Overlooking the Slips of People of Merit

A literary, spiritual, and formative essay on how the Ummah ought to bear itself toward the lapses of its people of merit: from the scene of Ḥāṭib ibn Abī Baltaʿa to the rule laid down by the masters of verification, and the scales of pardon and its limits. By Dr. Ahmed Abouseif, President of the American Imams Academy.

There is a strange trait in the human soul: it sees the black speck upon the white garment, and scarcely sees the garment at all. Let a man of merit slip but once, and people forget his ocean and pass around his one murky drop; they fold up the record of a lifetime of good at a single line that ran crooked in it.

They do not consider that the very star by which men steer may be eclipsed for an hour — and no man of sense then says: it was never a star. Perfection belongs to God alone; and creatures, however high they rise, are human, and what befalls the human befalls them. Were a single stumble enough to bring its owner down in the eyes of the Ummah, there would remain on the earth no imam to be followed and no scholar from whom knowledge might be taken.

This is no license taken against the truth, nor a courtesy paid at the expense of the Sacred Law. It is a foundation among the foundations of prophetic justice: that a man be weighed by the sum of his affair and not by the severed moment of his state; and that his stumble be pardoned if he is worthy of pardon — in that which God has not forbidden us to pardon. This principle has a support in the Law, an unforgettable scene in the Prophetic biography, and a lofty application in the conduct of the imams; and to all of these we now proceed.

First: The Legal Foundation

The root of this chapter is the report of ʿĀʾisha (may God be pleased with her), raised to the Prophet ﷺ: "Overlook the slips of people of good standing, except the prescribed penalties."^[1] Honesty requires that it be described as it is: it is a disputed report; critics have weakened its chain, while others graded it fair by the sum of its routes and corroborating narrations. It is neither of the authentic beyond doubt, nor of the fallen that merits no attention. This is fairness: neither belittling it nor magnifying it.

Yet its meaning — on either view — is bound fast to decisive texts over which no two disagree, so that acting upon it does not hang upon the authentication of its chain alone. God, Exalted is He, said of one who erred against the household of the Prophet: "Let them pardon and overlook. Do you not love that God should forgive you?"^[2] And He said: "Indeed, good deeds efface evil deeds"^[3] — and this is the rule governing the entire chapter: that the scale is a scale of weighing and offsetting, not a scale of one moment into which a whole life is compressed. And He said to His Prophet ﷺ after Uḥud, and after the disobedience that cost the Ummah what it cost: "So pardon them, and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the affair."^[4] Consider the ascending order: a pardon that quenches reproach; then an asking of forgiveness that lifts the trace of the fault; then a consultation that restores the man to the station of competence. Thus is error treated in the school of prophethood.

Second: The Mother-Scene — Ḥāṭib ibn Abī Baltaʿa

Nowhere do these meanings take flesh more vividly than in a single scene. When the Messenger of God ﷺ made ready for the conquest of Mecca and kept his purpose secret and enjoined secrecy upon others, Ḥāṭib ibn Abī Baltaʿa — a Muhājir, a veteran of Badr — wrote to Quraysh informing them of his march, and handed the letter to a woman traveller who hid it in her hair. Then the news came down from heaven, and the Prophet ﷺ sent ʿAlī and al-Zubayr, who overtook her at Rawḍat Khākh and drew out the letter.

Then came the moment upon which the eyes of history are fixed. He ﷺ said: "O Ḥāṭib, what is this?" He said: O Messenger of God, do not be hasty with me. I was a man attached to Quraysh but not of their stock, and I have family and property among them, so I wished to place them under an obligation by which they would protect my kin. I did not do it out of disbelief, nor apostasy, nor contentment with unbelief after Islam. So he ﷺ said: "He has spoken the truth." Then ʿUmar — seized with zeal for the Messenger of God ﷺ and for the secret of the Muslims — said: O Messenger of God, let me strike the neck of this hypocrite. He ﷺ said: "He was present at Badr; and how do you know? Perhaps God looked upon the people of Badr and said: Do as you wish, for I have forgiven you." And ʿUmar's eyes overflowed with tears, and he said: God and His Messenger know best.^[5]

Let no one imagine that this report makes light of the gravity of what occurred; for the Qurʾān came down reproaching and admonishing sternly: "O you who believe, do not take My enemy and your enemy as allies, extending to them affection."^[6] Nor is there in ʿUmar's stand anything to be disparaged; he spoke out of a truthful zeal and an exertion to guard the religion — and it was he who submitted, and whose eye wept, when the face of wisdom became clear to him. There is in it only the very principle we are pursuing: that an established record pardons a passing slip. And note: the Prophet ﷺ did not say, "He did not do it." He said: "He was present at Badr." Pardon, then, is built upon a history — not upon an excuse.

Third: Beyond the Striking of the Neck

Yet to halt at the surface of the scene is to miss its kernel. What was intended was not merely the sparing of blood. The sword kills the body; the word kills the man while he walks among his people. Had Ḥāṭib been saved from the sword and then remained in the ranks branded by the letter he had written, he would have been slain twice: once in the conscience of the people, and once in the conscience of himself.

So the prophetic answer came to cut off the road to character-assassination before it cut off the road to the sword. He ﷺ did not say, "Leave him." He said: "He was present at Badr." He uttered merit in the very place of the lapse, so that the first thing to strike men's ears concerning Ḥāṭib was the name of Badr, not the name of the letter. Indeed, he went further and bore witness to the innocence of his intent: "As for him, he has told you the truth"^[7] — and that is greater than pardon; for pardon lifts the punishment, while this is a testimony that lifts the accusation. He restored to him his honour as he restored to him his blood.

Here the prophetic governance appears in its clearest form. Satan sought, by this one slip, to squander a great power in the midst of the ranks, and to turn a warrior of Badr into a man at whom fingers are pointed. So the Prophet ﷺ turned the plot back upon its author: he mentioned merit where disgrace was meant to be mentioned, and in a single instant Ḥāṭib passed from the station of contempt to the station of the call to arms — from being pointed at with the letter to being pointed at with Badr. Thus are energies managed in the school of prophethood: the vessel is not shattered because it has a crack; it is mended.

Fourth: The Treasure That Was Nearly Squandered

Whoever does not know the worth of the man does not know the worth of the pardon. Who, then, was this man of whom what was said was said? He was Ḥāṭib ibn Abī Baltaʿa al-Lakhmī, of the foremost among the Emigrants; he was present at Badr and at the campaigns alongside the Messenger of God ﷺ.^[8] It was he whom the Prophet ﷺ chose as envoy to al-Muqawqis, the great one of the Copts in Egypt, bearing his letter and conveying his call; and he discharged the embassy with eloquence, argument, and soundness of judgement.^[9] And what higher testimonial is there than that the Messenger of God ﷺ should single out from among his Companions a man to stand for Islam in the court of a king? It is trust, eloquence, and fine conduct gathered in one man.

Then listen to the Qurʾānic subtlety that is the crown of this whole chapter. With what address did the reproach descend at the opening of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥana? "O you who believe." It was not said: O you who have betrayed; nor: O you who have played the hypocrite. The man was kept within the circle of faith, and then reproached inside it. This is the most eloquent portrait ever drawn of overlooking a slip: a reproach that mends and does not fell, that straightens and does not break.

And what was sown bore fruit: Ḥāṭib lived on, firm in the ranks, until he died in the year thirty after the Hijra, and the Commander of the Faithful ʿUthmān (may God be pleased with him) prayed over him.^[10] See, then, what pardon accomplished: it preserved a man for the Ummah for thirty years. Overlooking a slip, therefore, is no sentimental indulgence that glosses over the truth; it is the preservation of a capital of faith from being squandered, and a wise stewardship of the Ummah's energies, that an hour of anger may not consume them.

Close to this is what came from Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may God be pleased with him), when he swore that he would never again benefit Misṭaḥ ibn Uthātha with any benefit, after what he had said in the affair of the slander; then there came down: "Let them pardon and overlook," and he said: Yes, by God, I do indeed love that God should forgive me. So he restored his maintenance to him, and said: I shall never withdraw it from him.^[11]

Fifth: The Rule of the Masters of Verification

What was a foundation in the Prophetic biography became a rule among the people of knowledge. The ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī cast it in golden form when he said: "Then, as for the great one among the imams of knowledge: if his correct positions are many, and it is known that he sought the truth, and his learning was wide, and his intelligence apparent, and his righteousness, scrupulousness, and adherence to the Sunna known — then his slips are forgiven him, and we do not declare him misguided, nor cast him aside, nor forget his excellences."^[12] Consider the precision of the conditions: abundance of correctness, the seeking of truth, breadth of knowledge, righteousness and scrupulousness, and adherence. Pardon, then, is no warrant handed out to everyone who puts himself forward; it is a right belonging to whoever truly bears the description of merit.

Balancing the other pan of the scale is the word of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya, who joined reverence for the scholar with the denial of his infallibility in a single sentence: "It is not for anyone to obey anyone in all that he commands and forbids, except the Messenger of God ﷺ."^[13] And in *Rafʿ al-Malām* he established that none of the accepted imams deliberately opposes the Messenger of God ﷺ, and that they have known excuses for the ḥadīths they left aside.^[14] The scholar, then, is honoured but not held infallible; he is followed but not deified. Whoever raises him above his station has wronged him, and whoever brings him down for a single slip has wronged him; and justice lies between the two.

Sixth: Breadth of Heart in the History of Learning

Nor was this rule ink upon paper; the imams lived it in the hardest of straits. A man was flogged with whips, imprisoned, and harmed in his body and his religion for years — that man was Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. When the ordeal had passed and it lay in his power to take his own revenge, he absolved those who had harmed him, and he used to say: "It is nothing against a man that God should not punish anyone on his account," and he would recite: "Let them pardon and overlook," and say: "I have absolved everyone who spoke of me."^[15] Yet he did not yield one hair's breadth of the word of truth for which he had been flogged. So he gathered firmness in the truth to magnanimity in his own portion; and that is the balance exactly: severity where the right of God is concerned, and gentleness where the portion of the self is concerned.

Of this same chapter is al-Dhahabī's caution regarding what peers say of one another; for a scholar may be driven against his peer by rivalry, or school allegiance, or partisan heat — and the right due to such a word is that it be folded away, not related.^[16] How many a man of eminence, were all that was said against him gathered up, would fall; and were all that he offered gathered up, the Ummah would go on eating of his fruit for centuries.

Seventh: The Scale and Its Limits

Pardon is not a door thrown open to every wind; it is a wisdom with scales, and these are its limits:

There is no pardon in the prescribed penalties; and that is the explicit exception in the ḥadīth: "except the prescribed penalties." No one may waive a ḥadd of God once it has reached the ruler, however lofty the station of honour its owner may hold; and the Prophet ﷺ said to Usāma — his beloved and the son of his beloved — "Do you intercede concerning one of the prescribed penalties of God?"^[17]

And there is no pardon in the rights of God's creatures until those entitled to them have taken them in full: property taken must be returned, honour violated must be made lawful by its owner's pardon, and injustice must be lifted. Merit does not annul a grievance, and a past record does not discharge a debt.

Between a passing slip followed by remorse and return, and an obstinacy that hardens into a doctrine defended and propagated — there is a difference that cannot be hidden. The first is pardoned; the second is exposed and warned against. For whoever makes his error into a banner is no longer the owner of a stumble; he is the owner of a road.

Nor is pardon the abandonment of sincere counsel; it is the very etiquette of it. Counsel is given in private, built upon fairness, and aimed at rescue, not at scandal. Al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ said: "The believer conceals and counsels; the wicked man exposes and reviles."^[18] Between the two lies a hair's breadth that only he whose intention is pure can see.

Eighth: The Age of the Immortalized Slip

If these are the scales of every age, then our age has the greatest need of them. In times past, a scholar's slip would fall in one gathering and be buried in that gathering; today it is filmed, clipped, broadcast, and archived, and then republished twenty years later as though it had been said this very hour. The networks have become a register that never forgets and a judge that never listens. In them, thirty years of learning and giving are compressed into a clip forty seconds long, cut from its context and stripped of the circumstances that framed it.

I am not calling for the sanctification of anyone; disciplined scholarly criticism is the life of knowledge, and the correction of error is a duty that does not lapse. I am calling only for what is more just and more noble: that a man be weighed by the sum of his affair and not by the severed moment of his state; and that we ask, before we pass judgement: How much good has he done? Is this a slip or a method? And do we want to reform him or to bring him down? For he who demolishes a scholar does not demolish one man; he demolishes what that man built in hearts of goodness and religion. And many a demolisher never knows how many seekers of knowledge he orphaned, who used to drink from that spring.

Conclusion

The Ummah that knows how to overlook the slips of its people of merit raises up men; and the Ummah that lies in wait for them retains none but those who do nothing — for he who does nothing never errs. So let whoever wants a people who never slip seek them on some other earth. But here, the best of those who err are those who repent; and the most just of scales is a scale that weighs the ocean as an ocean and the drop as a drop.

O God, make us of those who conceal and do not expose, who counsel and do not revile, who deal justly and do not follow desire; and forgive us our slips as we love to be forgiven: "Do you not love that God should forgive you?"

Notes

The documentary method of this article: I have not included a single incident unless it is established in its sources; and wherever there is a question as to its grade or the precise location of a citation, I have pointed this out explicitly in its place. I have not clothed the weak in the garb of the authentic, nor the authentic in the garb of the mass-transmitted. And with God is all success.