Fatwa ID: 01760
Answered by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah
Question:
To tell someone you have not come from the mosque
Answer:
There are two issues which needs to be addressed regarding your question:
- The severity of lying
- The severity of pride
Saaiduna Abdullah Ibn Masood 
narrates that the Prophet of Allah 
said; “Truthfulness is righteousness and righteousness leads to paradise. A person will continue to tell the truth until he is written with Allah as one who tells the truth. Lying is evil’s doing and evil doing leads to hell. A person will keep on telling lies until he is written a liar.” (Sahih Bukhari)
It was narrated that Samurah ibn Jundub said: “The Prophet of Allah often used to say to his companions, ‘Has anyone among you seen a dream?’ Then whomever Allah willed would tell of his dream. One day he said to us, ‘Two (angels) came to me last night and woke me up, then they said to me, ‘Let’s go!’… So we set out and came to a man who was lying flat on his back and another man standing over his head with an iron hook, and behold, he would put the hook in one side of the man's mouth and tear off that side of his face to the back (of the neck) and similarly tear his nose from front to back and his eye from front to back. Then he turned to the other side of the man's face and did just as he had done with the other side. Hardly had he completed this side when the first side was restored to its normal state. Then he went back and did that all over again. I said to my two companions, 'Subhaan Allah! Who are these two persons?' They said to me, ‘Move on, move on!' (Then he said, describing how the two angels explained the things that he had seen): ‘As for the man you came across, the sides of whose mouth, nostrils and eyes were being torn off from front to back, he is the symbol of the man who goes out of his house in the morning and tells so many lies that it spreads all over the world.’” (Sahih Bukhari)
Allah states in the noble Qur'an, “Verily, he (Allah) does not like the proud ones.” (An-Nahl: 23)
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud narrates that the Apostle of Allah observed: “He who has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter Paradise.” A person (amongst his hearers) said: Verily a person loves that his dress should be fine, and his shoes should be fine. He (the Prophet) remarked: “Verily, Allah is Graceful and He loves Grace. Pride is disdaining the truth (out of self-conceit) and contempt for the people.” (Sahih Muslim)
The reason why a person who has pride will not enter paradise can be understood from the above Hadith. A person who has pride has contempt for the truth and does not have any regards to the commandments of Allah and his Prophet, therefore will not be on the straight path and have the ability to do those actions which please Allah.
Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi 
has said “The kinds of proud nature are so many that they cannot be counted or reckoned. Many of then are so obscure that only a close examiner can discern them. And the scholars of the known have to go by the results of the examiner without further inquiry of facts”.
When anyone came to Maulana Ashraf Ali Tanwi for corrective courses, the first thing he treated was proud nature. He prescribed different kinds of treatment for different people. For instance, if he found that someone was arrogant he prescribed that after every salah, the person should stand up in the mosque and announce: ‘Brothers, I have the illness of arrogance. Pray for me that Allah may relieve me of it’. Obviously if an arrogant and boastful man has to make an announcement of this nature in a crowded place then his heart would suffer terrible blows. When he does that at the command of his Shaikh, his heart receives so severe a punishment that all his arrogance vanishes. (Spiritual Discourses p.212 v.1)
With regards to your question, it will not be permissible to lye in order to refrain from people knowing that you have visited the Masjid.
Only Allah Knows Best
Mohammed Tosir Miah
Darul Ifta Birmingham
