Enjoining good and forbidding evil regarding the common people and its conditions
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Your Eminence! What is the ruling on enjoining good and forbidding evil regarding the common people? Is it obligatory to enjoin good and forbid evil even if it results in harm to the person?
It is obligatory for everyone who has the ability to enjoin good and forbid evil, but with conditions: The first condition is that he knows that this is an evil or that it is not an evil.
Because some people think something is an evil when it is not an evil according to the Shari'ah, so he must have knowledge that this is an evil. As for merely having a taste that is repelled by it and seeing it as an evil, this is not permissible to denounce; because taste is not a Shari'ah measure and it is not the Shari'ah evidence. But if he knows that this is an evil, he forbids it.
The second condition: That he knows that the doer of this evil is actually committing the evil.
For it may be that the doer did it in a way that is not an evil in his case, and for this reason, when a man entered while the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was delivering the sermon on Friday and sat down, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not denounce his sitting, but rather asked him first: (Did you pray? He said, No.
He said: Get up and pray two rak'ahs).
So if we see a man holding a woman's hand in the market, it is not permissible for us to denounce him; because it is possible that the woman is one of his mahrams; or his wife, or his sister, or something similar to that,So these two matters are necessary: The first matter: That he knows that this is an evil in the ruling of Allah.
And the second meaning: That he knows that this man is engaged in it.
If he does not know these two matters, it is not permissible for him to speak.
It is obligatory for everyone who has the ability to enjoin good and forbid evil, but with conditions: The first condition is that he knows that this is an evil or that it is not an evil.
Because some people think something is an evil when it is not an evil according to the Shari'ah, so he must have knowledge that this is an evil. As for merely having a taste that is repelled by it and seeing it as an evil, this is not permissible to denounce; because taste is not a Shari'ah measure and it is not the Shari'ah evidence. But if he knows that this is an evil, he forbids it.
The second condition: That he knows that the doer of this evil is actually committing the evil.
For it may be that the doer did it in a way that is not an evil in his case, and for this reason, when a man entered while the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was delivering the sermon on Friday and sat down, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not denounce his sitting, but rather asked him first: (Did you pray? He said, No.
He said: Get up and pray two rak'ahs).
So if we see a man holding a woman's hand in the market, it is not permissible for us to denounce him; because it is possible that the woman is one of his mahrams; or his wife, or his sister, or something similar to that,So these two matters are necessary: The first matter: That he knows that this is an evil in the ruling of Allah.
And the second meaning: That he knows that this man is engaged in it.
If he does not know these two matters, it is not permissible for him to speak.