It has even been mentioned in the traditions that if a...

It has even been mentioned in the traditions that if a person was to tell you something and while telling you, kept looking around him to the left and right to make sure that no one else was listening to what he was telling you, then this is also a sign that what he is telling you is a secret, even though he may not have expressly told you that it was such. A secret that another believer confides is sacred and must be respected just as the blood of a true believer is sacred.

Therefore, the secrets that he keeps with you must be kept hidden from others. The twenty-sixth characteristic of a true believer is that he does not expose thath which is hidden about another person. Exposing this is only possible when the person does not tell you the secret directly - rather, you yourself find out something about him and thus, you keep this thing to yourself and it is this thing which you must not expose to other people.

One of the forms of backbiting is when someone exposes the secrets of another person and spreads hidden information (about others) - things which have become common place in today's day and age. However we must be very careful that even if there is no danger to anyone else and the issue is only related to us but here too, we do not indulge in spreading hidden information.

However if a person has some knowledge of the government, general society, close family members, the youth, the faith of other people, etc… then in these issues, spreading hidden information (about others) is not a problem at all. This issue shares the same ruling of backbiting such that if backbiting a person is more important than the protection of the secrets of the people (backbiting would serve a higher and nobler goal), then it is not a problem.

In addition, in the issue of covering the secrets of other people that you yourself are made aware of, this principle too must be put into practice (that sometimes it may be more important to expose such secrets as it would help in serving a higher and nobler goal). We hope that Allah (SwT) gives us all the opportunity to act according to these guidelines! [^1]: Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 68, pg. 375, Section: Having a Good Disposition Previous…