Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said:  ‘Avoid (you people) suspicion for indeed suspicion is the worst form of false speech.’ [Agreed upon – narrated by Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim] Avoiding suspicion is part of having good character, while being suspicious of other’s motives a reflection of bad character. The quick summary is that Allah Almighty mentioned in the Quran: ‘O you who believe avoid much suspicion, some suspicions are sins’ [49:12]. Suspicions that are baseless This is because  some suspicions have no basis on evidence or the truth, and have nothing to support them. They are figments of imagination, concocted in one’s head, without evidence. Suspicions based on evidence, by contrast, need to be verified and dealt with.   It is quite common that people hold negative opinions about others. This is often a default position in our practices; our norm in our thinking – to jump to the worst assumption. Sadly this mentality is quite widespread, so Islam is addressing it by saying instead of always jumping to the worst conclusion, assume the best about others. Don’t assume the worst about someone For instance if you pass by somebody you know and they do not greet you, or reply to your salam do not rush to think ‘O my God, they are so rude! They did not reply to me.’ Then building on this by wondering why they did this and coming up with reasons why they snubbed you, which may not be true at all. It could well be that they were in their own world and did not notice you. If you mention to them later that they did not reply, they might say, perfectly honestly that they did not even realise you were there. … Continue reading Why you should not doubt people’s motives