Ghibah

I read my first adult fiction at the 6^th grade. From my maternal grandfather's collection. The title can be loosely translated as 'Billowing Youth'.  When my grandmother asked I brazenly admitted. I can't forget how her gazelle eyes widened and how her pitch-black unibrow rose like bird wings in innocent surprise.

I wonder what she was thinking. But only recently I realized that people age only physically. Mentally they remain a child. Perhaps in that moment she realized that she aged. That even her grandchild is becoming a man. This made me realize why my parents seem to be at unease when I callously speak of 'old people'. Of course with good intention. Like 'we should take disabled and old peoples into consideration during transportation planning'.

But only 'good intention' does not cut it. People translate 'Ghibah' ( غِيبَة ) as backbiting. From the Prophetic ﷺ definition it seems incorrect. The definition is to speak of anything that upset your brother or sister in faith. ANYTHING. I struggled with it for a long time. How can I vent then? How can I caution my close acquaintances of the dangers of others? Or express my dismissal or suspicion of others? These are real life questions that needs to be addressed.

But in general the Islamic position is a principled one. Why should we be concerned about venting or expressing our suspicion when our moral creed even discourage to be cautious and limit the speech that is considered permissible? But it was a moment of epiphany when the blessed Shaykh Umar Faruq abd-Allah in a noble gesture apologized for saying what he considered to be at the periphery of Ghibah. So forget about engaging in Ghibah we should not even be close to its perimeters.

But how can we talk let's say in this particular case? To talk about the disabled, the sick, the old, the poor, the fallen, the unfortunate without hurting their honor and self worth? I'm sure there are noble ways to conduct. That is what you learn from the companionship, the apprenticeship of the Kāmil (كامل ).

This situation also makes pertinent the advice of Shaykh Abdul Qadir as-Sūfi:

You have to be right with yourself. You must not carry any luggage. Now if supposing this person has done something against the Shariat and they have not been punished because there is no Shariat in our time or in the place that we live where these things are carried out then your forgiveness to Allah is: O Allah forgive me that I have not established the Dīn so strongly that such a person should be punished. But what you cannot hold in yourself is the old business of the daily living which leaves its mark because we, all of us, cause trouble. You can't move without hurting somebody. The whole of existence is troubled and we all cause trouble. But at the same time people cause us trouble. And we cannot carry this through life because you see it on the faces of the Kuffār who never make the Du'a. As they get older you see a stress in them, a distress, because the great stress comes from inside of the self not from around one. And when you go on Hajj and you sit at the house of Allah , you see old Muslim men and women from all over the world and you cannot fail to notice that beauty of the Muslim people, that our people in the old age, have a beauty because they have cleansed out themselves, they have made that forgiveness.

In any case my grandmother asked me where did I get the book from. In my desperation I threw my blessed grandfather under the bus. The book was confiscated but I was able to save myself.