Our life comprises ethics and moral values, and they refer to some important principles such as honesty, integrity, truthfulness, respectfulness, and hard work. These values have the most important part in our daily life, they are something which inherited from family, parents and belief system or by our surroundings.
Above all these important principles, the most essential one is, “Integrity.”
“Integrity means that you are the same in public as you are in private”
Joyce Meyer
Integrity means how anyone in this world lives his or her life. Everyone has their choice to live their lives, and they explained it according to that choice which they adopted, so here integrity shows how somebody lives their life.
This era is a very difficult one, the majority of the people around us are liars, cheaters, fraud, etc and it is very hard to find the good one, but ones who have a factor of integrity in his or her character are the most valuable and noble ones. The ones who value their integrity highly are the good people in this world. Even our beautiful religion Islam teaches us about integrity. From the Islamic perspective, integrity can be a quality of trust, honesty, strong belief, powerful character, and noble manner.
About integrity, which involves honesty, loyalty and truthfulness our Quran said:
O you who believe! be careful of (your duty to) Allah and be with the true ones. (Surah Tawbah 9:119)
In one Hadith it has been mentioned about integrity that,
Hazrat Aisha (R.A) reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Whoever seeks the pleasure of Allah by the displeasure of people, Allah will suffice him against the people. Whoever seeks the pleasure of people by the displeasure of Allah, Allah will leave him to the patronage of people.”
Source: Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2414
Grade: Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Albani
Integrity is actually the vital part of a community, if a community, where everyone respects each other’s integrity is an ideal society. If we talk about an educational field, academic integrity is essential, if we talk about a work field, professional integrity is important. A person with true integrity will consider taking responsibility for their action.
So be loyal and be honest with yourself, because if you true to yourself then you will be true and honest to other people too. If you have this ethical behavior in yourself then you will be more courageous and fearless.
“If you don’t have integrity, you have nothing. You can’t buy it, you can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing”
Henry Kravis