Chapter: The Prohibition of Two People Conversing Privately to the Exclusion of a Third

Allah the Exalted says: “Secret counsels are only from Satan.”

1589 – Ibn ʿUmar (Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “When three people are together, two of them must not confer privately to the exclusion of the third.” Agreed upon.

Abu Dāwūd also transmitted it with the addition: Abū Ṣāliḥ said, “I asked Ibn ʿUmar, ‘What about when there are four?’ He replied, ‘Then it will not harm you.’”

Mālik narrated in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, on the authority of ʿAbdullāh ibn Dīnār: “I was with Ibn ʿUmar at the house of Khālid ibn ʿUqbah that was in the marketplace. A man came wishing to speak to him privately, and there was no one with Ibn ʿUmar besides me. Ibn ʿUmar therefore called another man so that we became four, and he said to me and to the third man he had summoned, ‘Step back a little, for I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: Two must not converse privately to the exclusion of one.’”

1599 – Ibn Masʿūd (Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “If you are three, two of you must not confer privately to the exclusion of the third until you mingle with other people, for”