Cultivating Good Thoughts: Preventing Suspicion, Spying, and Backbiting

Ḥusn al-Ẓann: Guarding Our Thoughts and Knowing Ourselves

You are hoping in the mercy of Allah. You are hoping in a person having these attributes. This is called ẓann.

And this is actually a commandment for us from Allah, from Rasulullah ﷺ, that we should have good ẓann. Ẓann by its nature is generic. It's neutral.

You could have ḥusn al-ẓann. You can also have sū' al-ẓann. So having a good thought about someone is ḥusn al-ẓann naturally, and having evil thoughts is sū' al-ẓann.

Allah has commanded us to have ḥusn al-ẓann and prohibited us from having sū' al-ẓann. Allah says, in Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt:

O those who have believed — and note, it says يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا, not "O mankind," because mankind has to accept Islam first. After they accept Islam, then we focus on the aḥkām. So this is a ḥukm with respect to those who have already accepted Islam.

اجْتَنِبُوا كَثِيرًا مِّنَ الظَّنِّ — Avoid having many negative thoughts. Because بَعْضَ الظَّنِّ إِثْمٌ — some of the thoughts are sinful.

Not all thoughts are sinful, because some thoughts may be positive too. The word ẓann does not inherently carry any negative connotation. It could be a positive thought. So Allah says, بَعْضَ الظَّنِّ إِثْمٌ — some of the thoughts may be sinful.

The Three Prohibitions and Their Natural Progression

In this series of prohibitions, there are three. There is a natural progression — or rather we should say, a regression of one's character.

First, the person has a negative thought. It's just something he's thinking; he doesn't have concrete evidence. So to prove his negative thought, he starts spying on the individual — following someone, prying into their internal conditions, their private affairs — in order to prove the negative thought he has in his mind.

That is why the second command is:

Do not spy on one another. Now if you are continually going to be after someone, prying into their affairs, sooner or later — it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when — you are going to eventually find something wrong. And the reason you're going to find some sin is because the person is a human being. By nature of being a human being, every person has some fault, some sins — with no exception, besides the anbiyā' ʿalayhim al-salām.

The ʿIṣmah of the Anbiyā'

Who are human beings who do not have sins? The anbiyā', because they are maʿṣūm — divinely protected from sins. As human beings they would have been inclined towards sin too, but the divine protection interferes and blocks it.

Like in Sūrat Yūsuf:

She closed the doors — Zulaykhā — and said, "Come to me to fulfill your desires." Yūsuf ﷺ said, "I seek the protection of Allah; I cannot commit betrayal." Then Allah says:

She was inclined towards him, and he would also have been inclined towards her — had he not seen the sign of his Lord. If you stop at وَهَمَّ بِهَا — that would be an ʿaqīdah of kufr. You cannot stop there. You must complete the āyah. That is the ṣifah of ʿiṣmah at play — that divine protection. ʿIṣmah means protection. The one who is the protector is ʿāṣim, and the one who is protected is maʿṣūm.

Those from an Urdu background — when we say مَاسُوم بَچَّہ, our understanding of the word maṣūm is "innocent." But the actual meaning of maʿṣūm is a passive participle from the word ʿiṣmah — meaning the one who is divinely protected from committing sins. In the case of children, are they divinely protected? Well, their book of sins has not even been opened yet. Like the angel deputed on the side of sins — that shift has not even begun.

The kirāman kātibīn know what you are doing and they are writing it down. Whatever statement comes out of your mouth is being recorded. The book of good deeds opens from the beginning, but the book of sins opens when a person becomes bāligh — or when a person accepts Islam, everything prior is wiped out.

The Status of the Ṣaḥābah: Maghfūr

In any case, as human beings we will end up finding some faults. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhī, Hadith 2499; also recorded in Sunan Ibn Mājah, Hadith 4251)

Every son of Adam commits sins, and the best of the sinners are those who repent from their sins.

Now, the anbiyā' are maʿṣūm — we covered that very briefly. And then after anbiyā', we have the Ṣaḥābah, then the Tābiʿūn, then the Tābiʿ al-Tābiʿīn, and then all our salaf till today. Right from the Ṣaḥābah onward, they are not maʿṣūm — but they are rather maghfūr. The anbiyā' have been divinely protected from sins. The Ṣaḥābah raḍiyallāhu ʿanhum ajmaʿīn have been divinely forgiven — not a possible forgiveness, but a guaranteed forgiveness. That is a very important distinction.

Can we say the anbiyā' can commit a sin? No.

They don't even speak from their desires. They are the uswatun ḥasanah — the model to follow. But the Ṣaḥābah — can we say they will never commit a sin? No. But will they be held accountable for sins? No. Can we blame them for sins? No. Why? Because the one they potentially may have sinned against — He has already promised that He has forgiven them. So that's the exact position of the Ṣaḥābah. And after that, can we commit sins? Absolutely. Do we have a guarantee of forgiveness? No. Do we hope for forgiveness? Yes. But we fear the ʿadhāb as well. That's where we are.

Allah knows all our major and minor sins — former and future, open and secret. وَمَا أَنْتَ أَعْلَمُ بِهِ مِنَّا — those sins You are aware of that we don't even know ourselves. Why? Because we don't even know it's a sin when we're committing it. Or we know it's a sin we committed and then we forgot — literally forgot the sin we ourselves committed.

Allah says on the Day of Judgment:

He will resurrect the human beings and inform them: "Look, this is what you did." Allah recorded it — you did your own sin intentionally and you also forgot. "Oh, I actually did this?" So — those sins that we remember, forgive us. Those sins we committed and did not realize, forgive them. And those sins we committed, realized, and then forgot — forgive them as well. This is from the Muslim du'ā'.

The Third Prohibition: Backbiting

The second prohibition is: do not spy — وَلَا تَجَسَّسُوا. And then when you find the sin, if you happen to come across it, you should not broadcast it. You should not mention it to others. That is known as ghībah. So the third prohibition:

Do not backbite one another. So these are the three prohibitions in order: do not have suspicious thoughts; do not follow it up with spying; and if you do find something, do not backbite. This is such a despicable act. Allah gives a tashbīh, an example — would anyone of you like to eat the dead meat of his brother? It is equal to or worse than that in sin.

The Limit of Good Opinion

So we are commanded to have good thoughts. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Referenced in classical works of adab; see also al-Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq)

Have positive thoughts about others. So when it comes to having a thought, we should have the positive thought. But there is also a limit to accepting others' good opinions of you. See — there is the one who has a thought, and the one regarding whom the thought is. There are etiquettes for the one who has a thought: he should have good thoughts. But should the one receiving those thoughts simply accept all of them? Absolutely not.

النَّاسُ يَمْدَحُونَكَ لِمَا يَظُنُّونَهُ فِيكَ — People are praising you because they have a ẓann, a belief about you. Now, the word ẓann — as we covered — by its nature means it is not yaqīn. It is the opposite of yaqīn. Yaqīn is a certain fact; ẓann is something supposed, imagined, estimated — you are guessing. That's what ẓann is. So people have a ẓann, because do they know for certain what's in your heart? No. If you see somebody performing tahajjud ṣalāh, is it still ẓann? Yes — because you don't know if he is sincere or not.

So we talked about having positive thoughts, but there is also a limit. The Prophet ﷺ said that when you praise someone, you should say:

(Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Hadith 2662; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Hadith 3001)

We do not declare the tazkiyah of someone — that this person is 100% confirmed mukhliṣ. That is something Allah alone judges. "I am not going to pass judgment and say, this is someone certified by me, when Allah says He is the only one who certifies." نَحْسَبُهُ كَذَلِكَ — "This is how we expect, hope, and believe, based on the apparent condition."

Because Allah said:

Do you see these people who do tazkiyah of others — declaring someone to be pure? Worse is when you declare yourself: "I'm holier than thou," as they say in English. That is يُزَكُّونَ أَنفُسَهُم — self-righteousness. بَلِ اللَّهُ يُزَكِّي مَن يَشَاءُ — Allah is the one who does the tazkiyah. And He is the Mālik Yawm al-Dīn — the Master of the Day of Judgment — that is when He will make the results apparent.

The Hidden Mujrimūn

There are good people and bad people together in this world. Outwardly someone looks good, but they are wolves in sheep's clothing. The wolves will become apparent when? On the Day of Judgment:

The key word in this āyah is imtiyāz — to be distinct, to be separate. That means the mujrimūn are currently hidden. This āyah is not talking about the open mujrimūn — like Firʿawn and Abū Jahl, everyone knows they are mujrimūn. This is talking about the hidden ones, the unknown ones, the incognito, the disguised ones. Allāhu Akbar. If this is not scary, what is?

That is why Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, when he was reciting Sūrat Yāsīn and came to this āyah, he paused. He kept repeating it over and over again — the entire night he recited this āyah again and again: وَامْتَازُوا الْيَوْمَ أَيُّهَا الْمُجْرِمُونَ — thinking deeply. Because is he in the category of Firʿawn and Hāmān and Shaddād? Absolutely not. He is Imām Aʿẓam. Yet he was worried: "Wait — am I truly among the ṣāliḥīn? Will I be separated on that day?"

So this is why he said:

"I love the righteous people — but I am unfortunately not one of them. Perhaps by virtue of my love for them, Allah may give me righteousness as well."

The Most Ignorant of All People

فَكُنْ أَنْتَ ذَامًّا لِنَفْسِكَ لِمَا تَعْلَمُهُ مِنْهَا — so you, on the other hand, continue to blame your soul for what you know for sure is in it.

The time is coming to an end, so there were about four or five of these statements and we just covered one. But another one that is even more direct — subḥānAllāh — really goes and grabs your soul and shakes it. What does he say?

أَجْهَلُ النَّاسِ — ajhal is a superlative, the utmost most ignorant, the most ignoramus, the most jāhil person. You are qualifying a person as the ultimate most jāhil. When you say the most evil person, or most greedy, or most arrogant — those are bad things. But he is talking about jāhil, which means, frankly with all due respect: stupidity. Like, don't you have any brains? Jāhil is the opposite of ʿāqil — such an illogical, nonsensical conclusion this person is reaching. So this is how he is presenting it:

The most ignorant of all people is the one who abandons the yaqīn and certitude he has about himself — and he has yaqīn about his own condition — in favor of the ẓann, the opinion, other people have about him.

People have an opinion, and you have yaqīn. You have yaqīn about your condition: what's going on in your night, what's going on in your day, what's happening publicly, what's happening privately. You have yaqīn about how your situation is, how bad it is. And people have a ẓann — a mere opinion about you.

If in any matter you have ẓann and yaqīn, what are you supposed to go with? Obviously, go with yaqīn. This is a general qāʿidah in fiqh:

If something is a certain matter, it will not be cancelled out unless there is another certain matter. Yaqīn cannot be cancelled out through doubt. You may have heard the masʾalah — perhaps half of it — that if you have a doubt about whether you have wuḍū' or not, just go with the fact that you have wuḍū'. But the actual ruling is: go with the yaqīn.

For example: a person has yaqīn that he made wuḍū' before leaving home for Jumuʿah. But on the way, a doubt arises — did he break his wuḍū' or not? In this case, الْيَقِينُ لَا يَزُولُ إِلَّا بِالْيَقِينِ — you go with yes, you have wuḍū', and pray your ṣalāh. Don't worry.

But there's another half. The other half: you remember for a fact that you went to the bathroom and broke your wuḍū'. Then after that, you were deep in thought — did you make wuḍū' before you left the bathroom or not? Now the yaqīn is: wuḍū' is not there. The doubt is: did you make wuḍū' afterwards? In this case, you go with the yaqīn — meaning you must go make wuḍū'.

Both persons are in doubt — the first and the second. Those who have half the understanding say: whenever you're in doubt, you have wuḍū'. That applies to scenario one, not to scenario two. So you go with yaqīn and avoid doubt.

Now here, people have a ẓann about you, and you have yaqīn about yourself. So are you going to go with the people's ẓann or with your own yaqīn? If you are abandoning the yaqīn and certitude you have about your own condition and falling into the deception of people's ẓann about you — then, I can't say this, but he says: أَجْهَلُ النَّاسِ — this is the most ignorant person.

May Allah protect us from such ignorance, and allow us to continually be observant of two things: the good in others, and the evil in ourselves. May Allah give us tawfīq.

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