Important advice concerning Muslims in general, related to (fear of Allah, sincerity, and backbiting, especially regarding scholars and rulers)

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and his Companions, and those who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgment.
As for what follows:
This is Thursday, the twentieth of the month of Safar, in the year 1415.
It was customary for our meeting on this day to proceed with the exegesis of the Noble Qur'an, and we had reached the end of our study in Surat al-Fajr. However, due to the large number of brothers present today, we wish to offer important advice that concerns Muslims in general.
We say: The first thing we advise ourselves and you to do is to fear Allah (Mighty and Majestic), because Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) said: . This is the advice of Allah to the first and the last. Fear of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) is that a person takes protection from the punishment of Allah. There is no protection from the punishment of Allah except by doing His commands and avoiding His prohibitions. This is what protects you from the punishment of Allah. Neither a father, nor a son, nor a relative, nor wealth, nor status protects you from the punishment of Allah, except the fear of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), as Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) said: .
Fear of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) is fulfilling His commands and avoiding His prohibitions. Among the most important of His commands, indeed the most important, is sincerity to Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in everything you do as an approach to your Lord. It must be pure for Allah. If you associate others with Allah, He will return it to you. For Allah says in the Holy Hadith: , .
Be sincere to Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in your purification, in your prayer, in your zakah, in your fasting, in your Hajj, in your kindness to your parents, in maintaining your family ties, and in your kindness to your neighbors.
Be sincere to Allah the Exalted in seeking knowledge, by not seeking status, leadership, or trying to compete with scholars or argue with the foolish. Rather, seek by it the revival of the Shari'ah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), the removal of ignorance from the servants of Allah and from yourself, and the defense of the Shari'ah of Allah. For the Shari'ah of Allah the Exalted is targeted, as you know, from the time it emerged in Makkah until this day, it has been targeted, as Allah the Exalted said: By whom? . Every prophet has an enemy, and every follower of a prophet has enemies, and it is necessary.
This is the Sunnah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). The path is not paved with roses and flowers; the path is difficult and arduous. It is necessary that Allah (Mighty and Majestic), by His wisdom, creates an opposite for the truth so that the truth is known and appears bright, prevailing over falsehood, and so that Allah knows the striving and patient among us.
Therefore, sincerity is necessary in seeking knowledge. Be sincere to Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in obeying the command of Allah by following the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). The meaning is that you are sincere in following the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) by not adding to his Shari'ah what is not from it, and not subtracting from his Shari'ah what is from it. One who subtracts from the Shari'ah is deficient and may be an open sinner, and one who adds is an innovator. The religion is complete and does not need innovation. Therefore, sincerity in following the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) is necessary, and by that we realize the testimony that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
And among the fear of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) is that you strive with utmost effort to guide the servants of Allah by spreading the correct knowledge taken from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and that you clarify to them the way of the Companions and those who followed them with excellence, and that you guide people to what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) guided them to, in his saying: , meaning: what does not concern him.
If you see a person striving for Allah (Mighty and Majestic), occupied with what concerns him rather than what does not concern him, having no concern except what brings him closer to Allah, then know that this is from the excellence of Islam.
And if you see a person concerned with matters that are not needed, and not concerned with them, and most of his time is wasted in gossip and excessive questioning, then know that this is from the deficiency of his Islam, and thus , because that wastes time.
But if a person is afflicted with this disease, his time is wasted. He sits with this one saying: What happened? What did so-and-so say? What did so-and-so say? Then to the second he says the same, then to the third, and the fourth, and so on, wasting his time and the time of others.
But if a person walks in what concerns him and matters to him, there is no harm in asking if the need for asking arises. He asks about what happened and what is in the society, in order to treat it and remove the disease, not in order to gloat over others, or to make it a cause for discord and conflict, as some people do now. Some people have a good intention and are not accused, but poor, they are afflicted with this disease, which is that they have no concern except gossip, and what so-and-so said? And what so-and-so said? And what such-and-such a group said? And what such-and-such a group said? Not to treat the disease and remove the discord, but to gloat, or to say as the children say: Are you with these or with those? We have not known this gathering and partisanship except among children.
Therefore, I advise you to finally abandon this matter, because it does not serve the benefit, it wastes time, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) prohibited wasting wealth, and wasting time with gossip and excessive questioning.
And I also advise you to abandon backbiting, the backbiting of people. If I asked you: What is backbiting? The answer would be: . Thus the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) defined it, and he is the most knowledgeable of creation about the meanings of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of his Messenger. And Allah the Exalted said in His Book: , . Whether that is in his character, or his dealings, or his body and his creation, anything your brother dislikes, if you mention it about him in his absence, this is backbiting. means: you slandered him along with backbiting. And the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) – pay attention to this rule – mentions the most specific description while including the described and others. So here when he said: , meaning: even if you did not backbite him? Answer: No, meaning: you slandered him along with backbiting.
And similar to that, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said one day to his companions: . May Allah make me and you among his brothers.
So here he said: , and he said about those who come after him: They are his brothers. Is the meaning: You are my companions and not my brothers? No, they are his companions and his brothers, but companionship is more specific than brotherhood.
Similarly, when he said , meaning: you slandered him along with what? Along with backbiting.
And we see some people now spreading statements about specific individuals, indeed spreading statements or actions about scholars who did not say them or do them, indeed spreading statements and actions about those in authority, those in command, who did not say them or do them.
And backbiting the rulers, the scholars and the ruling princes, from the king and the minister and others, is more severe than backbiting the general people. Why? Because backbiting the rulers causes hatred for the ruler, and if a person hates his ruler, he becomes not submissive to his command, and even if he does everything good, it is absent from his sight, and if he does one evil, it is in his sight and his heart. Why? Because he hates and dislikes him because of what is published. And the wise poet said:
"The eye of satisfaction is blind to every flaw, *** Just as the eye of anger reveals the defects"
The angry person does not think that he will publish a good deed for the one he is angry with, but the hater publishes what? All the evils, and is silent about the good deeds, as if they did not happen.
So backbiting the rulers causes hatred of the ruler, and dislike, and non-compliance with his command, and makes his good deeds evil. And this is dangerous, dangerous for what? For the whole society, because if matters become chaos without control, the system is corrupted, and the nation is scattered. And for example, if we publish the evils of the rulers, does this improve the situation at all? If it improved it, it would be good, but it does not improve it, rather it increases the severity of the matter, and increases the ruler's alertness, and he falls into what he has no right to fall into, which is accusing some of the innocent in a matter from which they are innocent, and evil results from that, evil for the publisher of the evils and for others.
Then, is backbiting a minor sin, or is it one of the major sins? It is one of the major sins.
Ibn Abd al-Qawi says in his Fiqh poem in the Daliyyah meter:
"And it has been said: Backbiting and talebearing are minor, *** But both are major according to the text of Ahmad"
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (may Allah have mercy on him).
So backbiting is one of the major sins. Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said: . Who would like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? No, no one would like to eat the flesh of his dead brother. And Allah likened backbiting to eating the flesh of a dead person, because the one being backbitten is not present, he is not there to defend himself. A dead person, if you eat him, does not defend himself. And this is a likeness to the ugliest of things, which indicates that backbiting is disliked by Allah (Mighty and Majestic), and it must be disliked by the person of intellect, because He the Exalted said: .
Likewise, the backbiting of scholars. Scholars are not infallible, without a doubt, and no one is made infallible except one, and he is the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). As Imam Malik (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "None of us is there but that something is taken from his statement and something is left, except the one of this grave," pointing to the grave of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). And he (may Allah have mercy on him) spoke the truth. Everyone makes mistakes, even a person himself knows his mistake sometimes when he says something and then investigates it or is questioned about it, and it becomes clear that he was wrong.
But is the reward of the scholars who exhausted themselves in acquiring knowledge and did not spare any effort in spreading it among the community, is their reward that if they make one mistake, their mistake is spread and their virtues are silenced? The answer is: No, no, by Allah, this is not their reward, and this is not justice, and this is not equity. Justice is to balance between the good deeds and the bad deeds. If the good deeds outweigh, is the person among the doers of good or among the doers of evil? Among the doers of good. This is when the bad deeds and good deeds are close. So what if there is one bad deed in comparison to thousands of good deeds? But some people, and I seek refuge in Allah, take the one mistake as an excuse for cursing and saying and saying, and they add to this bad deed other bad deeds, and this is not permissible at all under any circumstances.
And know that if people's trust in the scholars decreases, the meaning is not that this is an insult to the scholar personally, but it is an insult to the scholar and to what he carries of the Shari'ah. If the scholar is lowered in the eyes of people, they do not accept his statement, and they reject his statement even if it is clearer than the sun, because the trust has been removed. And if people did not trust each other, no one would ever benefit from anyone. Even the person you want to deal with, you sell to him or buy from him, if you do not trust him, do you deal with him? No.
Therefore, my brothers, I advise you to strive with utmost effort to avoid gossip and talk, and for a person to occupy himself with what concerns him rather than what does not concern him, because that is from the excellence of a person's Islam, as spoken by the truthful and the one who verifies, Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family).
I ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) to make me and you among those who protected people from their evil, and protected them from the evil of people, and to guide us to His straight path, and to accept from us and from you.
And I inform you that your attendance at this gathering is included in the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): . We ask Allah for us and for you sincerity.
Then, since we have a large group with us today, I see that the question should be restricted to those who are not from this town, because they are more deserving since they came. So whoever is from the people of the town has no dispensation to ask one question, not even one, and whoever is not from the people of the town has one question.