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Is it permissible to lie to someone by adding the word "secretly" so that the statement becomes truthful?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Lying is forbidden (haram), and it is informing about something contrary to its reality, knowingly and intentionally. This includes adding a word to a narration that the narrator did not hear. When there is a need not to disclose the truth, a Muslim can resort to tawriyah (double entendre) and ma'arid al-kalam (ambiguous speech) to avoid lying. This means speaking words that have an apparent meaning and a hidden, intended meaning, because "in ambiguous speech there is room to avoid lying."

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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