“I HAVE TO go home and tell my children it’s not nice to lie,” remarked Rachel Duffy, the most recent winner of the hugely popular BBC series The Traitors. It was said lightly, almost humorously, yet the irony was difficult to miss: a programme built entirely around deception, followed by an instinctive acknowledgement that lying is morally wrong.
For Muslims, that moment invites reflection, not primarily on one television show, but on how we engage with entertainment in a culture increasingly comfortable with moral contradiction.
The Traitors is undeniably compelling. Set in a dramatic Scottish castle, it combines psychology, strategy and social tension in a way that draws millions of viewers. Success in the game does not depend simply on intelligence or teamwork, but on the ability to deceive convincingly, to present falsehood as sincerity and betrayal as loyalty. Deception is not incidental to the format; it is its central mechanism.
From an Islamic perspective, that raises questions worth thinking about, not hastily answered, but honestly engaged.
Truthfulness as a moral orientation
Truthfulness (ṣidq) in Islam is not merely a rule about speech. It is a fundamental orientation, a quality of character. The Qur’an frames it as something believers align themselves with:
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَكُونُوا۟ مَعَ ٱلصَّـٰدِقِينَ
O you who believe, fear Allah and be with those who are truthful. (at-Tawbah 119)
Falsehood, by contrast, is treated as spiritual acid, not because every lie causes immediate harm, but because of what habitual falsehood does to the heart. The Messenger ﷺ warned that lying, when repeated, reshapes a person’s identity.
Lying is not even permitted as a joke or to entertain. The Messenger ﷺ said: ‘“Woe to the one who tells lies to make people laugh. Woe to him, woe to him.” (Abu Dawud)
This matters not only for what we say ourselves, but also for what we reward, admire and normalise.
The well-known exceptions and what they imply
Islam’s prohibition of lying is firm but not simplistic. Classical scholarship recognises three narrow exceptions: reconciliation between people, wartime necessity, and speech between spouses intended to preserve harmony.
What’s striking is not that exceptions exist, but how constrained they are. In each case, the allowance is necessity-based, not recreational. The aim is to prevent harm or preserve something sacred. The deception is reluctant, not admired, and the stakes are real and serious.
These exceptions do not celebrate deception as a skill. They tolerate it, briefly, to protect higher moral goods.
That pattern is important when thinking about entertainment structured around deception.
Strategy, concealment, and false testimony
Not all strategic games raise the same ethical concerns. Chess (for those scholars who permit it), for example, involves concealment of intention, not verbal falsehood. A football feint misleads an opponent’s movement, not their trust. Even bluffing in a card game relies largely on silence and probability rather than sustained verbal lying.
The ethical difference is not simply “deception versus honesty,” but what kind of deception is involved.
The Traitors requires something more specific: repeated, explicit verbal falsehoods that closely resemble real-life lies, promises of loyalty, declarations of trust, oaths of sincerity, delivered precisely to be believed. The game rewards those who can perform sincerity most convincingly while intending the opposite.
What kind of excellence is being celebrated?
Every competition celebrates something. Chess celebrates foresight. Sports celebrate discipline and physical skill. Knowledge shows reward, memory and reasoning.
The excellence rewarded in The Traitors is the ability to make others feel genuinely safe, understood and trusted, while planning their elimination.
Context, consent, and character
A reasonable response is that everyone involved knows the rules. The deception is consensual. Context matters, and Islamic ethics has always recognised that it does.
But whilst context is important we know that repeated actions, even within a “game,” train ability and shape admiration. Islamic thought has long held that character is formed not only by what we do seriously, but by what we rehearse habitually.
The concern, then, is not whether contestants are “bad people,” nor whether viewers are committing a sin by watching. The concern is what skills are being practised, and what qualities are being admired.
Watching versus witnessing
There is also a difference between observing deception in fiction (stories, movies, etc) and watching real people deceive other real people for reward. In fictional works, deception is usually part of a narrative that invites moral reflection, often with consequences. In The Traitors, a form of reality TV, deception itself is the engine of success, and its successful execution is celebrated.
Children, contradiction, and coherence
Rachel Duffy’s comment resonated because it named a tension many people feel. She won a substantial prize precisely because she was skilled at lying, and then felt the need to reaffirm to her children that lying is wrong.
Islam places great emphasis on moral coherence, especially in what is modelled rather than spoken. Children notice not only what we prohibit, but what we enjoy, celebrate and reward.
When deception is framed as clever, admirable and lucrative in entertainment, while condemned in daily life, truthfulness risks becoming situational rather than integral.
No verdicts, but real questions
This reflection is not a call for blanket prohibitions or public condemnation. Muslims will draw boundaries in different places, with sincerity and good faith. Contexts vary. Sensitivities differ.
But some questions are worth reflecting on:
- What virtues does this form of entertainment ask me to admire?
- What skills does it train me to appreciate?
- Does it make me more cynical about trust, or more impressed by manipulation?
- Is the pleasure I take in it aligned with the character I hope to cultivate?
Islam does not treat entertainment as morally neutral simply because it is enjoyable. It asks us to be attentive to what shapes the heart over time.
When the cameras are off
Rachel Duffy’s comment was likely unplanned, a moment of awkward honesty. But it captured a wider cultural comfort with contradiction: celebrating deception publicly while condemning it privately.
Islam invites a different posture, one of coherence between what we profess and what we applaud, what we teach and what we enjoy.
Truthfulness is not merely a rule for the masjid or certain moments. It is described as a way of being: to be with the truthful. That includes what we choose to admire, and what we allow to shape our hearts for the sake of entertainment.
May Allah grant us truthfulness in speech and deed, protect our hearts from deception, and make us among those who are truthful in private and in public, in difficulty and in ease, in entertainment and in earnestness. Āmīn.
Living For Islam 