Continuation of the explanation of the hadith of Asma'ah ibn Sharik (may Allah be pleased with him): (… except a man who borrows from a man unjustly, and that is the one who has committed a wrong and perished …)

The Shaykh : Here is a word that contains within it a unique jurisprudence, namely that after we have understood that the borrowing mentioned in the hadith refers to backbiting, as the Messenger (peace be upon him) described it as borrowing, which is cutting, and that is saying: , it contains an indication that a type of backbiting is not injustice for this reason. He said: So how can backbiting sometimes not be injustice? This is what the jurists organized in two lines of poetry that I mentioned on some occasions. If we do not memorize them, let us memorize their meanings so that we do not fall into cold scrupulousness, which some people fall into, and which obligates them with righteousness and piety, whereas that is not of righteousness and piety in any way. The scholars say:
"Criticism — that is, fault-finding — is not backbiting in six cases: *** the one complaining of injustice, the one identifying, and the one warning
and the one openly committing open sinfulness, the one seeking a ruling, and the one *** seeking assistance in removing what is wrong."
Backbiting in its original sense, as it came in the authentic hadith: , is whenever a person speaks about his Muslim brother with something he dislikes while he is absent from him, that is backbiting. If you say, for example, that so-and-so walks in this manner, and you take, for example, to imitate his walk, that is backbiting. And so it came in the hadith that when a short woman passed by Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) while she was sitting with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), she gestured with her hand like this, indicating that she was short. So he said (peace and blessings be upon him): . What did she do? She only indicated that Allah created her short. And here, the scope for people to backbite is very wide. People, as our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) created them in their forms and statures, include the tall and the short, the thin and the fat. So a thick person might pass by, and one of us might backbite him, saying … or something similar. In any case, it falls under the generality of this hadith, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . They said: O Messenger of Allah, what do you say if what I said is in him? He said: ; meaning, backbiting is describing a person with what is in him, but if you describe him with what is not in him, you have slandered him. This is slander, and its crime and sin are greater with Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) than backbiting. If backbiting, as you heard its description in the Noble Qur'an: , if a person were alive, he would dislike eating the flesh of his brother, so how much more so when he is dead? Therefore, the backbiting of a Muslim by his Muslim brother is forbidden, and the masses of people, especially women who find nothing in their gatherings but to speak and spend their time talking about so-and-so and so-and-so, often fall into it. So fear Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and stay away from such backbiting. But my intention now is not to elaborate extensively on the explanation of forbidden backbiting. After the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) clarified that mentioning your brother with what he dislikes is backbiting, every person can know whether he is backbiting his Muslim brother or not. But what we need to clarify is that backbiting is sometimes permissible, indeed obligatory. The forbidden backbiting, whose description you have known in the Qur'an and in this hadith between our hands now, becomes permissible, indeed obligatory, becoming an individual obligation, while its original state is that it is forbidden. How is that? The scholars collected it in the two previous lines of poetry.