Chapter: When backbiting is allowed.
The author enumerates six cases for which he has already cited the proofs. One of them is seeking redress from oppression. In other words, if a person takes his grievance to the ruler against someone who has wronged him, there is no blame in that, for he has no other way to secure his right. The evidence is the report of Hind bint ʿUtbah, the wife of Abū Sufyān. She came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, “Messenger of Allah, Abū Sufyān is a tight-fisted man—he does not give me and my children what suffices us according to custom.” She described him as miserly, a disparaging trait that people dislike; yet she did so only to seek relief from the injustice done to her. A man is obliged to provide for his wife and children in a manner that is fair—neither stingy nor extravagant, falling short nor going to excess—as Allah says, “And those who, when they spend, are neither wasteful nor stingy but follow a moderate course between those” (Q 25:67).

1538 – Ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Shall I tell you what al-ʿaḍh is? It is namīmah—spreading tales among the people.” Narrated by Muslim.

Al-ʿaḍh: with a fatḥa on the ʿayn, a sukūn on the ḍād, and a hāʾ, on the pattern of al-wajh. It is also transmitted as al-ʿiḍah, with a kasra on the ʿayn and a fatḥa on the ḍād, on the pattern of al-ʿiddah; in that form it means lying and slander. According to the first vocalization, al-ʿaḍh is a verbal noun; one says, ʿaḍahahu ʿaḍhā, meaning “he charged him with al-ʿaḍh.”