WCP Chamath Palihapitiya First Principles of Investing

The significance of Integrity and Trust

Hudhaifah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported:

Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) narrated to us two Hadith. I have seen one (crystallized into reality), and I am waiting for the other. He told us: Trust and honesty settled in the innermost (root) of the hearts of people, then the Qur'an was revealed and they learnt from the Qur'an and they learnt from the Sunnah. Then he (the Holy Prophet) told us about the removal of honesty. He said: The man would have a wink of sleep and honesty would be taken away from his heart leaving the impression of a faint mark. He would again sleep and trustworthiness would be taken away from his heart leaving an impression of a blister, as if you rolled down an ember on your foot and it was blistered. He would see a swelling having nothing in it. He (the Holy Prophet), then, took up a pebble and rolled it down over his foot and said: The people would enter into transactions among one another and hardly a person would be left who would return (things) entrusted to him. (And there would be so much lack of honest persons) till it would be said: In such and such tribe there is a trustworthy man. And they would also say about a person: How prudent he is, how broad-minded he is and how intelligent he is, whereas in his heart there would not be faith even to the weight of a mustard seed. There was a time in which I did not care with whom among you I entered into a transaction, for if he were a Muslim his faith would compel him to observe his obligations to me; and if he were a Christian or a Jew, the ruler would compel him to discharge his obligations to me. But today I would not enter into a transaction except with so and so.