Sadullah Khan – Developing a Qur’anic Personality To be and What not to be. #12

Developing the Quran personality to be and what

not to be.

The prophet

said that Allah dislikes certain things and he

mentioned in the hadith,

and among the things that Allah dislikes,

He said, she said, in other words,

telltailing

or gossiping.

And

by when we say gossiping,

which may cause dissension, which may cause hurt,

which may cause humiliation,

which may cause a denigration of another.

And the Quran refers to those who indulge

in such acts,

such diabolical act of

Despicable and slanderous,

preventers of good, and sinfully aggressive.

Some people have a tendency to repeat

everything they hear.

And repeating everything you hear, just because you

heard it, you repeat

it, or you receive a WhatsApp and you

forward it, or a tweet and you just

forward

it, specifically if it's negative.

This is a sign of bad character.

Character.

Sufficient is the sign

and a proof

of you being unreliable.

Sufficient is the sign of you being

unreliable.

In fact, the hadith says, sufficient is the

sign that you're a liar, that you repeat

everything you hear.

So therefore, the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam

dissuaded us

from this kind of behavior. In fact, he

said,

He said, the worst servants of Allah are

those who carry gossip,

and by that way separating

loved ones because of the gossip

and causing

harm to innocent people.

There's an incident where a man went to

the sheikh, and he said, sheikh, I have

a habit of gossiping, of carrying tails.

What can I do? How can I get

away from this? How can I get rid

of this bad habit? And the sheikh gave

him a bag of

feathers, and the sheikh said, do me a

favor. Carry this bag with you all the

time. Whenever you do it and you remember

you've done gossip, take a handful of feathers

and throw it out. And then ask Tova.

And he did it for a couple of

times, and the sheikh said, come back to

me when you stop it. So after a

while, he came back to the sheikh and

said,

my bag isn't empty yet. It's almost empty.

But you know what? For the past week,

I didn't gossip at all. Sheikh, am I

okay now? Have I recovered? Is it okay?

And I made over every time I did

it when I drew the feathers. The sheikh

said, yes, you've made over, and you stopped

the deed.

But

the meditation resolved yet.

Can you get me the feathers back? He

said, no, Sheikh. It's over a couple of

weeks now. I threw the feathers. They scattered

all over the show. He said, it's gossip.

Though you've repented,

the gossip and negative things you said about

people is all over the shore. And though

you have repented, you can never get it

back. So sometimes,

you repent of a sin, but the damage

is done.

Sometimes, that's why gossip is worse than maybe

stealing. If I steal, I give your money

back. But gossip?

I don't know who you told it to.

And everyone knows about it, and it's not

even true. You cannot retract it. That's why

it's so dangerous

and so condemned in Islam. Slanderous, the Quran

referred to is as preventers of good and

sinfully aggressive.

And therefore,

Rasulullah

distinctly distanced himself from any form

of gossiping and tail tating. That's why he

said,

The envious people and those who gossip, I've

got nothing to do with them. They're not

part of me, and I'm not part of

them.

The dishonest people, the unjust and oppressive people,

and those who carry tales. He said, why?

He

said,

Because the one

who is,

you know, carrying tales for example, deceives

you. The one who deceives you or deceives

for you or on behalf of you will

deceive you someday. The one who oppresses people

on your behalf

1 who does wrong to other people because

of you will someday do wrong to you.

And if he gossips on your behalf to

other people or says things bad about other

people to you, he may say bad things

to to other people about you. Imam Shafi

kept it very beautiful.

Be very careful who tells you bad things

about other people.

Be rest assured he tell other people bad

things about

Because the gossamer is like this, he'll say

good things and praise you

so much when he's in good books with

you. He'll say things about you so good

which may not even be true. And when

he's angry with you, he'll say lies about

you also which are not true. And, therefore,

be very careful what we say and why

we say what we say. An old Sufi

tradition which says before you speak,

ask yourself 4 questions.

What I'm about to say, are these words

true?

Are these words kind?

Are these words necessary?

Are they beneficial?

If the answer to any of these questions

is no, then rather don't say anything. May

Allah grant

that we never never be of those who

gossip. Rather, say something good or rather remain

silent.