The Permissibility of Backbiting a Man When a Benefit Results from It

The Shaykh : In this hadith, there are in fact several benefits. Among the most important of them is that when the people of Banu Salim mentioned to the Messenger (peace be upon him), in the absence of "Jadd ibn Qays," their leader, that he was stingy, there is a jurisprudential benefit here. It is that it is permissible to backbite a man if a legitimate religious benefit results from it. This is backbiting; the statement of the people of Banu Salim to the Messenger (peace be upon him), when he asked them about their leader, their master, so-and-so, saying "we find him to be stingy"—their describing him as stingy, meaning their characterizing him with stinginess—is backbiting. Because you know the general principles that backbiting is—drink with your right hand, and do not drink with the left, neither you nor anyone else, and teach your children Islamic etiquette—so when a person says, "We find him to be stingy," meaning we find him to be a stingy person, this is backbiting. Because backbiting, as he (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him) said in the authentic hadith: . And each of us, when mentioned with a bad character trait that he possesses, it is undoubtedly backbiting. If I say, "Zayd among the people is stingy," this is disliked, even if he knows his own state that he is stingy. If I say, "So-and-so is angry," and he was indeed angry, but this is something he dislikes, and so on, this is all backbiting. Because the Messenger (peace be upon him) says: . The questioner then said, thinking that mentioning a person with what he possesses is without blame. So when the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned that there is great blame in it, he said, "Then if what I mentioned is not in him, is there no blame in it?" He said: . This is slander, and this is a greater and greater sin.
So, if backbiting is mentioning your brother with what he dislikes, how did the people of Banu Salim describe their leader and master in the presence of the Messenger (peace be upon him) as stingy, and the Messenger (peace be upon him) approved of them doing so? He did not say to them, "No, no, what are you doing? Why are you backbiting him?" as some of the scrupulous, or rather some of the overly strict, do. When an occasion arises to describe a man with a bad character trait in him, to warn people, a scrupulous or overly strict person says to you, "My brother, we do not want to backbite people." It is necessary to know the detailed ruling on backbiting, and this hadith gives us an example of this detail. The original ruling is that backbiting is forbidden, and its criterion is that the listener has no religious benefit when the one being backbitten is mentioned, and it is merely "exposing character flaws," or for the sake of entertainment, or just talking, or something similar. All of this is forbidden backbiting. However, if the backbiting is not intended for relaxation or entertainment, but the intention is an Islamic benefit, then this becomes permissible backbiting, and it naturally varies in many forms...