living islam _ Islamic tradition

Hadith Fourteen

The Prophet's ﷺ Warning Against One's Uttering
A Word Without First Ascertaining What One is Saying

It is narrated from Abu Hurayra (ra) that he heard
Allah's Messenger ﷺ say: "Verily Allah's
servant may utter a word without first bringing it to
light [whether it is a good or a bad word], and
because of it will stumble into the Fire a distance
greater than what lies between East and West." The
Two Shaykhs narrated it.

Al-Tirmidhi narrated it in the following wording:
"Verily a man shall utter a word he deems innocuous,
and fall headlong for it a distance of seventy years."

Al-Hakim narrated it in the following wording: "Verily
a man shall utter a word which he thinks of little
consequence, and fall headlong for it into the Fire a
distance of seventy years."

Al-Bayhaqi narrated it in the following wording:
"Verily Allah's servant shall say a word and not mean
to say it except to make his gathering laugh - and
fall headlong for it a distance greater than what lies
between the heaven and the earth. Verily a man shall
fall, because of his tongue, harder than he could ever
fall from his feet."

Abu al-Shaykh also narrated with a fair chain from
Anas (ra) that Allah's Messenger ﷺ said:
"Lo! Verily a man among you may speak a word so as to
make the people laugh, and because of it plummet
farther than the heaven. Lo! Verily a man among you
may speak a word so as to make his friends laugh, and
Allah (may His Majesty be exalted) shall become angry with him because of
that word, and not accept anything from him, until He
enters him into the Fire."

The reader can look up these collected narrations in
al-Mundhiri's Targhib.