Since Allah, exalted is He, has not required you to search and pry, then praise Allah for granting you well-being, think well of your fellow Muslims, and seek refuge from Satan, the accursed.

As for what is attributed to the Prophet ﷺ—“Be on your guard against people by thinking ill of them” (1)—this is a lie and is not authentically reported from the Prophet ﷺ. Rather, Abu Dawud narrated from Ibn Mas‘ud, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Let no one convey to me anything about anyone else, for I love to come out to you with a heart free of ill feeling” (2).

This is what befits a Muslim. But as for one who is afflicted by temptation—may Allah protect us—and begins to pursue people’s faults and search them out, then, whenever he sees something that could possibly imply evil, even from a remote angle, eagerly seizes upon it and spreads it: let him be warned that whoever pursues his brother’s faults, Allah will pursue his faults; and whoever’s faults Allah pursues, He will expose him, even within the privacy of his own home.