Refining Utterance (27-29)

What are the results of backbiting?

27) "O beloved of the Lord! If any soul speak ill of an absent one, the only result will clearly be this: he will dampen the zeal of the friends and tend to make them indifferent. For backbiting is divisive, it is the leading cause among the friends of a disposition to withdraw."

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, pp. 230-231)

28) "...When a difficulty is brought out into the daylight and freely discussed by a duly authorized and responsible group of people who are sincerely desirous of finding the best solution and are free from prejudice or personal motive, then there is a good chance of overcoming it, but discussions of the faults of others, behind their backs by unauthorized people who have no authority to take action in the matter, is surely one of the most fertile causes—probably THE most fertile cause—of disunity, and the importance of putting an end to this practice should be impressed on all Baha'is."

(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of the British Isles, followed by an extract from the Guardian's postscript, February 11, 1925)

29) "If Baha'i individuals deliberately ignore the principles embedded in the Order which Baha'u’llah Himself has established to remedy divisiveness in the human family, the Cause for which so much has been sacrificed will surely be set back in its mission to rescue world society from complete disintegration."

(The Universal House of Justice, Individual Rights and Freedoms in the World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 16)

[See also #34, #35, and #54.]

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