Allah commands us to verify the truth about matters before we speak, and before we pass on what we hear from others. Allah says: “O ye who believe! If a sinful person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest you harm people unwittingly and afterwards become full of regret for what you have done.” [Sûrah al-Hujurât: 6] The need to be vigilant in ascertaining the truth before we speak is not limited to the bad things we hear about other people. There are many areas where we need to verify the truth about what we say. 1. What We Say About Allah This is clearly the most important area wherein we must ascertain the truth before speaking. Allah says: “Say: the things that my Lord hath indeed forbidden are: shameful deeds, whether open or secret; sins and trespasses against truth or reason; assigning of partners to Allah, for which He hath given no authority; and saying things about Allah of which you have no knowledge.” [Sûrah al-A`râf: 33] In this verse, Allah compares speaking about Him without knowledge to the sin of polytheism. We should pay heed to the fact that when we speak about what id lawful and forbidden in Allah’s Law, we are speaking about Allah. 2. What We Attribute to the Prophet (peace be upon him) We should take care to ascertain that what we convey of the Prophet’s words and actions are true. Telling a lie about the Prophet (peace be upon him) is far worse than telling a lie about somebody else. This is because the Prophet (peace be upon him) came with Allah’s guidance to humanity. When we misrepresent the Prophet’s teachings, we misrepresent Allah’s message. This is why the Companions exercised so much caution with each other in verifying the Prophet’s words after his death. When Abû Mûsâ mentioned what the Prophet (peace be upon him) said about seeking permission to enter someone’s house twice, `Umar did not accept this from him without someone else attesting to it. `Alî b `Abî Tâlib said: “If I personally heard something from the Prophet (peace be upon him), I would benefit from it as much as Allah blessed me to benefit. If I heard it indirectly from one of the Companions, I would make him swear an oath to its veracity. If he swore an oath, I would believe him. Abû Bakr was among those whom I believed.” Muslim, in the introduction to his Sahîh, quotes Ibn Sîrîn as saying: “This knowledge is religion, so take care who you take your religion from.” Due to the care that the Muslims took in assessing the narrators of the Sunnah and in verifying its chains of transmissions, some Orientalists have admitted that: “The Prophetic Sunnah enjoys a higher degree of verification and continuity in its transmission that either the Old or the New Testament.” 3. What We Attribute to the Religious Scholars It is important to be certain of what we claim various scholars of the past have said, or those of the present are saying. We must be sure about the rulings that they give and not attribute to them opinions that they do not hold. The mistakes that people make in this regard can lead to a lot of confusion and misunderstandings. 4. What We Say about People in General Actually, there is usually no reason for us to say anything about ordinary people. We should only speak about people when there is a real need to do so and a real benefit that is hoped to be achieved. However, because of the weakness of character in this day and age, rumor-mongering has become commonplace, and people are all too eager to hear the latest gossip and then pass it on. The Prophet (peace be upon him) warned us: “It is enough for a person to be a liar that he repeats everything that he hears.” [Sahîh Muslim] There are many ways a person can ascertain the truth about what he hears, so that he does not speak without authority. Some of these ways are as follows: 1. He can suffice by benefiting from what he hears from other for his own purpose – if there is a need for him to have that information – and to forget what he hears about others when it does not concern him. 2. He can make sure to take only from reliable and trustworthy sources when he cannot secure firsthand knowledge of a matter that concerns him. The reliability of a person cannot be determined merely from a cursory observation of his apparent good character. There is more to it than that. The track record and attested of the source should be ascertained. The sensibility of the source and how balanced the reports are contribute to our assessment of the source’s reliability. The possible vested interests and ulterior motives that might influence the source’s discussion of a particular matter need to be considered as well. Outward righteousness alone, therefore, is not enough. Mâlik said: “I was acquainted in Madinah with seventy people who would be sought out to lead the prayers for rain – but I would not accept a hadîth from any of them.” Ibn Abî al-Zinâd heard his father say: “I was acquainted in Madinah with a hundred people, all of whom were people of integrity. However, they were not people one would hear hadîth from. They simply did not have the requisite aptitude.” These two scholars were not speaking ill of those people from whom they did not accept hadîth. They were not calling into question those people’s uprightness or integrity. Rather, it was just that some of those people were just a bit too careless in accepting what they heard from others. Some of them were too easy to trust whatever they heard. Some of them were a bit too hasty – they would never lie on purpose, but they would report their first and often erroneous impression of what they saw. For instance, if they were to see a crowd on the street, they would jump to the conclusion that an accident had taken place and say so much to others. We need to be careful, because when we speak about others, we can cause them a lot of grief and injury, even though it is not our intention to do so. Indeed, Allah warns us that what we say about others can harm them: “O ye who believe! If a sinful person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest you harm people unwittingly and afterwards become full of regret for what you have done.” [Sûrah al-Hujurât: 6]
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 22:04:44 +0000
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