“THOSE WHO GOSSIP TO YOU, WILL GOSSIP ABOUT YOU.”
I don’t know who said this quote, but I have definitely found it to be true in life. Sometimes in conversation with sisters, you hear a little something like this…. “I don’t want to backbite, BUT…..”. First of all, if you’re saying this, you clearly know you’re about to backbite somebody and bring the sin of it upon yourself. So when you have to start your sentence off with, “I don’t want to/ I’m not trying to backbite, but…” STOP RIGHT THERE. I’m pretty sure if someone brought you a bowl of hot steaming flesh from your brother or sister when you were beginning this statement, you wouldn’t finish what you were going to say. Or remind yourself that when you backbite another muslim, you’re giving them your good deeds. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t afford to lose anyyyyyyy good deeds.
Coming back to the quote, when a sister backbites someone else to me, this quote repeats over and over in my mind and I feel I can no longer trust this sister. If she’s so willing to disobey Allah to tell someone else’s secrets and personal business to me, then I highly doubt she would have a problem telling mine. I find myself in a situation like this now. I’m friends with a sister, who almost every conversation is gossiping or backbiting someone. I change the subject and am trying to be nice about it, but it’s quickly changing the way I see her. Of course, no one is perfect and I’m sure I have short comings that she dislikes about me, but I feel her trying to backbite others to me is 1) bringing a sin upon herself, 2) bringing a sin upon me if I don’t advise her against it, and 3) making me question how much of what I’ve told her has been repeated to others.
“Those who gossip to you, will gossip bout you.”
Food for thought.