What is Backbiting?
“Believers, stay away from conjecture; acting upon some conjecture may lead to sin.” (Surah Al-Hujarat, verse 12)
Having suspicion and prejudice about others leads to evil incidents.
Suspicion and prejudice cause spying and this leads to the surfacing of imperfections. Those who are aware of these imperfections will point to them while talking to others and this is backbiting.
“Do not spy on one another or back-bite. Would any of you like to eat the disgusting dead flesh of your brother?” reads the rest of the above-mentioned verse.
The fact that the Quran has compared backbiting to eating the dead flesh of one’s brother is because when we backbite someone, they are not present there to defend themselves. The act is like cutting out a piece of flesh from someone’s body while no flesh will be replaced there. Therefore, backbiting is as bad as eating a dead one’s flesh.
