Loyalty & Truthfulness

[Moalfas]

أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّ الْوَفَاءَ تَوْأَمُ الصِّدْقِ

Imam Ali (عليه السلام)

Oh people, loyalty is the twin of truthfulness.

What an important lesson with such little words! I guess we all know exactly how loyal we really are! I think we can all work on it. But it's a very interesting way to figure out others too. 

Where would you put yourself on the loyalty scale, keeping in mind it's directly linked to truthfulness? 

[Moalfas]

I totally expected this deluge of responses LOL 

I'll start.

I'd like to think I'm a 7.5 out of 10 and inshallah working on bettering my honesty skills. 

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Moalfas said:

Where would you put yourself on the loyalty scale,

Confused. Loyalty to whom?

[Moalfas]

2 minutes ago, starlight said:

Confused. Loyalty to whom?

Loyalty in general with friends, family, partners etc. As Imam Ali (عليه السلام) explains it's twinned with being truthful. So the more a person is truthful, the more loyal he/she will be.

[rkazmi33]

I think we need to define loyalty first. For me loyalty to spouse means not having emotional or physical affairs with anyone when you are married. Loyalty with friends means you give them respect, help them in hard times as much as you can, never take them for granted or take advantage of them, not back-stab them in anyway, protect their property, and not having emotional affairs with their husbands. Loyalty also means not collaborating with your friends' enemies in exchange for money and other favors. That's my definition of loyalty and I am very very loyal. Because of my loyalty people think I am weak and many people have even called me dog. 

For other people, definition of loyalty is different. They think loyalty means never ever breaking your relationship no matter how much abuse you have to take and giving sacrifices for your friends. If they need something, you have to sacrifice your own needs for them, and allowing them to use your things like your hard-earned money without permission. In fact, many friends expect to share money, property, even husband equally. People also think loyalty means supporting friends in their bad and illegal activities. Like a friend is loyal if he/she will commit a murder with you. By this definition of loyalty, I am not loyal at all. If someone abuses me, I try to get rid of them, and I don't feel entitled to other people's property and money and I expect them to have some boundaries. I believe in give and take, I don't believe in a relationship where you only give and give and give in the name of loyalty. 

We can check if someone if truthful by checking if their expressions tell their inner feelings. People can always know exactly what I am feeling with my face expressions. I consider this a weakness and it has made me socially awkward. Most people have very expressionless faces or they can control their expressions according to the situation. I wish I could do that. 

Edited October 25, 2019 by rkazmi33