Is Disbelieving Someone’s Word Kufr?

Question

Several men were gathered, and one of them, Hajji Nazir Ahmad alias Chhotak, was complaining about and backbiting Zayd — over matters having no connection with religion. At this I said: “Since after the friction and dispute between you and Zayd a reconciliation took place, why do you backbite and propagandize against him — it is not a good thing.” Hajji Nazir Ahmad said: “Am I lying?” I said: “I do not know whether it is true or false; I speak on the basis of what I hear.

Answer

The talk at that gathering is extremely dangerous. The jurists have written: if someone speaks ill of another by way of backbiting, and another forbids him — one should not backbite — and the backbiter replies, “What I am saying is the truth, not a lie,” he is as it were declaring the backbiting permissible because it is true and not false; whereas an evil thing said about a…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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