Home » Shafi'i Fiqh » Seekersguidance.org » Am I Sinning by Listening to Backbiting While Trying To Solve a Situation?

Am I Sinning by Listening to Backbiting While Trying To Solve a Situation?

Answered as per Shafi'i Fiqh by Seekersguidance.org

Answered by Ustadha Shazia Ahmad

Question:

I am worried about backbiting. Do I have to listen to both sides of the story during a family conflict?

Answer:

Assalamu alaykum,

Thank you for your question. May Allah reward you for trying to advise your sisters-in-law, and I believe you are doing the right thing.

Backbiting

The ruling on backbiting is here:

“Just as slander is unlawful for the one who says it, it is also unlawful for the person hearing it to listen and acquiesce to. It is obligatory whenever one hears someone begin to slander another to tell him to stop if this does not entail manifest harm to one. If it does, then one is obliged to condemn it in one’s heart and to leave the company if able. When the person who hears it is able to condemn it in words or change the subject, then he must. It is a sin for him not to. But if the hearer tells the slanderer to be silent while desiring him in his heart to continue, this, as Ghazali notes, is hypocrisy that does not lift the sin from him, for one must dislike it in one’s heart.

Whenever one is forced to remain at a gathering where there is slander and one is unable to condemn it, or one’s condemnation goes unheeded and one cannot leave, it is nevertheless unlawful to listen or pay attention to. What one should do is invoke Allah (dhikr) with the tongue and heart, or heart alone, or think about something else to distract one from listening to it. When this is done, whatever one hears under such circumstances does not harm one as long as one does not listen to or heed the conversation. And if afterwards one is able to leave the assembly and the people are persisting in slander and the like, then one must leave. Allah Most High says: ‘When you see those engaged in idle discussion about Our signs, keep apart from them until they speak of other things. And if the Devil makes you forget, then do not sit with wrong-doing people after being reminded. ‘(Koran 6:68). “[Reliance of the Traveller, r2.11, r2.12]

Giving advice

You should use your position of giving advice to your relatives by continuing what you are doing. Intend to steer their thoughts away from the backbiting and teach them that they should make excuses or face their problem directly. Keep telling them the Islamic point of view on their problems. If you do this continuously, they will either stop coming to you to complain, or they will see it your way and deal with their problems correctly.

Please read these very important details on forbidding the wrong and commanding the right:
https://seekersguidance.org/answers/hanafi-fiqh/the-criteria-of-enjoining-good-and-forbidding-evil/

May Allah give you the best of this world and the next.
[Ustadh] Shazia Ahmad

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadha Shazia Ahmad lived in Damascus, Syria, for two years, where she studied aqidah, fiqh, tajweed, tafseer, and Arabic. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her master’s in Arabic. Afterward, she moved to Amman, Jordan, where she studied fiqh, Arabic, and other sciences. She recently moved back to Mississauga, Canada, where she lives with her family.

This answer was collected from Seekersguidance.org. It’s an online learning platform overseen by Sheikh Faraz Rabbani. All courses are free. They also have in-person classes in Canada.

Read answers with similar topics: