[And] scorner, going about with malicious gossip – ’Astaghfirullah! نَمِيمٍ, you see نَمِيْمَة, is tale bearing, it is to go from person to person and tell people, ‘Oh so and so did this and so and so said that.’ And such news, it creates dissension, amongst people. You see نَمِيْمَة is actually the sound of the bow string, which implies that the arrow has been shot, and it's going to quickly land somewhere causing damage, and spreading gossip is like that. And some people find joy in quickly passing on news that they have heard, not to increase other people in their knowledge of useful things, but to cause problems between people, to damage relationships. And we learn the Prophet

How often do we need to be reminded about how evil a sin that is gossiping about others is, before we find more important things to discuss?

Ibn ‘Abbâs narrates: The Messenger of Allah (saws) passed by two graves and said: 'Woah! Surely they are being tortured - and not for any major sin. One of them used to go around [spreading] gossip. The other used to not obstruct himself from his urine.' Then he called for a small fresh branch and broke it in two. Then he planted one here and one there, and said: 'Perhaps it will be lightened for them as long as they do not dry up.' In another narration: '... and the other did not remove urine from himself.' [Agreed upon: Narrated by al-Bukhari (218, 1361), and Muslim (292) in this wording; the wording of al-Bukhari is similar]

I was enjoying these verses, because here's a man (Al-Walid ibn al-Mughirah) who tried to debase and discredit the divine origin of the Quran after hearing the Prophet (peace be upon him) recite a passage of the Quran, and then in the Quran itself he is the one who got openly exposed and debased with such strong and shuddering words for all future generations to read.

Ibn Qutaybah said on the verses in Surah Al-Qalam, "I do not know of anyone whom Allah described in such a bad way or mentioned so many of his bad qualities as He did with al-Waleed ibn al-Mughirah. Allah attached disgrace to him that will stay with him in both this life and the next." (Tafsir al-Baghawi 8/193)

It's as if he'