The Ruling on Being Accommodating with Superiors to Avoid Their Harm

Question:
So that he may teach them and guide them, or he stops with them to buy a commodity they have brought, or he negotiates with them over money he buys from them or sells to them. This is not the case of "I am innocent of you, O polytheists," where this is one color and that is another color. This is a second matter, a third thing that some mentioned.

Answer:
The whispering. Shaykh Sa'ud mentioned a report: "We often put on a pleasant face for people." They asked: "Whom do you curse?" This report is not from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), but it is preserved from the hadith of Abu al-Darda'. Al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned it in the biography of Abu al-Darda' in the chapter on the Companions' nicknames. Abu al-Darda' (may Allah be pleased with him), who was from the Ansar, said: "We often put on a pleasant face for people." The scholars said that the meaning of this is that one does not smile in the faces of people whom he hates for the sake of Allah, but out of fear of their harm, because they are rulers, or because they have power and one fears their harm. So he meets them with a smile, or without harshness and without a gloomy face, out of fear of their harm and the harm they might cause to him and to the Muslims. In his heart, he holds them in contempt for the sake of Allah the Exalted and Mighty. This is a form of taqiyyah (dissimulation), except that it does not mean killing them. A person may put on a pleasant face for people, or smile, or laugh, while he is their enemy and hates them, in order to ward off their harm and guard against their plots, not out of love for them or desire for what they have. This is what is excused in this category. What is established in the authentic collections from 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) is that she said: A man came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and he said: "Let him in. What a bad son of a clan he is." When the man entered, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was pleasant with him.
When the man left, 'A'ishah said: "O Messenger of Allah! You said, 'Let him in,' and he is a bad brother of the clan, or a bad son of a clan, yet when he entered, you were pleasant with him." He said: "O 'A'ishah, the worst of people is the one whom people avoid out of fear of his harm." If the person is one of the great ones or a leader, it is possible that not being pleasant with him, or being too self-sufficient, may lead to harm. There is an urgent need to call him to good and to be pleasant with him, so that perhaps he will be saved, perhaps he will be righteous, and perhaps he will stop his harm to the people. If people avoid him out of fear of his harm, this is a matter of public interest and a matter of calling to Allah. Similarly, 'Abdullah ibn Abi Salul in Madinah was the head of the hypocrites. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) knew that he was the head of the hypocrites, and he had vile words about him. But because he was a leader and highly respected among the Ansar, and they had almost made him their ruler before the mission, before the migration, they had almost made him the ruler of Madinah over them. When Allah sent the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and he migrated to them, this matter was nullified, and he lost what they had promised him. He was angry about that, and he was bitter about the religion, and his chest was narrow about it, because he understood from the migration what they had promised him of making him their ruler and crowning him.
He would become, may Allah protect us, a vile hypocrite until he died at the end of the migration. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was gentle with him, accommodating with him, and dealing with him with some accommodation to avoid his harm to the Muslims, and so that there would not be violence against him, or his killing, or his expulsion, which would cause great corruption for the Muslims. When they said to him, "Why don't you kill him?" he said: "I hate for people to say that Muhammad is killing his companions." He hated to kill him, or imprison him, or expel him from Madinah, because people from his companions and his group might apostatize because of it, because they respect him and hold him in high regard. He had publicly declared Islam and called to Islam and prayed with the people, but in his heart was a disease, in his heart was hypocrisy, until he died upon hypocrisy, may Allah protect us. The meaning of this is that it is permissible to show some accommodation and some tolerance to the great ones and leaders in some matters, if harshness toward them, or their killing,