Holding One's Tongue ( part 8)

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah,
the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Exaggeration

(Nawawi:) Imam Ghazali says : ''Among the forms of
lying that is haraam (unlawful) but not serious enough
to stigmatize their offender as legally corrupt is the
customary exaggeration of saying 'I've told you a
hundred times,' or 'asked after you a hundred times,'
and so forth, since one does not thereby intend to
inform the other how many times it has been, but only
to indicate that it has been too many.

In such cases, if the speaker in fact has only asked after
the other but once, he is lying, though if he has asked
after him a number of times considerably more than
what is generally accepted, he is not committing a sin by
saying it, even if it has not committing a sin by saying it,
even if it has not been 'a hundred times.' There are
intermediate degrees between these two at which the
exaggerator becomes a liar.''

The proof that exaggeration is sometimes permissible
and not considered lying is the hadith related by Bukhair
and Muslim that the صلى الله عليه وسلم said,

''.... As for Adul Jahm, his stick never leaves his shoulder,

while Mu'awiya does not own a thing,''

it being understood that the latter owned the garment he
was wearing, and the former set his stick aside when he
slept and at other times. And Allah alone give success.

Extracts from
Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri's
Reliance of the Traveller 
Tran.. by Nuh Ha Mim Keller


InshaAllah to be continued....