According to al-Misbah al-munir...

وقَد يُقرأُ بمدِّ الهَمزَةِ على وزن فاعِلَة، أي العِلَّة التي تأكُلُ اللَّحمَ، والأوَّل أوفق باللغةِ. Aklah corresponds (in vowelization) to farhah. It is an affliction of a bodily member that consumes it, as mentioned in al-Qamus and other dictionaries. It has also been read with a mada on the hamzah, corresponding in vowelization to fallah, which means a disease that consumes the flesh, and the first one is more in accordance with classical usage.

In any case, that which is meant is that in the same way as this disease on afflicting a bodily organ - especially the subtle ones, such as pertain to the inner self - consumes it rapidly and destroys it, so does ghibah, rather more rapidly, consume a human being’s faith and destroy it. In the phrase ‘malam yuhdith’, ‘yuhdith’ belongs to the verbal form if’al and its concealed pronoun ( damir mustatir ) relates to the jalis , (i.e.

the one sitting) implicit in the julus mentioned in the tradition. Ightiyab here is in the accusative form ( mansub ) and is the maf’ul (object) of the verb implicit in the questioner’s speech. In some manuscripts, it is ما الحَدَثُ instead of وما يَحْدُثُ in which case ightiyab will be in the indicative case due to its being the predicate ( khabar ).

The Definition Of Ghibah Let it be known to you that the fuqaha ’ (R) have offered many definitions of ghibah, whose discussion and close scrutiny is not possible here except with brevity. The blessed martyr and researcher, the Shaykh (Zayn al- Din ‘Ali, known as al-Shahid al-Thani) in his kashf al-ribah ‘an ahkam al-ghibah says, “There are two definitions for it.