in a person’s appearance: someone mocks the way that man looks. It may also target his bodily form, deriding his shortness, tallness, bulkiness, thinness, or the like. Ridicule can extend to a person’s speech, imitating his manner of speaking in scorn—as some foolish people do when they mimic certain Qur’an reciters or scholars, copying their voices in mockery, God protect us. It can even occur in financial dealings, or by making fun of the way he walks. In short, anything that entails belittling your brother is subsumed under the verse, “Let not a people ridicule another people; it may well be that they are better than they, nor let women ridicule other women; it may well be that they are better than they” (49:11).
God, Exalted be He, makes it clear that those who are mocked may actually be better than the mockers—better in His sight and in the view of His servants. Hence He says, “it may well be that they are better than they” regarding the men, and “it may well be that they are better than they” regarding the women. He then adds, “Do not defame yourselves,” meaning: do not disparage them. The wording “yourselves” is used even though a person would never revile his own self; but because the believers are brothers, your brother stands in the place of your very self. Therefore, when He says, “Do not defame yourselves,” He intends, “Do not defame your brothers,” expressing it as “yourselves” so that you realize your brother is like your own soul: just as you would hate to demean yourself, so too you must hate to demean your brother.
He further says, “Nor call each other by offensive nicknames,” that is, do not label one another with degrading epithets—such as attributing a man to a tribe whose name is distasteful or laughable, or any other form of name-calling. “Evil is the name of wickedness after faith,” meaning that if you do so you fall among the defiantly disobedient—“evil indeed is such a name after one has embraced faith.” Thus, when a person taunts or mocks his brother, he becomes a fāsiq (an openly sinful person). This indicates that ridicule—