Social Media — Page 32
~32~ He says that the description of a true believer [‘momin’] is that: o َ عَن ِ اللَّغۡو ِ مُعۡرِضُوۡن They “…shun all that which is vain…” (Holy Quran, 23: 4) [That is,] they safeguard against that which is vain. When you use the Internet to chat with friends, make fun of others, use lewd language, use it against each other, use it to cause rifts in people’s relationships, [use it to] ruin another woman’s life by talking to her husband on the Internet, or [where you] backbite against each other, then the same useful object becomes vain and will also become a sin. These days, text messages are sent using mobile phones. This is another practice that has started these days. It offers a very inexpensive way to waste time in frivolities and talking with those who are not mehrum [‘non-marriageable relatives according to Islam’]. Very casually it is said that, ‘it was only a text message, it’s not like we were talking. ’ Contacts are developed with others when a girl’s female friend gives the phone number of a [male] friend of hers, or [contact] numbers are exchanged in some other way, and text messages start getting exchanged over the phone. Girls and boys -- 12, 13, 14 years old -- are walking around [with cell phones] sending messages. They are at an age where they are at risk of going astray and eventually, this leads to sins developing from these vain [pursuits]. And this is why Ahmadi girls, for the sake of their honor, for the sake of their dignity, for the sake of their family’s honor, [and] keeping in mind the sanctity of their Jama’at with which they are thought to be affiliated, they should stay away from these things. And likewise, the Ahmadi men listening to this, should also