A woman says she isn’t a thief, yet in her hand discreetly, danceably lies someone else’s lamb. What on earth do we call such a person other than a pilferer.
Our women don’t like it when they are called gossips, but they seem to derive pleasure – passionately for that matter – in discussing people’s affairs especially behind them.
Idle talk about someone’s private or personal life is an act of gossiping, which in other words, may be called a hearsay, rumor, scandal, scuttlebutt etc. Anyone culpable of this is a gossip, busybody, meddler, rumormonger, tattler, telltale etc.
So, if you are fit into the above description, then know that you are nothing but a gossip, as in: gbéborùn, sófó, ṣọbọ, ìyálé-ọ̀ọ́kán abbl; whereas it’s been frankly said by the Prophet that gossips (even though they observed Salāh and did acts of worship on earth) will not make Paradise. If you wish to end in Hell, you may continue with the satanically ‘virtuous’ life.
An affair that is not yours is apparently not yours. Why meddle into it? Why cry more than the bereaved in a matter your help isn’t sought? What is your concern in what concerns you not?
It baffles that the least-expected women are equally guilty of this shameful act. Under the hijāb, niqāb, some of our women gossip worse than the less or non-religious fellows. This is rather excruciating!
How come a group of hijābīs, niqābīs will not be together without someone else’s affair badly discussed? Of what purpose then is the sacred garment on them when their attitude is filthy? It is disappointing that our women will talk of others the way they will not want themselves talked about.
Our women hardly have time for beneficial phenomena. They hardly or don’t attend weekly halaqāt (gatherings of knowledge) because they are usually busy with house chores. But they can jettison anything, however significant, to gossip about people. They can visit one another and spend the whole time in the world to perpetrate this evil. Ignominy, luciferousness – that’s what runs in their veins.
I just hope that our women after being privileged to read this will have a change of attitude. It’s no crime to make friends with one another. It’s no crime to visit one another. But when you do so, discuss beneficial things and leave other people’s affairs.
Thank you.
Sanni Kay Yūsuf
English 