Are fictional stories considered lying or not?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh : He asks: Are fictional stories that have no basis in reality—this is what Jamal ibn Sa'id says—considered lying, and is the type followed by al-Hariri in his Maqamat of this kind?
We say: If the intention is to strike a parable and it is not attributed to a specific person, there is no harm in it. Indeed, some scholars said regarding the saying of Allah the Exalted:[An-Nahl 16:75] that this is a parable with no actual reality. Some of them even said regarding the saying of Allah the Exalted: [An-Nahl 16:76] that it is not [Al-Kahf 18:32] either, but rather a story for the sake of a lesson.
The questioner : ...
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : ...
The Shaykh : This type contains nothing wrong, but do not say "So-and-so said it" when he did not say it.
We say: If the intention is to strike a parable and it is not attributed to a specific person, there is no harm in it. Indeed, some scholars said regarding the saying of Allah the Exalted:
Allah presents an example: a slave [who is] owned
ضرب الله مثلاً عبداً مملوكاًAnd Allah presents an example of two men, one of them dumb
وضرب الله مثلاً رجلين أحدهما أبكمAnd present to them an example of two men: We granted to one of them two gardens of grapevines
واضرب لهم مثلاً رجلين جعلنا جلنا لأحدهما جنتين من أعنابThe questioner : ...
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : ...
The Shaykh : This type contains nothing wrong, but do not say "So-and-so said it" when he did not say it.