The Prophet ﷺ asked, "Do you know what backbiting is?"They replied, "Allah and His Messenger know best."He said, "It is mentioning your brother in a way he would dislike."Someone asked, "What if what I say about my brother is actually true?"He answered, "If what you say is true, then you have backbitten him, and if it is not true, then you have slandered him."
حدثنا محمد بن جعفر حدثنا شعبة قال سمعت العلاء يحدث عن أبيه
عن النبي ﷺ قال هل تدرون ما الغيابة قالوا الله ورسوله أعلم قال ذكرك أخاك بما ليس فيه قال أرأيت إن كان في أخي ما أقول له يعني قال إن كان فيه ما تقول فقد اغتبته وإن لم يكن فيه ما تقول فقد بهته
Its isnad is sahih. Ala is Ibn Abdul-Rahman Harqi, and he is trustworthy. Ahmad and others rated him trustworthy, and Muslim narrated from him in his Sahih. Ibn Abu Hatim gave his biography in al-Jarh wal-Tadil 1/3/357–358.His father, Abdul-Rahman bin Yaqub Juhani, freedman of Harqah, is a well-known trustworthy tabii. Ibn Abu Hatim gave his biography in al-Jarh wal-Tadil 2/2/301–302.Harqah, to which Abdul-Rahman and his son are attributed, is spelled with damma on the ha and fatha on the plain ra, which is the correct form. It is a tribe from Juhayna, also called Harqat.This hadith will come again with the same chain and wording at 9903.There are two words in it that require examination and discussion. The first is the word "ghayabah." This is how the word appears with an alif between the ya and the ba in ح and م at this point, while in ك it appears as "ghaybah" in its well-known form. The second is his saying, "your mentioning of your brother in a way that is not true of him," in both places. But the wording established in the rest of the narrations, which we will mention in the sourcing, is "your mentioning of your brother in a way that he dislikes," which fits the context better, since it distinguishes between backbiting and slander.Tabari narrated it in his Tafsir 26:86 from Ibn Muthanna, from Muhammad bin Jafar, from Shubah, which is the same chain by which Ahmad narrated it here and at 3:990, and Tabari's version agrees with the rest of the narrations regarding the two words.Muslim narrated it 2:285, through Ismail bin Jafar, from Ala, with this chain, and its wording is that the Messenger of Allah said, "Do you know what backbiting is?" They said, "Allah and His Messenger know best." He said, "It is your mentioning of your brother in a way that he dislikes." It was said, "What if what I say is true of my brother?" He said, "If what you say is true of him, then you have backbitten him, and if it is not true of him, then you have slandered him."Abu Dawud narrated it 4874/4:2704 in Awn al-Mabud, and Tirmidhi 3:126, and Darimi 2:299, all three through Abdul-Aziz bin Muhammad, who is Darawardi, from Ala, with the wording that it was said, "O Messenger of Allah, what is backbiting?" and so on. The wording given here is Abu Dawud's. Tirmidhi said, "This is a hasan sahih hadith."In a similar manner, Tabari narrated it in his Tafsir 26:86, through Abdul-Rahman bin Ishaq Amiri, from Ala. It will also come in a similar form at 8973 and 8997, through Abdul-Rahman bin Ibrahim Qass Madani, from Ala. See also Ibn Kathir's Tafsir 8:22.His saying "slandered him" comes from "buhtan," meaning you lied about him and fabricated something against him.