Warning Against Backbiting and What Is Obligatory on One Who Backbites a Person
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
This sister: (S. A.) from Jeddah sent a set of questions, saying: Your Eminence! How do I make du'a' for people if I have backbitten a large group of people? Do I make du'a' for them collectively in the plural form, such as saying: “O Allah, forgive them and have mercy on them,” or is it necessary to make du'a' for each one of them by name?
Answer:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, and may Allah send prayers and peace upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family and his Companions, and upon those who follow his guidance. As for what follows:
The matter is broad. If you make du'a' for them collectively, there is nothing wrong with it, or if you do so individually, there is nothing wrong with it. The obligatory thing is to guard against backbiting; the obligatory thing is to guard against it. It is mentioning your brother in a way he dislikes, such as saying about him: he is stingy, he has a bad character, and so on. This is backbiting. And Allah says: [Surah al-Hujurat: 12].
So if a person backbites a group, like Zayd, 'Amr, and Khalid, he says: “O Allah, forgive them, O Allah, forgive them, O Allah, pardon them.” And he mentions them with their good deeds in the places where he mentioned them with their bad deeds, so that this balances that. He mentions them with the good deeds he knows of them in the places where he backbited them, so that this balances that. And if it is possible to seek their forgiveness by asking them to pardon him, that is more complete.
The presenter: May Allah reward you with good, O Shaykh.
This sister: (S. A.) from Jeddah sent a set of questions, saying: Your Eminence! How do I make du'a' for people if I have backbitten a large group of people? Do I make du'a' for them collectively in the plural form, such as saying: “O Allah, forgive them and have mercy on them,” or is it necessary to make du'a' for each one of them by name?
Answer:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, and may Allah send prayers and peace upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family and his Companions, and upon those who follow his guidance. As for what follows:
The matter is broad. If you make du'a' for them collectively, there is nothing wrong with it, or if you do so individually, there is nothing wrong with it. The obligatory thing is to guard against backbiting; the obligatory thing is to guard against it. It is mentioning your brother in a way he dislikes, such as saying about him: he is stingy, he has a bad character, and so on. This is backbiting. And Allah says:
or backbite each other
وَلا يَغْتَبْ بَعْضُكُمْ بَعْضًاSo if a person backbites a group, like Zayd, 'Amr, and Khalid, he says: “O Allah, forgive them, O Allah, forgive them, O Allah, pardon them.” And he mentions them with their good deeds in the places where he mentioned them with their bad deeds, so that this balances that. He mentions them with the good deeds he knows of them in the places where he backbited them, so that this balances that. And if it is possible to seek their forgiveness by asking them to pardon him, that is more complete.
The presenter: May Allah reward you with good, O Shaykh.
Source
binbaz.org.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.