Backbiting

Backbiting

 

Saying something true in the absence of a person, which if that person himself hears it will make displease him/her, is backbiting (Gheebah).  Speaking ill of someone’s parentage or picking out a fault in a person which if that person hears will displease him/her, regardless of whether it is actually articulated, or gestured with the hand or eye…..all these are included in backbiting.

 

Nowadays, we backbite about others and still consider ourselves as pious.  Some people have a habit that they tell others to desist from backbiting, but in their hearts they themselves don’t consider this habit to be bad.  Beware!  Unless and until you don’t consider hearing and doing backbiting to be wrong in your hearts, you cannot save yourself from the sin of backbiting, as the one who backbites and the one who listens to it, both are equally wrong.  The way backbiting about someone is forbidden, in the same way, listening to backbiting is also forbidden.

 

Hadhrat Abu Salaamah (May Allah shower His Mercy on him) says:  Backbiting makes the heart devoid of truth and guidance. 

 

Once, someone called Hadhrat Ibrahim bin Adham (May Allah shower His Mercy on him) for a feast.  When he went there, he heard someone backbiting about someone else.  He remarked:  From a time, we have seen people break roti before they break the meat and you break meat before you break the roti.  He said this and came back.  He did not even eat there.

 

Backbiting is like a clap of thunder.  It burns away all other forms of obedience.

 

A person came to Haji Imdaadullah Farooqui Muhaajir Makki (May Allah shower His Mercy on him) and said:  So and so a person says this about you.  The Shaykh said:  He had said that behind my back, but you are even more indecent than him that you say this to my face!

 

Hadhrat Abul Qasim Naseerabadi (May Allah shower His Mercy on him) says:  Some people sit in the company of non-Mahram women and say that we are innocent of staring at them.  He said:  As long as this Self (Nafs) remains, the obligations and prohibitions are binding on it.  It cannot be absolved of them.  The enumeration of permissible and impermissible goes on.  Thus, one should take care not to get entangled in such a situation.

 

[Excerpted from Mawaaize Hasana]