Instead of telling others about their faults and defects to their faces, people of low morality talk instead behind their backs. These people have no desire of leading others in a better way, or of helping them to correct their ways. They plunge into gossip for mundane purposes, such as to pass the time, to degrade the reputation of those they dislike, to belittle and mock them, or to glorify themselves at the expense of others. This vile behavior is so widespread amongst certain groups of people that they have made gossip a form of entertainment, or even a normal way of life by which they are even found to earn a living. In our time, and in several countries around the world, a great number of newspapers and magazines are published, and television shows produced for the sole purpose of spreading gossip. Publications and broadcasts of this type aim to justify this form of deviance, otherwise known as gossip, and present is as socially acceptable.
In fact, these people are contradicting themselves, because, though they enjoy gossiping about others, when they find themselves in the same situation, they then realize how despicable this behavior is. But, in spite of this, they do not stop gossiping, so long as they themselves are not exposed. When they meet one whom they had been critisizing just a few minutes earlier, as if nothing had happened, they continue their phony friendship, speaking with them insincerely. Moreover, this behavior contributes to a vicious circle; two people get together and gossip about a third, then one of these people gossips with the third person about the other, and later the other two people come together and gossip about the absentee. Nobody points out to anyone else that gossip is wrong, on the contrary, they maintain that it is harmless, that it adds color to life and provides entertainment to themselves.
Allah notifies people through the Qur'an of the incorrectness of this behavior; in a verse of the Qur'an, Allah tells us that the gossip of people behind one another's backs is just as repugnant as "a person eating his brother's dead flesh":
You who believe! Avoid most suspicion. Indeed some suspicion is a crime. And do not spy and do not backbite one another. Would any of you like to eat his brother's dead flesh? No, you would hate it. And heed Allah. Allah is Ever-Returning, Most Merciful.
In another verse, Allah explains in following manner the recompense received in the afterlife by those claiming that gossip is entertaining and try to excuse it as acceptable:
No indeed! He will be flung into the Shatterer. And what will convey to you what the Shatterer is? The kindled Fire of Allah reaching right into the heart. It is sealed in above them in towering columns.
This way of speaking by those who are far from the morality of the Qur'an is not to be found amongst the faithful. The faithful, knowing that Allah listens in on every conversation everywhere, studiously refrain from uttering a word which they know He will find spiteful, because a word uttered in another's absence is of no use either to that person or to the one who speaks it. Though in this manner other persons' defects may be analyzed or revealed, because they do not know about it, it is impossible for them to make any alteration in their behavior. So long as these defects are not explained to the related persons, and they do not recognize them for themselves, there is no possibility of them correcting them. Because of this, the faithful pass on to each other all their opinions, positive or negative, about one another, without reluctance. They know that true friendship and sincerity are dependent upon it, and that explaining faults to a person they like is not doing him or her harm but good. Their aim is to lead one another to a better, finer and purer morality.
This is a requirement of Allah as set out in the Qur'an: of "enjoining the good and forbidding the wrong."
