The Shaykh: From Jubayr ibn Nufayr, that he heard Mu'awiyah say: I heard from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): words that benefited me
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The Shaykh : From Jubayr ibn Nufayr, that he heard Mu'awiyah say: I heard from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): words by which Allah benefited me. I heard him say, or he said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: إنك إذا اتبعت الريبة في الناس أفسدتهم If you openly show your suspicions of people, you will corrupt them.Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 248. This is a hadith in which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) addressed Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, and that was before he took charge of the kingship. The scholars say that in the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) addressing Mu'awiyah with such a hadith, there is a subtle hint that he might one day take charge of the people and their affairs. Therefore, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) advised him not to deal with them based on bad suspicion, casting doubt, and suspicion of them. He said (peace and blessings be upon him) to him: إنك إذا اتبعت الريبة في الناس أفسدتهم If you openly show your suspicions of people, you will corrupt them.Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 248 meaning: If you suspect them of bad and deal with them based on bad suspicion of them, that will be a driver and incentive for them to commit what you suspected them of. It is not permissible for a Muslim to have bad suspicion of his Muslim brother, especially if he has general authority over the people, so he should not deal with them based on bad suspicion of them, because his bad suspicion of them will lead them to be at the level of his bad suspicion of them. As it is known, a person who has some authority over another, if he is frank with him or deals with him based on good suspicion of him, that person is usually at the level of the good suspicion held of him. Similarly, the opposite is the case: if the president of the state, or the president of the village, or similar positions, have good suspicion of the people, that is one of the incentives and drivers for their followers to be at the level of his good suspicion of them, and the opposite is exactly the opposite. If he has bad suspicion of them, they will be at the level of his bad suspicion of them. Similar to this hadith is what came in "Sahih Muslim": "That the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) forbade a man to visit his family at night, to sneak up on them and suspect them of bad." The Messenger (peace be upon him) forbade a man, if he was traveling, to come to his family at night, meaning to intend to come to them at night by way of surprise and ambush, to see how the group is in the house. The meaning of that is that bad suspicion of his family was cast into his soul, and therefore he surprised them and ambushed them at night. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade this from this angle, because if you visit your family at night, that will lead your family to have bad suspicion of you, just as you visited them at night and made them think you have bad suspicion of them; likewise, they will deal with you with such behavior. It is known in the custom of people that if a person is accused of a charge and is innocent of that charge, and he tries to refute the charge from himself but cannot, what is the fate of this accused person? He says, as we often hear, "The people are talking about us, so let us do what they are talking about." From here, this hadith is of the utmost wisdom in planning for the ruler in dealing with the ruled: he should have good suspicion of them, not bad suspicion, because his dealing with them based on bad suspicion, as he said in this hadith, will corrupt them. إنك إذا اتبعت الريبة في الناس أفسدتهم If you openly show your suspicions of people, you will corrupt them.Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 248 And this corruption has been clarified by such previous speech. The goal of the hadith and its purpose is that Muslims should deal with each other based on good suspicion, not based on bad suspicion, especially those among them who have general authority, such as the ruler, or specific authority, such as a man in his household. Therefore, the Messenger (peace be upon him) forbade a man to visit his family at night, to sneak up on them or seek out their faults. The hadith that follows is a weak hadith.
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