Lying in our societies
the state of social hypocrisy that our societies live in makes us easy or restless and we, more often than not prefer to tell lies and describe this behavior as ‘men’s salt.’ from personal experiences, i can say that we are the most active and receptive people in the world. i have already mentioned the reason in an article which was published 15 years ago, and it is a good idea to go back to it. we are characterized by excessive selfesteem, and “those who sprinkle water on us, we respond by spraying them with blood.” many people do not tend to admit the mistakes, consider it a fault. we cover our weaknesses, and we often think of people’s words and opinions about us, especially those related to religious customs, traditions and duties. on the one hand, muslims are required more than others, to perform a series of daily and seasonal rituals, which are not practiced by others, in addition to the need to adhere to a long list of prohibitions and taboos. since the performance of these religious duties on a daily basis and away from the prohibitions is not easy for many, especially for a migrant worker and the traveler, and those living in big cities, where life is more liberal and the temptations many, so to a large proportion we fi nd a tendency to lie if asked about compliance with religious duties. lying is the outcome of either social pressures which forbid admitting to committing sin or not to make the person who asks feel uneasy, especially if the person is elderly or a parent. those who do not fast prefer to lie and say they are fasting. lying here is the way to get rid of social and family embarrassment, and with time lying becomes acceptable and usually diffi cult to escape from. more than 75% of people believe that consuming alcohol, eating forbidden food items, gambling, usury, illegal sexual relations, and others remain bad habits and morally wrong often not related to religion but tarnish the reputation of a person, so they are forced to lie to cover their follies. religious duties are often carried out without social pressures, with no social consequences or bad reputation, and ‘neither pray nor fast’. thus, we fear that the fear of people’s words, the manifestation of our bad habits, or the lack of performance of our religious duties lead us to cover them with lies, which in time becomes part of the ‘culture of society’. what makes it more complicated is the difference of muslims over what ‘halal’ and ‘haram’ is. for example, the veil is a controversial issue between the afghan muslim and the lebanese muslim. the benefi ts of banks are legitimate in iran and are almost forbidden in other countries, and so are the foods, rituals of marriage, death and birth, the performance of commercial and banking transactions, the rule of mixing with non-muslims, sharing food, watching television programs and movies, reading arts magazines, which almost all of us have our opinion. it is impossible to have two muslims who are fully religiously alike.
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