Question No. 2848 31 August 2022 Official answer by Master Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) verified Content level: Intermediate

What Is Inner Backbiting? Does It Mean the Desires of the Lower Self?

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Dear questioner, Master Ali Saei

Tracking code: #Q-2848

Dear Esteemed Teacher, you mentioned inner backbiting as one of the types of backbiting. Could you please explain what it means? Does it refer to the desires of the human lower self? If so, could you please distinguish among these desires? If left unchecked, the self seems to wander wherever it pleases: one moment it longs to overeat, another to spend extravagantly, and so on, with many other kinds of desires. Please explain further, and also tell us more about how to understand the self. Thank you.

Subject category: Ethics and Spirituality Ethics and Spirituality

The essence and first answer at a glance (60-word summary)

Inner backbiting means recalling, within oneself, the faults, affairs, actions, and words of a fellow Muslim, and turning them over in one’s heart. This can revive old resentments and deepen hostility. In this state, a person is both the one who backbites and the one being backbitten about, with satanic whispers and the promptings of the lower self at work.

Answer by Master Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat)

Teacher and researcher in the intellectual tradition of wisdom and the Ahl al-Bayt | Soroush Bamdadān Cultural Center

We might describe inward backbiting as follows:

It is to recall, within oneself, the faults, concerns, actions and words of a fellow Muslim, and to revisit and repeat them in one’s heart, thereby reviving resentment and deepening hostility.

The faults and failings of a fellow believer should be put out of mind, not repeatedly ruminated over in the heart.

In inward backbiting, it may seem that the only person involved is both the one who backbites and the one being backbitten about. In reality, however, satanic and lower-self temptations are at work. At times, Satan is the true backbiter and the person is its target; at other times, the person is the backbiter and Satan the one who listens.

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What Is Inner Backbiting? Does It Mean the Desires of the Lower Self?

The essence and first answer at a glance (60-word summary)

Answer by Master Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat)

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