Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Speaking Tree Website | October 10, 2016
According to a hadith, the Prophet of Islam said:
If somebody accuses another of fisq (sin) or of kufr (unbelief), then such an accusation will return to him if the person he is accusing is not really so. (Musnad Ahmad)
This is not something strange or mysterious. It is actually a law of nature, which God has established in this world. You could call it ‘the law of the boomerang’. According to the law of the boomerang, the harder and faster you throw something, the faster and more violently it comes back to hit you.
If a person abuses somebody—say he calls him a disbeliever or a sinner—he thinks it is just a one-sided matter. That is, he thinks that what he has said relates not to himself but to the person he abuses. But this is a deadly mistake actually. This is because if the other person is not really what he has accused him of being, his accusation bounces back on him. He will become what he has accused the other person of being.
Sinfulness and disbelief are a matter of the state of a person’s heart. Only God knows the state of our hearts. Hence, if a person truly fears God, he will save himself at any cost from such language. If he sees some negativity in someone, instead of accusing him of being this or that, he will advise him out of genuine concern for his welfare. He will certainly not start accusing him of being a sinner or an infidel. He will leave the matter of someone’s sinfulness or disbelief to God and will consider his responsibility to only be to try to reform this person through good counsel and advice.