Is “enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong” accomplished by broadcasting the defects of your leaders? That only makes the wrong more entrenched. Once trust is lost, no one will heed anyone’s guidance: if a scholar declares, “This is objectionable,” the people reply, “Ignore him.” If a governor says, “This is forbidden,” and tries to stop it, they answer, “Put your own house in order before correcting others.” In this way a great harm befalls the Muslims.

What is astonishing is that some of those beguiled by this habit—of fault-finding the scholars and the rulers—never mention the good deeds of the very people they backbite. They refuse to judge with fairness, even though Allah says, “O you who believe, stand firmly for Allah as witnesses in equity, and do not let the hatred of a people move you to act unjustly” (Q 5:8). That is: do not let your dislike for them push you to abandon justice.

Another strange thing is that you will hardly ever hear them, in any gathering or on their tongues, saying even occasionally, “People, beware of this… avoid cheating, avoid lying.” Yet cheating plagues buying, selling, and all manner of dealings; lying is widespread; backbiting is rampant. Rarely do they pour their anger into reforming ordinary folk and warning them. It is well known that if the common people are set right—the “nation” is nothing but the common people, after all, a collection of individuals like Zayd, ʿAmr, Bakr, and Khālid—then once the individuals are upright, the populace is upright; and when the populace is upright, the entire community must inevitably be upright.

But some people suffer a sickness: they relish this pastime. They love to lay a scholar out on the examination table, tracking down his slips, ignoring his virtues, and spreading those slips among the people, or