1322 – Muʿādh ibn Jabal (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Whoever reproaches his brother for a sin will not die before committing it himself.” Recorded by al-Tirmidhī, who graded it fair (ḥasan); its chain is interrupted (1).
Grading of the ḥadīth
The author states: It was transmitted by al-Tirmidhī, who declared it fair, though the chain is broken.
Al-Ṣanʿānī adds: Al-Tirmidhī deemed it fair only because of corroborating reports, so the break does not harm it.
Al-Suyūṭī likewise classified it as fair in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr. Al-Munāwī mentioned further supporting narrations while noting the interruption in al-Tirmidhī’s isnād, and pointed out that it contains Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Zayd, whom Abū Dāwūd and others called a liar.
Vocabulary
ʿayyara akhāhu: with an open ʿayn and a doubled yāʾ; it means to fault-find or shame someone merely for the sake of shaming. Such taunting brings punishment in the Hereafter and deprives a person of a wholesome life in this world.
Lessons derived from the ḥadīth
- The report warns against belittling a brother who has been tested with a sin or a defect. No one criticizes another by name except out of self-admiration for being free of that defect. Such conceit springs from the ego, for he imagines that his safety from the fault came through his own strength and will, not through Allah the Exalted, Who turned the evil away from him.
- Whoever censures his brother over a fault, driven by vanity and gloating, will not die until he is afflicted by that very fault and commits it himself. This is because he did not rely on Allah the Exalted to protect him from wrongdoing, but rather—