The women of the city began speaking, ‘The wife of ‘Aziz is attempting to seduce her own slave. She has loved him a violent, passionate love. We see her
to be in such manifest and clear error.’
Tafseer
Despite the attempts of ‘Aziz to keep the matter hush-hush and quiet, the news spreads. SubhanAllahthis is the Sunnah of Allah ‘azza wa jall, and this is what happens.
This type of gossip and slander and innuendo people just love to spread. How did people find out? Most scholars say that it was from the household of Yusuf and the slaves in the house other than these four. They don’t blame any of these four. Of course we know Yusuf would not have said anything. ‘Aziz himself was too embarrassed, and the wife would not say anything, and the shaahid was from her own family.
Most likely the news spread amongst the slaves of the house other than Yusuf. It might have been also that in her passion she is so obvious in her flirtations with Yusuf that the other slaves clearly see this.
They might not know the full details and might not know of that incident, but they do know that she is in love with Yusuf. The other slaves spread it to the other slaves’ households, and they spread it to the mistresses and the masters. Slowly but surely, gossip spreads.
Often, gossip spreads, and as it spreads it gets bigger and larger. As it spreads, a small tale is made ten times larger. In our Shari‘ah, the door has been shut and sealed ongossip and slander and backbiting. In our Shari‘ah, we don’t get involved with any of this.
Gossip is of many types in the Shari‘ah: gheebah, nameemah, buhtaan; all of this comes under types of gossip.
1) Gheebah means saying something about someone in his absence that he doesn’t like, even if this is the truth.
2) Buhtaan means spreading a blatant lie about somebody; this is a slander, and it is worse than gheebah.
The least you should do is remain quiet and hate it in your heart. There is no iman lesser than this. The better thing to do is cause reconciliation, and if there are people fighting or having a problem, then you get in the middle and solve the problem.
This is very relevant in every single society. It is relevant to the story here. It shows us human nature. We can talk about it in the story of the slander of Aisha as well.
In the slander of Aisha, when the munafiqoon said something about Aisha, Allah criticized the munafiqoon for saying it, and then Allah criticized the sahabah for spreading it. Both are worthy of criticism. The first group Allah said will go to nar’l-jahannam. They have invented a blatant lie. If they don’t repent, Allah says they will go to the fire of Hell.
The second group Allah says, “Why didn’t you keep quiet? Why did you throw it from tongue to tongue?” Tallaqa means it came to your tongue and you threw it back at somebody. It is as if Allah is giving an imagery that this evil rumor is spread from tongue to tongue like wildfire. Allah says, “Why did you do it? Why did you have to go and tell other people? You should have simply stayed quiet and said, ‘This is an evil lie, I’m not going to say anything.’ Just be quiet about this.”
This shows us again and again that a Muslim society and a Muslim character and a Muslim akhlaq rises above gossip and rises above innuendo and slander. A Muslim does not get involved in these matters. The Prophet (sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam) said, “Of the perfection of one’s Islam is that he leaves what does not concern him.” If somebody comes and tells you, “Oh, so-and-so said this,” then say, “I don’t need to know. Why are you telling me?” You don’t go and tell other people.
Authentic Tauheed:
Here we can learn that women love to gossip, and that if a woman has an affair she will tell her best friend
(the affair becomes more exciting when she tells her best friend)
similarly, the women in the city had a problem with Zulaikha’s relation
because they thought her affair was not befitting for her Status.
They were not slandering Zulaikha
but they were only backbiting
had they lied about her, then it would have been slander
because she did indeed want to go to bed with Yûsuf
Reflections
The news got out
Maybe this was not the first time
There are many things before this than led to it ‣ They say “torawido” (ترو د)- present tense
She’s still trying to seduce him
This is intended to harm the wife of the Aziz
They’re mentioning her status
The position is being mentioned and not just her name • She’s trying to seduce her slave?
Their use of these harmful words is for an objective
She’s passionately in love
It’s intended for her to hear
When a person does a wrong, they try to justify their wrong
The women of the city had a plan, but they didn’t say it explicitly
Lesson
- Allah (
swt ) specifically mentions that women engaged in this gossip. This shows us how some women have a propensity to engage in gossip .So we are reminded in this ayah of the thinking and the behavior of those who are heedless of Allah (swt ). The thinking and the behavior of the arrogant. - To save ourselves from becoming like those women we should not focus on the faults of others. Shaitan wants to make us think that we are better than them. So he will make us see every possible defect and flaw in others and he will make us ignore our own weaknesses and shortcomings.
- Now that we know this plot of Shaitan and now that we have learned this lesson that Allah (
swt ) has given us in this ayah, then we must be on our guard. So the next time that you think that your Muslim brother or sister is in clear error then remember thisayah . Remember this plot of Shaitan and what he did to those women. Make certain that Shaitan does not do the same to you. - We learn about the evils of gossip, slander
and backbiting - It is from the beauty of a persons Islam that he abandons that what does not concern him.
- Allah does not like three things for you
- Gossip
- Asking too many questions
- Wasting money
- We learned that the believer does not talk about issues that are of no concern to him.