Can Gibah Or Gossip Break The Fast? Habit Control It

Illustration of gibah or gossip (Freepik / katemangostar)

JAKARTA - During fasting during Ramadan, habits will change. Starting from sleeping habits, eating habits, activities to habits in interacting with other people. How about the habit of speaking?

According to Quraish Shihab on his daughter's YouTube account, Najwa Shihab, fasting means guarding your mouth, thoughts and feelings. A person who is fasting keeps his mouth from consuming unclean food and keeps the words that come out of the mouth.

In the context of gibah or popularly known as gossip, it is an activity to talk about the badness or shame of other people behind the back. When fasting, gibah should not be done because it can reduce the value of fasting.

If the value of fasting is merit, then the amount of merit will decrease when doing gibah. Although chatting with colleagues is often cool, gossiping is a habit that needs to be controlled, especially when fasting.

Other habits that can reduce the value of fasting and even make hunger and thirst useless apart from gossiping are as follows:

Spread lies

Although it does not break the fast, it is extracted from Bukhari's hadi history that whoever tells a lie and practices it, the struggle for hunger and thirst is not counted as a form of worship.

Give false testimony

Nothing is more fortunate than those who are able to speak the truth. Apart from harming others, false testimony is an act that is hated by Allah SWT and His Messenger.

Indulge the view with lust

The most basic principle of fasting is to hold back lust. Both from holding back hunger, thirst, to desire that can trigger lust. So, fasting the eyes and fasting all the senses possessed by humans is the only way to reap the rewards when observing the fast of Ramadan.

So, so that habits that interfere with fasting can be controlled, then you can take some easy steps such as realizing the meaning of fasting, keeping yourself busy with positive things, speaking according to the truth, and changing the topic of conversation when you start talking about other people.