A malicious statement – spoken or published – which is injurious to a person’s reputation. That’s slander!
Slander does not go without falsification – cooking up lies, and garnishing them with untrue, unfounded stories to make them appealing to readers and/or listeners. Slander sinks slanderers in monumentally damaging sins, the repercussion of which is reaped here and in the hereafter.
Slander may be actuated by envy. Envious people sometimes resort to tarnishing of image or assassination of character to fight the one whose progress is envied. This heart disease gets its victims pushed to telling lies to bring down the one whose person is being slammed.
Some resort to slander when an interpersonal battle is lost by them. They cowardly seek support from gullible goons and brazen brats by telling tales that never happened, or that did happen on an entirely different note. If we take our time, we will see that slanderers stink of contractible sins and they get sunk in its filthy, detestable ocean.
A slanderer knows he is a slanderer. He knows he is a liar. He has got a hidden goal to achieve, and it is usually not of Allah’s. But his fans who believe and support his garnished lies do not know because the hidden is hidden to them. And rather than make findings on the slanderer and the one whose image is being stained to ascertain with whom lies the truth and/or otherwise, they accept the lies hook, line and sinker. Some people would pay, not dearly but direly, on Judgement Day.
Those who join the slanderer in his evil mission are the ones I pity the most. You hear a piece of information – true or false – you believe and uphold it without verifications. You don’t bother to hear from the other party. And you seek Allah’s pleasure? Hmm! I doubt if you truly desire your desire. How would you feel if same was done to you? Use your head, my dear!