(After long reflection,I decided to publish this hoping perhaps to stimulate discussion)
Refining the notion of Ghiba (Back-biting)
Bismillah Erahman Erahim. This text is produced in the spirit of improving our deen not in any way in the spirit of diluting it- rather in order to make it feasible. May Allah forgive me for any errors within and hopefully some thoughtful and well-informed Muslims friends and colleagues will help in correcting any errors and fine-tuning the text.
Most Muslims are aware of the Quranic ayat (Surat Al Hujjarat 49:12) which prohibits back biting and compares it to eating the flesh of his dead brother. They are also aware of the hadith of the Prophet sal which defines ghiba as “to mention of your brother (in his absence) that which he would dislike.” The difficulty with this last statement as an absolute prohibition is that very few people can meet such a high standard. Hamza Yusuf claims that one of his sheikhs Murabat al-Hajj in Mauritania followed this principle to the letter. I, myself, never had the honour of meeting this man but I have spent a lot of time around many credible, highly pious shuyukh and none of them were able to meet such a standard. So what about the rest of us?!
Once a standard becomes too onerous it becomes counter-productive. Either we keep breaking it and fall into excessive guilt and self-hatred or we end up ignoring it which is even worse for our faith as there is an essence to this interdiction that is important to respect. After all it is present in both the Quran and hadith so we have to take it seriously.
In all fairness, the ulema have already indicated certain exceptions. Two stand out porominently:1) in legal situations where the evidence needs to be presented to come to a proper judgment and redress grievances and2) to warn people about evil-for example in dealing with a crooked business partner or a potentially bad mate in marriage .I maintain in this article that this is not enough to make this prohibition workable.
So I would suggest expanding the areas of exceptions to the three following conditions:
- Trying to solve a problem. For example, there is a very difficult person at work and it is hard to get the job done given his behaviour. Perhaps he, or she, is paranoid or hyper-emotional and hyper-sensitive. We need to meet and decide on a way to manage this problem. This will inevitably lead to talking about him or her in a way they would dislike. This seems inevitable in trying to cope with the situation. By the way, the same thing may occur in personal or family situations. It is not limited to work.
- An attempt to understand what is going on. This is related to the first point but may not involve a specific problem. For example, every time you go to the in-laws you get into an unnecessary argument with your sister-in law. You then try to talk it over with your wife and she explains to you that her brother’s wife was abused physically by her Dad when she was a child and has a problem with assertive males. Officially that discussion is “ghiba”. But in fact it may help you better manage the situation. You then become more tolerant or you tone down the rhetoric as you try to adapt.
- Catharsis: The wife (or the husband for that matter) comes home after a very stressful day at work. Her boss has been on her back all day. The business is in a financial crisis and the boss is irritable with everyone. She comes home and “blows off steam” with her husband complaining about all the bad behaviour of her boss. If she had done this to his face, she may well have lost her job. What is she to do? Repressing the feeling will just make it worse .Expressing it against the husband, a common manoeuvre by both husbands and wives one must say, will create a new set of problems.
Admittedly this can become a slippery slope .Just like the exceptions to the prohibition against lying can be used to develop a culture of deception in couples, being too slack here can lead to too much negativity and venom being circulated. As in all else, one must be vigilant (“wara” in Islamic terms).
“So what is left that remains back-biting?” you may ask. I will mention a few categories that are important and remain part of the prohibition:.
- Talking about people as a form of entertainment, as a way to spend time socially. All too common both in Muslim circles and non-Muslim ones. This overlaps with the prohibition against idle gossip.
- Putting people down in order to raise oneself. This is a noxious activity that is harmful to everyone including the perpetrator as it doesn’t really work to improve his own self-esteem.
- “Dissing” someone because one has some lingering resentment or grievance against them. This is just another illicit form of revenge.
- Making fun of some characteristic of someone as another form of entertainment. All of these are haram.
So, how do we operationalize this expanded paradigm so as not to fall into “massiyah” (disobedience)? The key is in our intentions, as in all actions. Each time we are preparing to say something negative about someone else we need to stop and ask ourselves the question: ”Is this useful ? Is this going to help me deal with a problem situation or a person?” or “Is this just idle and unnecessary talk?” Obviously this requires sincerity and watchfulness to avoid letting our nafs run amok. But, I believe there is enough room in this model to breathe so that we are not constantly over-stepping the limits of the acceptable in our social interactions. What do you think?
Salaams, Ibrahim
