The ruling on speaking about the people of a tribe or a town: Is it considered backbiting?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
He asks: If someone speaks about the people of a tribe, a city, or a country, has he backbit them all, even if he did not intend to speak about them in general?
The Shaykh:
Yes.
The questioner:
Whoever speaks about the people of a tribe, city, or town has spoken about all of them, even if he did not intend to speak about them collectively.
The Shaykh:
This is not backbiting. This falls under the category of reporting about the people of a town, or that they have some shortcoming, or that they have something of this nature. It does not appear to me that it is backbiting. Yes.
He asks: If someone speaks about the people of a tribe, a city, or a country, has he backbit them all, even if he did not intend to speak about them in general?
The Shaykh:
Yes.
The questioner:
Whoever speaks about the people of a tribe, city, or town has spoken about all of them, even if he did not intend to speak about them collectively.
The Shaykh:
This is not backbiting. This falls under the category of reporting about the people of a town, or that they have some shortcoming, or that they have something of this nature. It does not appear to me that it is backbiting. Yes.
Source
دروس الحرم، درس في الحرم المكي 03-07-1434هـ — alfawzan.live (45:57)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.