Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
1- Hajj is a sacred journey which, as clearly and emphatically stated by the Shari`ah, is only accepted when the pilgrim shuns all kinds of lewdness, obscenities, and frivolities.
2- Moreover, lying is totally forbidden in Islam; so, this person is committing a great sin which he should immediately shun asking for Allah’s forgiveness and wishing from Him to accept his Hajj.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
This is indeed an enormity of a sin as he has embarked on the sacred journey for hajj by committing an inexcusable fraud.
Hajj, as we are told, is considered virtuous and beneficial only when a person shuns all forms of lewdness, obscenities, and frivolities.
Since he has been guilty of a grave sin of lying, he cannot expect to reap the true rewards of a virtuous Hajj.
Lying, it should be noted, is one of the most abominable actions in the sight of Allah as the Prophet (peace be upon him) has emphatically stated.
Therefore, it is important that one embarks on the sacred journey of a life-time with a clean slate.
I pray to Allah to bless us all to love goodness and virtuous, and abhor and shun all that which is sinful and immoral.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.