Avoiding a Muslim colleague who is harming him
23-11-2005 | IslamWeb
Question:
I just read this (below) from your web site.
"Allah, the Almighty, looks at His slaves during the night of the middle of Sha'ban, and forgives all His slaves (believers) except for two: a malicious man (who is in dispute with others) and a killer (of human beings unjustly)." [Narrated by Ahmad and ruled as authentic by Al-Arna'oot]
Actually there is a person in my department and his children go to the same school as of my children and inspite of my requests to him, his children continuously torture my children physically and psychologically in the school and abuse them. Also this person is jealous of my research work and says that his children will beat my children. Moreover, he is always talking lies against me in front of other and officers and tries to harm me and my career.
After his this kind of attitude I decided not to talk to him and avoid him as I will go to some other place after two years and will not have any contact with him after that.
Moreover, he, his wife and children are always trying to get any opportunity to disturb and harm me and my family. As his children are quite older than my children. His eldest daughter is fourteen years old, Sons 12 and 10 years old whereas my eldest son is eight years old and daughter 5 years and other son 3 years old.
Kindly tell me that am I doing right thing to avoid him, so that he may not harm me and I do not get into any other bad incident with him.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.
Even if it is forbidden for a Muslim to cut the relationship with another Muslim, in some cases it is permissible to cut the relationship with him when he commits sins and disobey Allaah openly, or when he harms other Muslims. This is so, if the purpose of cutting the relationship is to deter him, please refer to Fatwa 86090 for more details.
Therefore, you should forgive your colleague and reconcile with him, and advise him to stop harming you and your family; if he is not deterred then you may cut the relationship with him.
Finally, it should be noted that cutting the relationship with a person stops when one says 'Salaam' to him, according to the view of the majority of the scholars
. So, if you avoid any contact with him and just greet him with 'Salaam' then you are not considered as having cut the relationship with him.
Allaah Knows best.