How’d You Know? (Hadith No. 816)

Salam,
Bismillah.

Volume 1, Book 12, Number 816:

Narrated Sulaiman Ash-Shaibam:

I heard Ash-Sha’bi saying, “A person who was accompanying the Prophet passed by a grave that was separated from the other graves told me that the Prophet once led the people in the (funeral) prayer and the people had aligned behind him. I said, “O Aba ‘Amr! Who told you about it?” He said, “Ibn Abbas.”

Taking the last part of this Hadith.. I’d like to bring your attention to a certain matter: reporting. There’s some manners to it.

A Muslim is (ideally) an honest and trustworthy person. Whatever comes out of his mouth should be nothing but the truth. And this automatically entails that whatever incident he reports and any person that he quotes, is 100% truth. It’s his responsibility to make sure that he doesn’t forward a report (via speech, email or text messaging etc.) without verifying it. Yes, it’s a tough job. But it’s worthwhile because:

Ibn ‘Umar reported said that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “The worst of lies is when a man says his eyes have seen something which they have not seen.” [al-Bukhari]

And:

It is sufficient for a believer to be considered a liar that he narrates everything he hears. [Muslim]

So when someone tells you about something, ask them: how’d you know?

P.S. sharing statuses, retweeting tweets comes in this category as well. Make SURE to do your research before you press that button!

Wassalam.