The Twenty-first Letter

 

Addendum: Concerning backbiting

 

In His Name.

There is nothing that does not glorify Him with His praise.

 

The verse: Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? (49:12) induces an aversion to backbiting in six miraculous ways and shows how disgusting this practice is. Thus there is no need or possibility for further explanation. It reprimands backbiters with six degrees of reprimand and restrains them with six degrees of severity. Read as addressed to backbiters, it means: The hamza (’) at the beginning of the original Arabic sentence is interrogative. This sense penetrates the verse like water, so that each word carries an interrogative accent. Thus the first word following the hamza asks: “Do you have no intelligence with which to ask and answer, to discriminate between good and bad, so that you cannot perceive how abominable such a thing is?” The second word like asks: “Is your heart, with which you love or hate, so spoiled that you love such a repugnant thing?” Third, the phrase any of you asks: “What has happened to your sense of social responsibility and civilized life, which derives its meaning and energy from living together as a community?” Fourth, the phrase to eat the flesh asks: “What has happened to your sense of humanity that you tear your friend to pieces with your teeth like a wild animal?”

Fifth, the phrase of your brother [sister] asks: “Do you have no human tenderness, no sense of kinship, and so sink your teeth into an innocent person tied to you by many links of brotherhood [sisterhood]? Do you have no intelligence that you so senselessly bite your own limbs?” Sixth, the word dead asks: “Where is your conscience? Is your nature so corrupt that you commit so disgusting an act as eating the flesh of your dead brother [sister] who deserves great respect?”

In its totality, this verse shows that slander and backbiting are repugnant to one’s intelligence, heart, humanity, conscience, human nature, and religious and social unity. Its six degrees of condemnation are very concise and precise, and restrain people in six miraculous ways.

Backbiting is a shameful weapon commonly used by people of enmity, envy, and obstinacy. No self-respecting, honorable person has anything to do with it. A celebrated person once said: “I hold myself in so great esteem as not to punish (my enemy) with backbiting, for backbiting is the weapon of the weak and the low.”

Backbiting means speaking about absent people in ways that would repel and annoy them if they were present. If the words are true, it is backbiting; if they are not, it is both backbiting and slander and thus doubly loathsome.

In a very few cases, backbiting is permissible. Four of these are:

A wronged person presents a formal complaint to right a wrong and restore justice. If someone thinking about cooperating with someone else asks what you think of that person. If your reply is disinterested and given only for the sake of the questioner’s benefit, it is not backbiting. If you describe a fact (and not exposing someone to disgrace or notoriety), such as: “That crippled, homeless person went to such-and-such a place.” If the person being criticized is an open and unashamed sinner who glories in sin and enjoys doing what is wrong.

Backbiting may be permissible in such cases if done disinterestedly and purely for the sake of truth, and in the collective interest. Otherwise, it is like a fire that consumes good deeds as a flame consumes wood.

If you have engaged in backbiting or listened to it willingly, seek God’s forgiveness: “O God, forgive me and the one about whom I talked.” When you meet the person, ask for forgiveness.

Said Nursi