A liar is one of the following cases...

A liar is one of the following cases: Being stricken by blind-heartedness and preoccupation in illegal matters, acts of disobedience to Almighty Allah, and rebellion against Him and, as a result, such a person will find sweet and feasible to tell lies and will not be immunized enough to stop committing any offense; being one of those who look forward to gaining a pleasure or a worldly affair that he cannot reach by way of truth and thus he has to tell lies in order to attain that goal; being coward, in the sense that he fears the outcome of a bad deed he had done and fears that the worldly punishment will chase him; he therefore resorts to telling lies in order get rid of that trouble; or trying to save himself from an embarrassing question addressed to him but he could not find the appropriate answer; hence, he betakes lying as the cover under which he conceals his feebleness...

etc. To browse the pages of the Islamic history puts on view that the majority of those who fabricated lies against Almighty Allah and the Holy Prophet had immature psychological tendencies or scandalous intellectual feebleness. In most cases, such individuals had converted to Islam out of fear of being killed or had found themselves a place among the Muslims, while they were not, such as those who had to join Islam at the Conquest of Makkah, the hypocrites, and the like.

Indisputably, all such motives and their likes are nonexistent in the personality of Imam `Ali ibn Abi-Talib. He is the sincere Sahabiy who has enjoyed the most prominent characteristics and has had the most excellent situations. None of the Muslims would ever deny this fact. Also, he belongs to a family that is too exalted to require praising or telling lies that are said in order to meet a social imperfection caused by such matters. Imam `Ali has thus said, “Against whom have I told lies?

Is it against Allah? It is I who was the foremost to have faith in Him. Is it against His Prophet? It is I who was the foremost to believe him.” He has said the very truth, since there does not exist any motive drawing him to tell lies.

It is `Ali, and none else, about whom, as well as his family, many verses from the Holy Qur'an were revealed, such as the Verse of Purification ( Tathir ),[^2] the Verse of Invoking the Curse ( Mubahalah ),[^3] the Verse of Love for the Relatives ( al-Mawaddah fi’l-Qurba ),[^4] and the Surah of al-Dahr (or al-Insan No. 76).