Verify Before You Amplify

الحمد لله، نحمده ونستعينه ونستغفره، ونعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا. من يهده الله فلا مضل له، ومن يضلل فلا هادي له. وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله، وأشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله.

Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. Allah says in His Noble Book, after I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan:

O ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except as Muslims.

The Spreading of Unverified News

It was reported that it was a Syrian asylum seeker. And they showcased an Arabic name. And like wildfire, that news spread all over the country. It led to riots. It led to mosques being attacked and shut down. It led to libraries being burnt. It led to police cars being overturned. And this was a security crisis in the country. By the time the dust settled, it turned out that the murderer was not Syrian, was not an asylum seeker — was a born Brit who had lived their entire life in England.

Allah tells us how we should receive news, but time and time and time again we find that we rush to spread what is unverified. And so this khutbah is going to be about a principle that affects every one of us, every day of our lives — especially as the world turns into this 24-hour news cycle, many times coming from all over the world, places that we're not familiar with intimately.

Allah says:

O you who believe, if a transgressor comes to you with news, then verify it — that you don't harm people unknowingly and then become remorseful for what you did. You may not be remorseful on day one or day two or year one or year ten, but at the end of the day, when oppression happens, the person who wrongs will be remorseful on the Day of Judgment even if they're never remorseful in the dunya.

And I'm giving you a drastic example, but there are those that are even more drastic than that. We know that on October 7th, the first rumors that were being spread were of beheaded babies and babies being put into ovens. And by the time that news — that was spread unverified — was debunked, the world was already paying the price. When thousands were being killed and continue to be killed, that news that was unverified and was allowed to spread — these are criminal activities.

Verify Before You Amplify

And so whether it's on the world stage or whether it's us spreading unverified news that we hear in our local community — every year, it seems like there is a social media scandal that happens when some Muslim person says that they were harmed by this business or this airline or this program or this restaurant. And then everybody is up in arms and we charge forward to defend our brother and sister, only to find out two days later, three days later, that actually it wasn't as was reported.

I'm reminded of one case where a Muslim influencer went into a restaurant and made a video saying that this person was Islamophobic to me, was rude to me, and did not want me in their establishment just because I'm Muslim. And that's all we needed to hear. Everybody jumps up. People were going on to this person's restaurant's Google page — this person had like a 4.8 or 4.9 rating, was a non-Muslim in their city but had spent years building up their reputation — and within a day, thousands of people had downgraded that rating to 3.8 or 3.5. A disaster.

And then after the dust settled, a couple of days later, other Muslims who happened to be there said, "By the way, we were also there and it was not like so-and-so described. This person was being rude. This person was coming in with their cameras and acting like they owned the place, and the restaurant owner was very gentle." But my question is: for the thousands of people who jumped immediately and responded — did they verify that information? Or did they harm somebody unknowingly?

You know, the Prophet ﷺ said that one of the things you should be aware of is شهادة الزور — shahādat al-zūr — that you bear false witness, and he called it of the major sins. Those people went and they bore false witness and they harmed somebody. And so the point here, the lesson, is very simple:

Verify before you amplify.

Just think about the times where you read a headline and you just send it into a group chat. You see a tweet and you send it into a group chat. You're sharing it left and right without taking the time to think. Just last week, someone shared a tweet to me that was about Texas farmers — there was a hashtag happening on Twitter, Texas farmers complaining and saying that they don't have anybody to work for them. All I did was I looked up the hashtag to see the conversation on Twitter. There was no conversation. Zero. Not a single tweet. The only article that existed on the internet was the single article that this person shared.

SubhanAllah, look at the framing that's happening when people are just sharing and sharing and sharing. And now with AI, people are just going to continue to make up articles, continue to make up content — which makes it even more important that you and I discern, that we spend time verifying. It doesn't take long for a person to corroborate information, for a person to search information.

The Prophet ﷺ says:

(Sahih Muslim, Muqaddimah, Hadith 5)

It is enough for a person to be a liar that he shares everything that he hears. Everything that he hears, he just passes it along — "I don't know, someone said this." That is enough to be called a liar.

What News Is Most Important to Verify?

Who are the most important people, or rather, what is the most important naba' to verify? Allah says:

The most important naba' is information that has to do with Allah or His Messenger. Allah says — and this verse is called an escalation of sin:

My Lord has forbidden al-fawāhish — indecencies that are born out of lust — both what is apparent and what is hidden. And now it goes to something worse: oppressing other people, al-baghy. Killing is baghy, harming people is baghy — that oppression of others is worse. And then worse than that is shirk. But does it go higher? Yes. Allah says: and that you speak about Allah what you do not have knowledge of.

For you to speak about Allah and say "Allah said this" or "Allah does this" or "Allah wants this" or "Allah loves this" without knowledge — that is the worst. Why? Because for shirk to ever have happened anywhere on this earth, someone somewhere must have spoken about Allah without knowledge. Someone said that Jesus Christ is the son of God — and he is not — he spoke without knowledge. Someone said that Allah loves for you to go to this grave site and worship there — and he is speaking without knowledge from Allah. So that is number one.

Speaking About the Prophet ﷺ Without Knowledge

Number two is to speak about the Prophet ﷺ without knowledge. Rasulullah ﷺ says in a hadith reported by al-Bukhari:

Narrate from me even if it's a single verse. And narrate from the children of Israel and there is no harm. And whoever lies about me intentionally, then let them secure their seat in the Hellfire.

Lying about the Prophet ﷺ is not like lying about anybody else. Now you're representing the deen. So I want you to imagine a video that you've seen of somebody on social media saying, "Rasulullah ﷺ said this" or "there's this hadith that says that" — and you're just forwarding it left, right, and center, without even taking a moment to realize: is this authentic? I've never heard this before. Is this in Bukhari or Muslim? They didn't even mention where it's from. They just said "the Prophet ﷺ said this" and you're forwarding it and forwarding it and forwarding it.

The Prophet ﷺ says: whoever lies about me intentionally, then let them secure their seat in the Hellfire. News about Rasulullah ﷺ is of the most important for you to spend a moment to verify. And that's why some of the Sahabah used to hesitate even with regards to narrating hadith — they were always trying to make sure that it was verified.

The Honor of Muslims

Also, news that has to do with the honor of Muslims — spreading rumors about people. Allah says about the people who were spreading rumors about Aisha:

When you were receiving that slander with your tongues, and saying with your mouths what you had no knowledge of, and you considered it a trivial matter while it is, in the sight of Allah, a great thing.

Now I have a question for you. Allah says إِذْ تَلَقَّوْنَهُ بِأَلْسِنَتِكُمْ — "you received it with your tongues." Do you receive information with your tongue, or do you receive it with your heart and your brain? You receive information with your brain, you receive it with your heart. Allah says they received it with their tongues — as if to say that they caught it with their tongue, and before it even reached their brain, before they were even able to think about it, they immediately passed it on. It didn't go any deeper than their tongue.

You see an article somewhere, you see a tweet, you see a piece of news, and immediately you just forward it without even thinking about it. Somebody asks a simple question about what you just shared and you're like, "I didn't think about that. Hold on, let me verify." Why are you backtracking? You should have backtracked before you spread it.

The point is that we live in a time of incredible misinformation. And they say that rumors die when they reach the ears of a wise person. So let us be those wise people. Let us be those who verify when people are fanning the flames of fitna. Let us be those who are anchors in our communities and societies, where the discourse of many is increasingly becoming more and more shallow.

So we ask Allah to allow us to hear the speech of Allah, the best of it.

Practical Steps: How to Verify

I just want to end with a few practical take-home points. What are some of the things that we can do to verify? I'm sure there is a lot more that can be shared beyond what I'm going to present.

1. Ask: Should I Even Share This?

Number one is simply asking the question: is this something that I should share? Is this something that's worth sharing? Rasulullah ﷺ says:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2317; Ibn Majah, Hadith 3976)

It is from the excellence of a person's Islam that they leave what does not concern them. And the Prophet ﷺ forbade al-qīl wa al-qāl — idle talk and gossip. A lot of the conversation that people have in discourse is just gossip. So avoid gossip and focus on things that are important to our society, our community, our country, our ummah. Minimize what is being spread that is inconsequential or not important.

2. Go Back to the Source

Number two is going back to the source. Allah says in Surah an-Nisa':

That when information comes to them about security or fear, they spread it around. And if they were to return back instead — instead of just spreading it — if they went back to the Messenger ﷺ and to those of authority among them, those who can draw correct conclusions would have known how to handle it.

Umar ibn al-Khattab comments about this verse and says there was a rumor being spread around in Medina that Rasulullah ﷺ had divorced his wives. People were crying in al-Masjid an-Nabawi. He went to Hafsa — she was crying — and he asked her: "Did the Prophet ﷺ divorce you?" She said, "I don't know." And then Umar goes to Rasulullah ﷺ. He goes to the source. He seeks permission to enter — the Prophet ﷺ does not grant him permission twice. The third time he does. Umar goes in and says, "Ya Rasulallah, did you divorce your wives?" And the Prophet ﷺ says no. Umar says Alhamdulillah and sits down. Umar would later say this verse was revealed about that incident.

Everybody was talking — "Rasulullah ﷺ divorced his wives, Rasulullah ﷺ divorced his wives" — what does Umar do? Does he sit there and engage in conversation with them? No. He goes to the source. Sometimes you might have people talking about something that happened in Houston and we're in Houston. It's a person that you know, you have their phone number — call them. Don't sit there and talk about them in group chats. Talk to them. If you want to verify, if you're so invested, go and talk to that person. Let's develop a culture, as Allah commands us, where when you are seeking information, you seek it from the source.

3. Cross-Reference

Number three is cross-referencing. If you see information from one source, go and see: has this been corroborated anywhere else? If I see information from this newspaper, this tweet, this account — don't just run with this one piece of information. Go and verify: has this been published anywhere else? Has it been corroborated?

4. The Timing Test

And the last thing I'll mention is the timing test. A lot of times it has become a marketing tactic — everything says "breaking, breaking, breaking." Every YouTube video says "breaking," every tweet says "breaking." You have to ask yourself: if it is breaking right now, do I need to spread it right now? If it's breaking right now, should I not wait for the picture to be completed? Whether or not people find out right now or whether they find out tomorrow, it's not going to change the circumstance. Maybe the picture will be clearer. Just having a little bit of ḥilm, a little bit of forbearance.

Again, Allah says they received it with their tongues — they didn't allow themselves to even process the information before going and spreading it. So ask yourself: just because this is "breaking" right now, do I need to go share it right now?

And insha'Allah, just these four things among others will help us become verifiers in a time where people are simply amplifying. We want to verify before we amplify.

In Memory of Shaykh Ja'far Shaykh Idrees

Before I end, I want to address one thing: today we lost a great scholar in the Muslim world — someone who has a great faḍl here in the United States — and that is Shaykh Ja'far Shaykh Idrees, may Allah have mercy on him. Especially for those who were here in the 90s and the 80s and even before that — he is someone who has an imprint in this masjid as well. He was a mentor for Shaykh Walid, Shaykh Kamal, and even Shaykh Salah and others in Houston consider him a mentor, a friend, and a peer. He was one of the early people who merged between the western sciences and the eastern sciences — a master of western philosophy as well as Islamic theology. He passed away today after a long illness. We ask Allah to have mercy on him and have mercy on all of the Muslims.

وَقُومُوا إِلَى الصَّلَاةِ — And rise for the prayer. Was-salāmu 'alaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh.