Cheating

You know

humans need to live together and need to be able to trust those around them,

and so the worst of the Wrong Actions

are those that break the most important points of trust with the least concern.

So you can usually see the worst actions easily.

But there are actions that don't seem quite as bad as those worst actions,

but that are still kind of the same.

It's easy to see that stealing someone else's stuff breaks a trust and is not a good action,

but you don't have to sneak behind someone's back to take what they have away from them,

you can take what they have away from them in different ways,

and a little at a time.

The sort of ways where a person might say to themselves

'Oh that's not really stealing',

and have to decide whether what they are doing is really the same sort of thing.

How about Cheating?

What do we think about that?

Trading something with someone else

and not telling the someone else that the something

is not what they think it is.

When someone trusts that they are trading for something,

when they are cheated they lose what they have in exchange for what they didn't want.

They can find that what they thought was gold is only a thin layer on the surface,

and it has cost them much more than it was worth.

One person losing what they own and another getting it, by the breaking of the trust that lets people live together.

That's what what happens in Stealing, and also happens with Cheating,

though Cheating doesn't need to be done behind someone's back.

Cheating breaks the trust face to face, by telling lies about things for selfish gain.

That is the way it is with Wrong Actions.

They can be like each other in some ways and different in others,

different in just how bad they are,

different in their time and place,

There are more Wrong Actions than anyone can imagine,

so for people to recognise which actions to avoid

they need to see how they are all linked together.

Stealing, Cheating,

Telling Lies, Breaking Trusts,

are all part of the same thing,

they are all what we call Wrong Actions,

actions that make it harder to live together

and that hurt ourselves and each other.

These kinds of actions are to be avoided if we are following our Deen.

The Muslim Way of Life

is to help us to avoid hurt.

And Allah is Al-Hafiz,

the Protector.