"Allah has blessed the human being with this tongue, with the ability to communicate. That's a gift from Allah, and we honor that gift by using this tongue for things that are noble, by...by speaking the truth, by speaking for justice, by not wasting and squandering this gift that Allah has given us. Now...when we speak to each other and we say hurtful things, it lasts in that moment. But when you put a, you know, an absurd and obnoxious and arrogant comment online, and you become one of those trolls that say ridiculous things under videos or under blog posts etc. etc. Every time someone hears your inappropriate comments, it's going to be a debit for you, because every time evil has increased, something bad has increased in the world, someone else has been exposed to evil because of your words, you're responsible. So in that sense, putting stuff up online, you need to be a lot MORE careful than you are actually in person. Because in person, that conversation died immediately, so its sinful impact maybe you're only accountable for it for that one moment. But when you put something up online...it's gonna be visited and revisited and revisited and re-lived, and for every one of those occasions you are answerable and I am answerable. So we have to be careful about that, from a spiritual point of view.
The next thing I wanna talk about is, just...you know, Allah, عز وجل, He gives us certain social principles; those principles, they applied in a society in Medina, and they apply in the United States in 2011, and they will apply 50 years from now. The ethical principles are universal and they're timeless. And some of those principles are things like "not making fun of others". "Don't make fun of each other, maybe they're better than you, don't let women make fun of other women; maybe they're better than them." "Don't call each other names" - "Don't accuse people of other things; don't call each other all kinds of names." Now if you put that as your constitution, your, your...your ethical code, your charter, this is how I'm gonna behave online, it would probably cut down 95% of your interaction. "Not making fun of people? What else do you do on Facebook??!!" You know, Not accusing someone of something, not commenting on somebody's photos (and saying), "What were you wearing! God!" You know...etc. That's all we do! Is poke fun at each other! That's 90% of the interaction. That's kind of the reason I got off of it, because all I was getting was just ridiculous, ridiculous stuff, but I've been re-motivated to jump in again, Jazak Allah u Khayran!
By Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan
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