, this lie is concealed, it is not exposed, so it is even more appropriate that a lie which is revealed later, where the intention was to reach a benefit that the one who lied intended, this lie that he told, no harm resulted from it, and then he did not keep it secret, he revealed it and explained to him, "The reason was such and such," as you know the story, the man said, "I am as you see me, but I do not hold a grudge against any man of the Muslims," or as he said. And this reminds me of a discussion that took place between the Qadianis and me. These Qadianis, meaning they were given argumentation, but they are in manifest error. They say that lying is not permissible absolutely, even in the way of reconciliation. And based on this wrong principle, they deny authentic hadiths, for example, the hadith agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim It is not possible, this hadith is absolutely impossible. At that time, we were close to the Syrian revolution against the French colonialism, so the revolutionaries used bombs and attacked the police stations where the French and their traitorous agents were, throwing these bombs at them and fleeing, entering the alleys. The French gendarmes, meaning the police, would enter the houses and search until they caught some of these people. I gave him an example and said: If you are in your house and one of these Muslims takes refuge with you, and the gendarmes knock on your door and ask you, "Is anyone here now?" What would you say? He said, "I would say yes." I said to him, here is the point. I said to him, now I want to ask you a question: Is "truth" (al-sidq), composed of the letters Sad, Dal, Qaf, three letters, equal to three other letters composed of Kaf, Dal, Ba? Is truth obligatory because it is composed of three letters, Sad, Dal, Qaf, and is lying forbidden because it is composed of Kaf, Dal, Ba? Or is truth obligatory when benefits result from this truth, and is lying forbidden when harms result from it? He said, "It is so." I said, "Praise be to Allah, you have fallen into the trap." I said, "Do you see, if what results from Sad, Dal, Qaf is what usually results from Kaf, Dal, Ba... you would say this is truth and it is obligatory, and vice versa, if what results from Kaf, Dal, Ba is what usually results from Sad, Dal, Qaf, you would say this is forbidden." So the disbeliever was confounded, or at least he committed open sinfulness. Yes.

The questioner : I ask Allah to preserve you by His great name.

The Shaykh : The point is that Ibn Umar went to that man, and his intention was a purely fictional story. So what happened to him after he said, "I did this to reach the truth that you testified to for him"? The gain was very great without any... harm. So if this is permissible, then lying to the wife is even more permissible, because the lie is concealed. And I say, on many occasions, do not go, oh people, oh husbands, do not go. Make this hadith a rule: if you tell the truth, you will not... .
'Umar al-Ashqar : Is this hadith similar to the hadith of the three men, al-Aqrab, the blind man, and the leper, because in that hadith the angel comes to each one in his form and speaks to him? Is there a similarity in this?

The Shaykh : A traveler whose path is cut off. Yes, by Allah, you have done well. There is a great similarity in it.

The questioner : There are other ways, the benefit of da'wah.

The Shaykh : This is you putting yourself in his place, and then philosophizing with this philosophy, that one, because a person may come up with a solution that does not occur to him, the second solution. I wish our solutions were like that of that Companion.