Guard your tongue to protect others
“What good is all of the sacrifice when the people around you are not safe from you.”
Guarding the tongue, especially on social media, from gossip, slander, ridicule, and unverified information is essential to preserving good deeds and building a safe Muslim community.
The khutbah in 6 steps
- Mu'ad ibn Jabal asks the Prophet for an action leading to Paradise and away from Hell.
- The Prophet outlines Islam's pillars, additional good deeds, and the supreme importance of restraining the tongue.
- Harmful speech makes others unsafe and can undermine otherwise righteous worship.
- Social media, group chats, and forwarding unverified information function as a modern form of tongue-driven harm.
- Surah al-Hujurat provides guidance to verify reports, avoid meddling, and protect people from slander.
- The khutbah concludes by rejecting ridicule and offensive nicknames while encouraging charitable use of technology.
In the khateeb's words
“what good are the righteous deeds what good are the righteous actions what good is all of the sacrifice when the people around you are not safe from you”
“social media and that keyboard on our phone is the tongue of the modern day individual”
“where there's darkness there's always an opportunity for us to do good to be better to rise to the occasion”
For the dinner table
The Prophet's guidance in this khutbah shows that entering Paradise is not only about visible acts of worship; our words and online behavior matter too. A phone, keyboard, share button, or group chat can function like a modern tongue, so we should verify information and avoid gossip, slander, ridicule, and hurtful nicknames. We should remember that people may be better in Allah's sight than we know, and one careless word can deeply harm a person or a community. We can also use the same device for good, such as giving sadaqah, and choose restraint when curiosity pulls us into someone else's private affairs.
- What should we do before forwarding a story about someone else?
- How can we use our phones to help people instead of hurting them?
- What kinds of jokes or nicknames might hurt someone even if we think they are funny?
The masjids
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