Honour people, be merciful to them, do not backbite

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An unjust king asked a devotee what kind of worship is best. he replied, "For thee the best is to sleep one half of the day so as not to injure the people for a while."

Sa'adi

In the context of present condition of religiosity of Muslim Ummah, the above quote by Shaikh Sa'adi (RA) without doubt fits more for ordinary Muslims than for their not-so-extra-ordinary rulers; because as per a tradtion of Prophet, rulers treat their people according to their piety and God-consciousness (Taqwa), or obedience to God. If the people disobey Him, He punishes them through their rulers, and vice verse. I only need here to point out one of the greatest mischief and sins committed by the Muslims by and large against their own brothers in faith (which may only cured by the advice of Shaikh Sa'adi (RA) to the unjust king as you will see). The sin is called backbiting (geebat).

The life, wealth, and honour - according to a hadith narrated by Hazrat Abdullah bin Umer - of a Muslim is greater in value than Baitullah, Ka'aba shareef. If one attacks on the honour of a Muslim, let alone his life and wealth and property, he is actually striking on the very house of God dear to us more than our lives and families. Imagine. Everyday, in almost every gathering of ours, when we backbite we actually, by attacking on the honour and dignity of a Muslim, are ruthlessly destroying the house of Allah! However, we don't get sick here, we don't even deem it to be a crime, and we have got our own explanations that only amplify our foolishness and expose how irreligious we really are.


In an another hadith, the messenger of Allah said, which may allow us to a lend a few moments for little self-examination over how severe the sin we so easily commit: Backbiting is a crime more severe than fornication. No religion of the world appreciates fornication. We all denounce it openly. There are severe punishments for those who commit this sin in Islam. Yet...! The former is a sin more wicked than fornication. It's because is related to the rights of human beings, it's because its an attack on someone's dignity. And finally, as the whole point of this post was to raise a question to Muslims: Is our religion, i.e., Islam, lacking in wisdom and profundity, or our actions and commitment to its ideals? Answer is quite simple and much evident for the people of understanding. May Allah give us the ability to act upon and fully realize in our actions the ideals of His Last Revelation. Ameen.