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SLANDER

Allegation is “a statement, especially one made without proof.”

If allegation damages a person’s reputation it is called “slander”,

“defamation”. If this slander is said about a person in his absence it is

called ghaybah (backbiting). Allah prohibits it, when He said,

سوا ول ي غت ا يا أي ها الذين آمنوا اجتنبوا كثريا من الظن إن ب عض الظن إث ول تس ب ع ب ب عرهتموه وات أخيه ميتا ف أن يأكل ل ب أحدك )الجرات:أي (21قوا الله إن الله ت واب رحي

O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion; indeed some

suspicions are sins. And spy not, neither backbite one another.

Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would

hate it (so hate backbiting!). And fear Allah. Verily, Allah is the One

Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful. (Q. 49:12)

Islam teaches us to have positive thinking, to be optimistic in

life, and to have no negative thinking with people. A person is good

as long as there is no evidence that he is bad. Wearing a pair of pink

glasses makes everything looked pink, or at least there is pinkness in

everything we see.

Allah also says

ل هزة لمزة (2اهلمزة:)ويل ل Woe to every slanderer and backbiter (Q. 104:1)

There are several interpretations of humazah and lumazah.

Some commentators (Abū ’l-Ᾱliyah, al-Ḥasan, Mujāhid, and Ᾱṭā’)

say that the former means “saying bad things about someone who is

present”, and the latter means “saying bad things about someone who

is absent”; Muqātil has the opposite interpretation.

Allah also says,

)القل : اء بنمي ف مهني. هاز مش ( 22-21ول تطع كل حل And obey not (O Muhammad) everyone who

swears much and is a liar, a slanderer, going

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about with tales” (Q. 68:11)

Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. said, as narrated by Abū Hurayrah:

، قال: « أتدرون ما الغيبة؟» ره »قالوا: اهلل ورسوله أعل « ذكرك أخاك با ي إن كان فيه ما ت قول، »قال: قيل أف رأيت إن كان ف أخي ما أقول؟

ن فيه ف قد )رواه مسل( ب هته ف قد اغتبته، وإن ل ي

Do you know what backbiting is?” They answered:

“Allah and His Messenger know best.” He said, “It is

to mention of your brother that which he dislike.” Someone

asked, “What if he is as I say?” And he s.a.w. replied,

“If he is as you say, you have backbitten him, and

if not, you have slandered (falsely accuse) him.

(Reported by Muslim) The Prophet s.a.w. also said:

عليه الله صلى الله رسول أن هري رة أب عن قال وسل الديث أكذب الظن فإن والظن إياكسوا ول سوا ول تس وا ول تاسدوا ول ت نافسوا ول تس إخوانا الله عباد وكونوا تداب روا ول ت باغ

(و أمحد ماجه ابن و الرتمذي و داؤد وأبو النساءي و مسل و البخاري رواه)

Abū Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet s.a.w. said:

“Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the worst of false tales;

and do not look for others’ faults and do not spy, and do not be

jealous of one another, and do not desert (cut your relation with)

one another, and do not hate one another; and, O Allah’s

worshippers! Be brothers! (as Allah has ordered you!)

With regard to slandering, one example in Islamic history was

the case of ‘Ᾱ’ishah, the wife of the Prophet. After the Prophet had

completed his campaign, the army rested near Madinah. ‘Ᾱ’ishah,

who accompanied the army got out of her howdah to answer the call

of nature. When she returned she noticed that her necklace had broken

and fell down. She came back and looked for it, found it, but the army

had left. She was so slender, that the people who lifted the howdah

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did not realize that she was not in. Safwān ibn Mu‘aṭṭal al-Sulamī

found her, said nothing except إنا لله و إنا إليه راجعون “Truly, to Allah we

belong, and truly, to Him we shall return,” brought his camel and

made it kneel so that she could ride upon it, until they caught up with

the army. The head of the hypocrites of Madinah, who was also the

leader of the Khazraj tribe, ‘Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl, spread the

slander that she was alone with a man who brought her with his

camel. The news spread so fast that she took refuge to the house of

her father, Abū Bakr.

One day the Prophet, while standing on the pulpit, said,

“O Muslims, who will help me against a man [i.e., Abdullah ibn

Ubayy] who has hurt me by slandering my family? By Allah, I know

nothing about my family but good, and the people blaming a man

[i.e., Safwān ibn Mu‘aṭṭal] of whom I know nothing except good, and

he has never entered upon my family except with me.”

Sa‘d ibn Mu‘ādh stood up and said he would cut off his head, if

he was from al-Aws tribe, and if he was from al-Khazraj, he would do

what they told him to do. Sa‘d ibn ‘Ubādah stood up and said that the

man was only overwhelmed with tribal chauvinism, and told Sa‘d ibn

Mu‘ādh not to kill him, but his cousin stood up calling Sa‘d ibn

‘Ubādah a hypocrite arguing on behalf of the hypocrites. Luckily, the

Prophet calmed them down. The two tribes, who had been at each

other’s throat before becoming Muslims, were almost at each other’s

throat again.

Then the Prophet came to ‘Ᾱ’ishah, and told her that if she was

innocent, then Allah would reveal her innocence, but if she had

committed a sin, then she should seek Allah’s forgiveness, and Allah

would accept her repentance. She asked her father and mother to

answer the Prophet on her behalf, but each of them said that they did

not know what to say to him. So, she said to them, “… if I tell you

that I am innocent, you would not believe me, but if I admit

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something to you, although I am innocent, you will believe me.” She

then told them that what she could do was to be patient, like what

Prophet Yusuf’s father said, when his sons lied to him that Yusuf had

been eaten by a wolf, and his cloches smeared with blood.

يل والله المست عان على ما تصفون ر ج (21)يوسف : فصب … so, (for me) patience is the most fitting. And it is

Allah Whose help can be sought against that (lie)

which you describe. (Q. 12:18)

‘Ᾱ’ishah knew that Allah only Who could help her. She had

been patient over one month. She hoped that the Prophet might see a

dream in which Allah would prove her innocence. What she got was

more than she had expected. Allah revealed her innocence, as follows:

فك جاءوا الذين إن عصبة بال شرا تسبوه ل من ر هو بل ل خي ل ل امرئ ل ه من له عذاب عظي ه ره من ث والذي ت ول كب عتموه ظن المؤمنون .ما اكتسب من ال لول إذ س

را وقالوا هذا إفك مبني خي لول جاءوا عليه بأرب عة شهداء فإذ .والمؤمنات بأن فسه اذبون )النور: ال هداء فأولئك عند الله ه (21-22ل يأتوا بالش

Verily, those who brought forth the slander (against

‘A’ishah, the wife of the Prophet) are a group among you.

Consider it not a bad thing for you. Nay, it is good for you.

To every man among them will be paid that which he had

earned of the sin and as for him among them who had the

greater share therein, his will be a great torment. Why

then, did not the believers, men and women, when you

heard it (the slander), think good of their own people

and say : “This (charge) is an obvious lie?” Why

did they not produce four witnesses? Since they

(the slanderers) have not produced witnesses!

Then with Allah they are the liars. (Q. 23:11-13)

Here Allah did not mention ‘Ᾱ’ishah or any person of the

Prophet’s contemporary by name in the Qur’an, except his freed slave

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Zayd, who preferred living with him rather than returning to his tribe,

and Abū Lahab, the Prophet’s own uncle who turned to be his enemy.

Here the table turned, the slave became a noble person, and the noble

person became a base person.

What the verse means is that it is a good thing that Allah

revealed ‘Ᾱ’ishah’s innocence in the Qur’an which is, “Falsehood

cannot come to it from before it or behind it…(Q. 41;42). It also

indicated the honourable position of the family of Abū Bakr. When

‘Ᾱ’ishah was dying, Ibn ‘Abbās said to her, among other things, that

her innocence was revealed from heaven. With regard to the

slanderers, each of them will have their share in punishment, whereas

the initiator of the rumors, ‘Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl, will have a

great torment. He was the head of the hypocrites of Madinah. The

Prophet did not punish him and his followers, because as hypocrites

they behaved like Muslims, and the Prophet s.a.w. did not want

people to say that he had killed his own followers, and would be

recorded in history. Otherwise, you could kill a Muslim by slandering

him to be a hypocrite.

This slandering, according to the Qur’an was good for her and

the Muslim community. (1) they became aware that there were some

bad people among them with whom they had to be careful (2) this

incident happened to the Prophet’s own wife, and he solved this issue

with Allah’s guidance, and with patience (3) there should be no deep

emotion, grief, sorrow and anger which could harm themselves (4)

there should be no evening gathering where gossip takes place (5) the

hearsay should not be accepted without evidence and should not be

spread.

In Islam every good deed will be rewarded at least tenfold.

Tenfold reward could be considered not enough compared to the risk

of defamation in doing good. Safwān ibn Mu‘aṭṭal had done an

excellent job by picking ‘Ᾱ’ishah who had been left behind, but some

people who were not happy with her took this chance to slander her

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and him. In this case the rescuer and the rescued both become victims.

A rescuer could become a victim. There is always risk in doing good.

A priest was said to have rescued a scorpion in the flood, but the

scorpion stung him. He was blamed for doing it, but he said that it

was his duty to help, but what the scorpion could do was to sting.

(CIVIC, 13.09.13) املراجع:

املتبة الشاملة تفسري أبن كثري

أبو زهرة دزهرة التفاسري للشيخ حمم