The Harm of Gossip and Its Impact
Munīr, the client of al-Faḍl b. Abī ʿAyyāsh, relates: “I was sitting with Wahb b. Munabbih when a man arrived and said, ‘I passed by So-and-so and found him reviling you.’ Wahb became displeased and said, ‘Has the shayṭān not found a messenger other than you?’ I had barely risen from his company when the very man who had been abusing Wahb entered. He offered salām, Wahb returned the greeting, extended his hand, shook hands with him and seated him at his side.”
This episode is not a mere anecdote; it is a profound schooling of the tongue, the heart and human relationships.
At times some dear friends send me a message, or telephone, saying: “So-and-so was backbiting you; such-and-such a person said this about you; in such-and-such a gathering your name was mentioned in that manner.”
With all affection and sincerity I wish to make a request of every one of them: kindly do not convey such reports to me.
The harm that might seem to come to me through another person’s backbiting is in fact negligible. If someone speaks ill of me, searches out my faults, or loosens his tongue against me in my absence, and I respond with patience and consign the affair to Allah, it may well be that the person is transferring some of his righteous deeds to my account. From this perspective I regard him as a benefactor; unknowingly he is storing up for me a treasure for the Afterlife.
Conveying the news of backbiting, however, is a completely different matter. Listening to such speech places a weight upon the heart. A remark of which I was previously unaware suddenly takes up residence in my mind; it breeds sorrow, sows suspicion in relationships, diminishes ḥusn al-ẓann, and sometimes gives birth to a displeasure whose very beginning lay in an unnecessary report.
A single sentence can affect a friendship of many years. A trifling comment can tie a knot in the heart. A person may change in his attitude towards another, even though the criticised individual might never have learnt of what was said.
Hence, I consider the one who brings me the news more harmful than the one who commits the backbiting. The backbiter, through his tongue, may become a cause of reward for me; but the bearer of the tale can create within my heart a state from which neither my worldly life is set right nor my Afterlife.
It is in this sense that the words of Wahb b. Munabbih touch the heart: “Has the shayṭān not found a messenger other than you?” Here “messenger” does not denote a religious office; rather it is the courier of a report that produces distance, grief and suspicion between hearts. Shayṭān does not always require the gate of grave sins; at times, through a slight piece of news, he can drive a wedge into decades of love between two hearts.
Therefore I strive to protect myself even from hearing anything that weighs down my heart without yielding benefit. I do not wish to nurture complaints against anyone, nor to learn of a matter that offers me no means of rectification.
If someone speaks about me, leave the matter to Allah. It may be that the person is becoming, unbeknown to him, a cause for reward that I myself could never have imagined.
This, then, is my small, love-filled request: do not open to me the door of backbiting; but if there is some good word, by all means convey it.
