Talking About Sin? 

Walaikum assalam,

[This is in response to a private email:]

Sidi, what I mentioned were not mere wise words: this is the position of the fuqaha of Islam.

Mentioning a sin is a sin in itself. It is like (or worse than) dropping one’s pants in front of others; shameless. It is a serious issue that people are not careful about. It is also sinful to hear others speak of sins, as great scholars who have talked about the sins of the tongue, such as Imam al-Ghazali, Imam al-Nawawi, and Imam al-Barkawi, all tell us.

This, and other like matters, is why the Sufis say, “One who dies without becoming intimately familiar with this knowledge of ours dies committing major sins without knowing it.”

Wassalam, your brother,
Faraz.