Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 257
257 his carelessness. He has also directed that people should not move from places where an infectious epidemic has broken out to other inhabited places, as this would result in spreading the infection. The obligation is laid upon everyone to urge others toward goodness and to seek to restrain them from evil, but with kindness and affection (31:18). Spying, backbiting, and undue suspicion must be avoided (49:13). Someone asked the Prophet whether it was backbiting to mention a defect or shortcoming from which another did in fact suffer. The Prophet replied that that was exactly what backbiting meant, for if the defect or shortcoming did not in fact exist, the person attributing it to another would be guilty both of slander and of backbiting. If a person has been guilty of slandering another, this must not be communicated to the person slandered because it would create mischief. The Prophet has said that a person who slanders another shoots an arrow at him, which falls by the way, but a person who hears a slander and carries the tale of it to the person slandered is like one who directs the arrow to its mark. It is the duty of every Muslim constantly to seek increase of knowledge (20:115). The Prophet has said that the seeking of knowledge is a duty cast upon every Muslim man and woman, and he went so far as to add “even if it should involve a journey to far-off