4a] Beware of rumours at times of crisis

4a]
1 – When the Sahaabah migrated from Makkah to Ethiopia, they were
safe, but then a rumour spread that the kuffaar of Quraysh in Makkah
had become Muslims, so some of the Sahaabah left Ethiopia and
travelled until they reached Makkah, where they found that the report
was not true, and they met with persecution at thehands of Quraysh.
All of that happened because of rumours.
2 – During the Battle of Uhud, when Mus'ab ibn 'Umayr was killed,
there was a rumour that itwas the Messenger of Allaah (peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him) who had been killed, so the army of
Islam withdrew because of a rumour, and some of them fled to Madeenah
and some stopped fighting.
3 – There was the rumour of theslander incident (al-ifk), when the
pure and innocent 'Aa'ishah was accused of immoral conduct, which led
to the distress felt by the Messenger ofAllaah (peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) and the Muslims with him. All of that wasbecause
of rumours.
So what is the proper shar'i method of dealing with news?
There are ways of dealing with news which we will look at in brief:
1 – Deliberation
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)said:
"Deliberation is from Allaahand haste is from the
Shaytaan."Al-Silsilah al-Saheehah, 1795.
The one who deliberates may meet some of his needs whilst the one who
is hasty may slip.
2 – Verifying news
Allaah says (interpretation of themeaning):
"O you who believe! If a Faasiq (liar — evil person) comes to you with
any news, verify it, lest you should harm people in ignorance, and
afterwards you become regretful for what you have done"
[al-Hujuraat 49:6]
The reason why this verse was revealed:
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)sent al-Waleed
ibn 'Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'eet to Banu al-Mustaliq, tocollect the zakaah
from them. When news of that reached them they rejoiced, and they came
out to meet the Messengerof Allaah (peace and blessings ofAllaah be
upon him). When al-Waleed heard that they had come out to meet him, he
went back to the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be
upon him) and said, "O Messenger of Allaah, Banu al-Mustaliq have
withheld the zakaah."
The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
became very angry at that, and whilst he was thinking of launching a
campaign against them, the delegation came to him and said, "O
Messenger of Allaah, we were told that your envoy returned after
coming only half way, and we were afraid that he came back because he
received a message from you saying that you were angry with us. We
seek refuge with Allaah from the anger of Allaah and the anger of His
Messenger."
Then Allaah excused them in His Book and revealed the words
(interpretation of the meaning):
"O you who believe! If a Faasiq (liar — evil person) comes to you with
any news, verify it, lest you should harm people in ignorance, and
afterwards you become regretful for what you have done"
[al-Hujuraat 49:6]
See: al-Silsilah al-Saheehah, 3085.
What is meant by verifying is making the effort to find out thetruth
of the matter, so as to establish whether this can be proven or not.
Verifying means making certain of the truth of the report and itscircumstances.
Al-Hasan al-Basri said: "The believer reserves judgement until the
matter is proven."
Finally: we advise everyone to verify matters and not to rush to pass
on news until they are sure that it is true, even if the news is good
news, because if itbecomes apparent that the one who passed it on is
mistaken, hewill lose credibility before the people… and anyone who
bears a grudge towards him will use itagainst him. May Allaah help us
all to do that which He loves andwhich pleases Him.
And Allaah knows best.