Rumors and their political impact

Rumors have spread in our country to the extent that they have a direct impact on the political and intellectual stability of our country.

Sometimes they inflame souls against the Arab countries and sometimes spread anxiety and disturbance between the classes of the Egyptian people in order that the country remains in a state of tension and instability.

These rumors would not have affected us except for ignoring multiple principles and considerations that were established by our religion.

The first of these rumors is ignoring Allah's Saying about the hypocrites who spread these rumors: "When there comes to them some matter touching (public) safety or fear, they make it known (among the people); if only they had referred it to the Messenger (peace be upon him) or to those charged with authority among them, the proper investigators would have understood it from them (directly). Had it not been for the Grace and Mercy of Allâh upon you, you would have followed Shaitân (Satan), save a few of you." [Surat An-Nisa': 83].

Even if the people repeat it, every person is responsible for what he utters. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "It is enough sin for a person to speak of everything he hears." The press has participated deliberately to promote false news for profit and publicity, as it helped through analysis and articles in the consolidation of delusions and turn them to solid facts.

The printed words have become the main source of information to simple readers and when you try to defend the truth, you find a series of false information and doctrines that were established by the press. European newspapers have participated in fueling the hostility against the Ottoman Empire and fabricated lies against them to the extent that they still use these fabrications as established facts.

It was said that Sultan Abdul Hamid II wrote in his memoirs parts of these fabrications: "The European newspapers directed harsh criticism to the empire, claiming that the Kurds after the formation of these brigades have increased their inhumane actions against Armenians and these newspapers expressed their fear of the Kurdish revolution which will declare their independence.

It seems that newspapers are looking for topics regardless true or false because reporters are writing about the situation of Kurdistan from the views of the Armenians without bothering themselves to search for the truth or even leave their comfortable homes in Istanbul "[1]

However, he denounces the charge of persecuting the Armenians where he says: "Something funny to be accused of torturing Armenians and exploiting them. If a person checked the history of our empire, it will become clear to him that Armenians were always rich.

Moreover, those who know the facts confirm the financial superiority of Armenians to Muslims. In all times, Armenians held the highest positions in the functional state, including the position of the greatest minister." [2]

The charge of persecuting Armenians was one of the arguments of the West to wage war against the Caliphate State, and dragging it to follow their whims and dictations.

Furthermore, rumors played a great role in changing the victory in World War II, where the British intelligence succeeded in deceiving the Japanese and pushing them to attack the United States, which had refused to enter in the international politics before, which caused the Pearl Harbor attack in which the Japanese aviation destroyed several U.S. warships in a sudden attack. Rumors played a great role in convincing the USA that Japan intends to go to war in support of the allies who approached a complete defeat.

The press was promoting lies and forgery of facts in the crumbling Arab regimes to draw the attention of the public about the files of corruption and take them away from the points of weakness.

So, they exaggerated in terrifying the public of the Islamic movement, whether locally or regionally. These agendas should end and be replaced by objective point of view for all classes of society, but today we find bodies, movements, and parties endeavor to spread false information about Islam and Muslims, not only in newspapers and satellite channels, but also on the Web.

The truth is lost between lies and deliberate disinformation, leaving the truth helpless before this information without being able to refute them, moreover there is no harm to circulate false news and fabrications as established facts.

We should establish the Shari`ah bases of accepting narration and do not keep silent about false accusation even if the word is trivial. Dr. `Abdur-Rahman `Abdul-Khaliq said in his distinct research entitled "" "The impact of weak and fabricated Hadiths": "Corruption may start with a trivial word from a trivial person, but if we do not refute it, soon it spreads and moves from a person to another and from a generation to a generation until it becomes an established fact. Hence, we know that except for the frequent practice of enjoining good and forbidding evil, we would have seen the truth and light are gone and darkness disappears." [3]

The Shari`ah teaches us to know the truth by its narrator, if the narrator is a liar, we refute and deny it and if the narrator is unknown, we do not accept his narration until it is supported by trustworthy narrators.

Moreover, if the narrator is a trustworthy but disagrees someone who is more trustworthy than him, we do not accept his narration but after the verifiers of narrations approve it.

Then we know the truth by confirmation with facts and introductions. If we verify all the news reported in media, we will find it based on single narrations or taken from unknown resources, so we should exclude most of them and we would understand that fabrications have become easy for the people.

There are many narrations of that type, which I submitted to the previous steps then realized that they were all false.