Explanation of the hadith of Hudhayfah (may Allah be pleased with him): (We were with Hudhayfah when it was said to him that a man was raising the report to Uthman, so Hudhayfah said)

The Shaykh : The chapter following this one is: "The Chapter on the Talebearer." In it, he narrated with his authentic chain from Hammam: We were with Hudhayfah. It was said to him: A man is raising the report to Uthman. Hudhayfah said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) say: .
"We were with Hudhayfah": Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman was a man among the distinguished Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and he had a special status with him that no one else shared. That is because he was the keeper of the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) secret, in that he knew the names of the hypocrites, which no human being knew except the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Then, because Hudhayfah was the keeper of the Messenger's (peace be upon him) secret, he knew the names of these hypocrites. Therefore, 'Umar, despite his virtue and despite what he was, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said about him: , even so, 'Umar would come to Hudhayfah and ask him to swear and question him: "Am I mentioned among the names of those hypocrites?" He would then reassure him that he was not. This is Hudhayfah. It was said to him: "A man is raising the report to Uthman." This phrase is an Arabic sentence, but a technical term in the science of hadith has been applied to it. From the Arabic perspective, "raising the report to Uthman" means he is telling tales. I think no one is unaware of the meaning of talebearing (namimah). However, the "qattat" mentioned in the hadith is explained with a slightly more precise definition than the "nammam" (talebearer). We say: "raising the report" means telling tales. What does "telling tales" mean? It is when one hears a conversation between people; he is sitting and hears one person insulting another, or criticizing him, whether rightly or wrongly. What the talebearer does is convey this speech to the one who was criticized, with the intention of causing discord between the critic and the criticized. So this man was "raising the report to Uthman," meaning he would sit with people and listen to what people were saying about Uthman. Perhaps many of you know that in the time of Uthman, there were many, many trials. And the outcome of that, unfortunately, was that a group of people rebelled against him and killed him in his house while he was reciting the Book of Allah. There is no doubt that whenever a trial becomes great, there are preliminaries that preceded it, as it is said: "The fire is only great because of the small sparks." In this atmosphere, in the time of Uthman ibn 'Affan, there was a man who would sit in a gathering, hear someone speaking against Uthman, and quickly go and say to Uthman: "So-and-so said such and such about you." He wanted to drive Uthman against this man who spoke about him. This is talebearing. When it was said to Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman that there was a man "raising the report," meaning conveying the report to Uthman in the way of corruption and talebearing, that is the linguistic meaning. But the technical meaning of "raising the report" is an abbreviation for: "He said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said." How much is the difference between the linguistic meaning and the technical meaning? "Raising the report" means telling tales; "raising the report" means attributing it to the Messenger (peace be upon him). So when such an expression, "raising the report," comes without a context or preceding text that helps us understand that the speaker means talebearing, the meaning of "raising the report" is: attributing it to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). But here, it is very clear that the intended meaning of his saying "raising the report to Uthman" is: conveying the speech he heard criticizing Uthman to Uthman, with the intention of inciting Uthman against him and causing corruption between them. So Hudhayfah's answer was that he said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) say: . It is well known that the "qattat" is interpreted as the talebearer, and this means that no talebearer will enter Paradise. But some scholars mentioned a detail regarding talebearing, and they applied this term "qattat" to one aspect of that detail. If a man sits openly in a gathering among people and hears so-and-so saying something about so-and-so, then conveys it, that is the talebearer (nammam). But the one who does not sit with people, but rather eavesdrops from behind screens, and people do not know that there is someone like a spy, meaning they do not know that there is a person spying on them, and he hears a word containing criticism of a person, he quickly conveys it to that criticized person with the intention of corruption—also. This is the meaning of "qattat."