Second: If a person contemplating co-operation with another comes to seek your advice, and you say to him, purely for the sake of his benefit and to advise him correctly, without any self-interest:"Do not co-operate with him; it will be to your disadvantage.”

Third: If the purpose is not to expose someone to disgrace and notoriety, but simply to make people aware, and one says:"That foolish, confused man went to such-and-such a place.”

Fourth: If the subject of backbiting is an open and unashamed sinner; is not troubled by evil, but on the contrary takes pride in the sins he commits; finds pleasure in his wrongdoing; and unhesitatingly sins in the most evident fashion.

In these particular cases, backbiting may be permissible, if it be done without self-interest and purely for the sake of truth and communal welfare. But apart from them, it is like a fire that consumes good deeds like a flame eating up wood.

If one has engaged in backbiting, or willingly listened to it, one should say:

"O God, forgive me and him concerning whom I spoke ill and," say to the subject of backbiting, whenever one meets him:"Forgive me.”

The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!

S a i d N u r s i