What is your guidance for those who engage in backbiting about the honor of students of knowledge, scholars, and rulers?

The questioner : Peace be upon you, and Allah's mercy and blessings.

The Shaykh : Did we not say there is no peace, Hamad? Have you forgotten? Yes.

The questioner : In some gatherings, O Shaykh, may Allah reward you, they engage in backbiting about some students of knowledge and scholars, and they begin to criticize and validate narrators, so we seek advice for these people and for them to occupy themselves with what benefits them?

The Shaykh : Yes, it is well known that backbiting is one of the major sins. Backbiting is mentioning your brother with what he dislikes; this is how the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) defined it. Allah has warned against it in His Book with the most emphatic warning, saying, Exalted and Majestic is He: Who would offer to eat the flesh of his dead brother? No one would eat it; everyone detests it. This is an analogy from which the utmost warning against backbiting is derived. And if the backbiting is about the rulers, whether scholars or princes, it is more severe and more severe, because backbiting scholars leads to diminishing their status. When people diminish their scholars, they do not benefit from their knowledge in any way, and the Shari'ah is lost. If people do not benefit from the knowledge of the scholars, what will they benefit from? The ignorance of the ignorant? Or the misguidance of the misguided? Therefore, we consider the one who backbites scholars to have committed a crime against the Shari'ah first, and against these scholars second. The aspect of the crime against the Shari'ah is what I mentioned: it necessitates the rejection of what these scholars spoke of regarding the Shari'ah of Allah, because their status has been diminished and they have fallen from the eyes of the people, so it is not possible to benefit from their knowledge. As for it being backbiting of the individual, that is clear.
As for the princes, backbiting them is also more severe than backbiting others, because it includes personal backbiting, which is one of the major sins, and it includes rebellion against the princes and those in authority. When people dislike a person, they do not respond to his guidance or his orders; rather, they oppose him and reject him, and their gatherings are filled with cursing him and disparaging him. This results in great evil, because when the hearts of the subjects are filled with hatred and enmity toward those in authority, the reins are loosened, and fear prevails instead of security. This is something observed and experienced.
Therefore, we see that it is obligatory for the general people, and especially for students of knowledge, when they hear about a scholar something they do not see as true, to first verify the accuracy of its attribution to this scholar. How many people have attributed to scholars things they did not say? Then, if it is established with him that he said it, it is obligatory for him, in the context of advice to Allah the Exalted and Majestic, His Book, His Messenger, and the leaders of the Muslims, to contact this scholar and say: It has reached me that you said such and such; is this true? Either he denies it, and in that case, we demand from the one who transmitted this statement from him that he provide proof; we say, the scholar denied what was said about him. Or he admits it; if he admits it, I explain my viewpoint to him. I say: This statement you made is not correct. Either he convinces me, or I convince him, or each of us has a perspective in what he said. In that case, he is excused by his independent legal reasoning, and I am excused by my independent legal reasoning, and it is not permissible for me to speak about his honor. Because if I permitted myself to speak about his honor, I would have permitted him to speak about my honor as well, and in that case, discord, enmity, and hatred would result.
As for the princes, they are the second matter as well. Speaking about the princes is common, and you know this now. I give you a simple example: If the one in authority orders that a person be disciplined with a disciplinary action that he deserves according to the Shari'ah, will this disciplined person, with the weakness of faith in our time, accept this discipline and see it as right? Or will he see it as injustice and that this prince is encroaching upon him? Which is it? The second: this is the reality. That is to say, we are not in an era like the era of the Companions, where a man would come and say: O Messenger of Allah, I committed unlawful sexual intercourse, so purify me.
So when the one in authority orders that this man be disciplined, he spreads the news—just as some scholars said about a person who spread a specific case about him in the past, saying: You are a person who spreads the complaint and conceals the case; you spread the complaint and conceal the case. This man, whom the one in authority ordered to be disciplined, began to spread among the people that he is oppressed and that this is his injustice, and the like of that.
And backbiting the rulers, I mean backbiting the rulers from among the princes, includes two dangers: The first danger is that it is backbiting a Muslim man. The second is that it necessitates filling the hearts with hatred toward the princes and their rulers, and disliking and hating them, and not obeying their orders. In that case, the reins of security are loosened. Therefore, we see the publications that are circulated in cursing the rulers or the government; we see that this is forbidden and that it is not permissible for a person to publish them, because if he publishes them, it means it is backbiting of a person from which we do not benefit anything regarding him. We do not benefit except that the hearts hate and dislike them. But will this improve the situation if the situation is bad? Absolutely not; it only increases the severity of the matter. Therefore, we see that publishing such publications is forbidden and that the person is sinful for it, because it is backbiting without doubt, and because it necessitates that the subjects hate and dislike their leaders, and this results in great harm.
This is if we assume that what is transmitted in these publications is true, although we do not know whether it is true or as the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: We do not know.
But assuming it is true and correct, is it permissible for us to publish it while it is backbiting, because backbiting is: ? It is well known that it is not permissible and not allowed. Then, if we knew that this publication is true, yes, if we knew that this publication is true and that it would solve the problem, we would be the first to publish it and the first to distribute it. But we know that it needs proof from one aspect, and it also needs us to look: Is its publication in the interest or in the harm? Perhaps the harm resulting from its publication—meaning, the harm from its publication—is much greater than the error itself. Therefore, it is obligatory for a person to fear Allah first and foremost, and not to publish the faults of people without verification, and not to publish the faults of people except if he sees that the interest lies in publishing them. If the matter is the opposite and harm results from it, he has added to the harm of publishing the faults of people another harm. Allah is his accountant, and he will meet his reward with his Lord. We are speaking about this based on evidence, so we say: Are the publications about the faults of people, whether princes or scholars, from the category of: or not? The answer is: Yes, they are from the category of: It is backbiting. Who said it is backbiting? The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said it, the most knowledgeable of creation, the most sincere of creation, and the most truthful of creation. He said: So it is backbiting. Is backbiting lawful or forbidden? It is forbidden by the text of the Qur'an: .
Now, if backbiting is forbidden, does this backbiting result in the reform of what is corrupted? Absolutely not; it does not result in the reform of what is corrupted. First, as I told you, who says that this is a true reality? Then, who says that reform will result from it? Thus, it is clear that publishing these publications is forbidden and distributing them is forbidden, and that the one who does so is sinful and that he will be held accountable according to the texts of the Book and the Sunnah, because the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And this contradicts patience, without doubt.
Someone might say: Allah the Exalted said in His Book: We say: Yes, it is true. But the meaning of the noble verse is that it is not permissible to be loud with evil speech except if you are wronged, in which case you are loud in your wrong for the complaint until your wrong is removed. This is the meaning of the verse. For example, if a person wrongs me, if he wrongs me, he is a sinner and sinful. I go to anyone and say: By Allah, so-and-so encroached and wronged me; there is no harm in that. That is to say, he said: and did not say: Allah does not love the louding of evil speech except for the wrongdoer, so that we say it is general, except for one who wrongs himself. If a person wrongs himself, he may be loud with evil speech about the one who wronged him, because it is in the nature of a person that he speaks to his friend about the wrong a person has done to him. In this, there is a type of relief and removal of grief, and there is no harm in this.
As for publishing the faults of people in a manner where we know that the harm is far greater than the benefit, if there is any benefit at all, and we do not know whether it is established or not? No sane person who knows the sources and origins of the Shari'ah would doubt that this is forbidden. So we ask Allah the Exalted to protect us and you from the evil of trials, whether apparent or hidden, and to reform our leaders, both the scholars and the rulers, and to reform our common people, for He is capable of all things.