What is ghiba?

Ghiba is mentioning your brother in his absence with what he dislikes. Scholars count it among the major sins, and the Qur'an compares it to eating the flesh of a dead person. ¹

The Sheikh says a person may backbite a brother who is absent and far away, then ask God's forgiveness and ask his brother's pardon, and then return to backbite him again (his view). ² He says that whoever greets you is safe from you, and that the Muslim is one from whose tongue and hands other Muslims are safe (needs_source). ^{3 4} He says that if the backbiting one commits against his wife over twenty years were gathered, one would see what burden it carries (his view). ⁵

The Sheikh reports from scholars that our very seeking of forgiveness itself needs forgiveness, and then invites listeners to count the years since they reached adulthood ⁶. He asks someone who came of age twenty years ago how many of his family, relatives, in-laws and colleagues have been safe from his backbiting ⁷. He says: if you know a hundred people truly, among relatives, in-laws, neighbours and colleagues, how many of them have been safe from your tongue, through a description, a distortion or a belittling, and he holds that backbiting is a calamity ⁸. He says a person may seek forgiveness at night and then backbite in the morning, and compares the night's seeking of forgiveness to butter that melts once the sun rises on it ⁹.

The Sheikh defines backbiting and gossip, and says that Muslim homes now broadcast one another's affairs. ¹⁰ He says that mentioning a person's sin is backbiting, and that a believer should be a shield for his brother's faults rather than exposing them. ¹¹ The speaker's view is that backbiting is cowardice, and that it is undone by asking the victim's pardon or, if that is impossible, by speaking well of him in the places where one spoke ill. ¹²

He says that one who sits to listen to backbiting should ask himself whether the Prophet ﷺ would have listened to it. ¹³ He says that speech which harms no one is permissible, and that much idle talk drifts into gossip. ¹⁴ A listener asks whether discussing what others cook or buy is backbiting; the Sheikh answers that one should avoid talk that harms anyone and speak only of what benefits. ¹⁵ He criticises those who collect news about their colleagues and managers at work. ¹⁶

He says that one who has backbitten someone should ask that person's pardon, and if that is impossible, speak well of him in the places where he was spoken ill of. ¹² He says that praying for the person one has backbitten is entered in one's good deeds. ¹⁷ He says that angels carry the prayer to the scale of the one who was backbitten, and attributes to scholars a saying that the backbiter is last to enter Paradise if he repents and first to enter the Fire if he does not (needs_source: the saying is not sourced in the recording). ¹⁸ He suggests that, to repair the harm of backbiting, one should praise the person for as many years as one backbit him (needs_source: the suggestion and its measure are not sourced in the recording). ¹⁹

The Sheikh reports that among Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him)'s rules, no one should flatter him, no one should backbite in his presence, and no one with a right should be kept from reaching him. ²⁰