Discussion on the severity of backbiting scholars and rulers.

The Shaykh : Know that backbiting becomes more ugly and sinful according to what it leads to. The backbiting of an ordinary person is not like the backbiting of a scholar, or not like the backbiting of a prince, manager, or minister, or the like. This is because backbiting rulers, whether the matter is small or large, is more severe than backbiting one who has no authority, no command, and no guardianship. When you backbite ordinary people, you only harm them personally. But when you backbite one who has authority, you harm him and the Muslim affairs he oversees. For example, suppose you backbite one of the scholars. There is no doubt that this is a personal aggression against him, like any other Muslim. But you also commit a great harm to the Shari'ah he carries. A scholar carries the Shari'ah; if you backbite him, he falls in the eyes of people. And if he falls in their eyes, they do not accept his words, do not come to him, and do not refer to him in their religious affairs. What he says of truth becomes doubted because you backbit him. This is a great crime against the Shari'ah. Likewise, if you backbite a prince, king, or president, or the like, it is not just personal backbiting; it is backbiting of him and corruption in his authority. Because if you backbite the prince, minister, or king, it means you are inciting the hearts of the subjects against their rulers. And if you incite the hearts of the subjects against their rulers, you have committed a great harm to the subjects in this state, for this is a cause for spreading chaos among people, tearing people apart, and scattering people. Today it is throwing words, and tomorrow it will be throwing arrows. Because if hearts are incited and they hate their rulers, they cannot be led by their commands. Rather, if they are ordered to do good, they see it as evil. For this reason, the poet said a true word:
"The eye of satisfaction is blind to every flaw, *** Just as the eye of anger reveals the defects"
So, for example, if you backbite one of the great figures who hold authority over the Muslims, whether in religious leadership or executive authority, you are harming the Muslims in general without even realizing it. Some people may think that this satisfies their anger and frustration, but how can one pour out their rage on a stable security situation to turn that security into fear, or that stability into anxiety, or to turn this trust in the world into a withdrawal of trust? If you are full of anger or your chest is filled with resentment, pour it out on yourself before you pour it out on others. Look at your own faults; are you free from faults? Are you safe? The first fault in you is that you curse the rulers and backbite the rulers. One might say, "I want to enjoin good and forbid evil." We say: Well, that is your intention, but houses are entered through their doors. The path of enjoining good and forbidding evil is not to spread the faults of your rulers, because this increases evil rather than decreasing it. People do not trust anyone; if a scholar says this is wrong, they say, "That is easy, leave it aside." If a prince says this is wrong and wants to prevent it, they say, "No, you have not fixed yourself before you fix others," and so on. This causes great harm to the Muslims. And it is astonishing that some of those obsessed with this matter—cursing the rulers, be they scholars or princes—do not mention the good deeds of those they backbite so that they may establish justice. For Allah says: meaning: Do not let your hatred of them lead you And it is also astonishing that you hardly find, in their gatherings or on their lips, a single day in the age where they tell people, "O people, fear such and such, fear deception, fear lying." Deception exists in the markets, in buying and selling, and in transactions, and lying exists as well, and backbiting exists. You hardly find them pouring their energy into reforming the common people and warning them. It is known that if the common people are reformed, the people are the common people; the people are composed of Zayd, 'Amr, Bakr, and Khalid, individuals. If the individuals are reformed, the people are reformed, and if the people are reformed, the entire nation must be reformed. But some people have a sickness; they love this kind of thing, loving to spread the carpet of investigation for a scholar, tracking down his faults and not mentioning his good deeds or spreading them among people. Or they take a prince, a minister, a president, or a king, place him on the carpet, dissect him, and speak about him without mentioning any of his good deeds. Glory to Allah! Where is the justice? If Allah the Exalted says the truth and guides to the path, even in dealing with the polytheists, Allah the Exalted says: They said two things: "We found our fathers upon it," and the second is "Allah has commanded us." Allah judged between them: So He accepted the truth, which was that they found their fathers upon it, and rejected the falsehood. If you want to speak with justice, speak with justice. As for tracking down the faults of Muslims, especially their rulers, know that whoever tracks down the fault of his brother, Allah will track down his fault, and whoever Allah tracks down the fault of, He will expose him, even in his mother's house. The important thing is that we must avoid backbiting, avoid it, and restrain our tongues. We must know that every word that constitutes backbiting about a person is a deduction from our good deeds and an addition to the good deeds of the one who was wronged by the cursing, as it came in the hadith: We even heard that some of the Salaf heard a person backbiting him, so he sent him a gift. The one who was backbitten sent to the one who backbitten him a gift and said to him, "You have gifted me good deeds that I will benefit from on the Day of Resurrection, and I am gifting you this gift so that you may benefit from it in this world. And the end of it is that it becomes excrement or urine. Glory to Allah, this is the excrement. The important thing, my brothers, is that my advice to myself and to you is to avoid backbiting and to avoid delving into the faults of the rulers, be they scholars, princes, sultans, or others. If you want good and reform, the door is open. Contact them directly, or contact other channels if you cannot reach them directly. Then, once you have fulfilled the obligation, what is beyond that is dropped from you. Then know, my brother, does your backbiting of the scholars or the princes fix anything? No, it is corruption in reality; it only increases the severity of the matter, it does not lift an injustice, and it does not fix what is broken. The paths exist, and the person must speak with justice, as I said. If you are afflicted with spreading the faults of people, spread the good qualities so that the scales balance or one side outweighs the other. As for being afflicted, may Allah protect us and you from what He dislikes, with spreading faults and being mute about spreading good qualities, this is not justice. May Allah guide you and me to what is good and reformed.