Importance of Privacy in Islam
This is according to Qom Seminary scholar Ahmad Mobaleghi in a recent speech, excerpts of which are as follows:
We can (sometimes) consider one’s work, status and thoughts as part of his privacy so entering this realm or exposing them is not appropriate. When exactly these are part of privacy and when they are part of the public domain and the frontier between the two depend on whether they are social or non-social.
If they are social, it means they are materialized or manifested in society and they are non-social when no one but the person himself has knowledge or access to them.
Work that is in the social domain can be of two types. One type is a work some aspects of which are kept hidden and it would be in appropriate and a violation of privacy to expose those aspects.
The second type is one whose aspects cannot be kept hidden.
And then there are works are not just related to the person but also related to those around him, including his family. If the family environment is considered something between personal and social, it can be described as half-social.
The affairs related to the family environment are two kinds with one being within the family environment. Naturally it is part of privacy if the person keeps it hidden and entering it would be a violation of privacy.
Everything that is kept hidden somehow shows the person’s keenness on hiding it for any reason and others should not try to know the reason why he is hiding it.
So here we come up with a criterion for privacy. That is, even moving toward what has been hidden is considered a violation of privacy because it would violate the other person’s desire to keep something secret and private.
Then we have absolute privacy which refers to things that are kept fully hidden.
Even if a hidden thing becomes known for some, it would not be a license for you to also know it because it is still in the realm of privacy for you and you should not try to find out about it. In that case, it would be relative privacy.
In any case, trying to know about things that are in the privacy realm is a violation of privacy, whether it has become known for some persons or not.
