Speech is a means to an intended purpose, and any worthy intended purpose may be attained through either truthfulness or lying. Lying is forbidden, although if it is possible to attain the objective by lying without being truthful, then lying is permissible, as long as achieving the intended purpose is permissible. If the intended purpose is obligatory, then it [lying] is obligatory, as is the case for it being obligatory to protect the blood of a Muslim: whenever being truthful would cause shedding the blood of a Muslim man who has hidden from an oppressor, then lying is obligatory. And whenever the desired intent of war or setting things right with the hostile party to soften the hearts of those who have been grieved can not be fulfilled except by lying, then lying is permissible – although one ought to be as cautious as possible about it, since if he opens himself up to lying, he risks resorting to something that he could have done without, not restrained to the extent of the necessity. So lying is essentially forbidden, except out of necessity.