Bāṭıl refers to speaking about maʿṣiyya (disobedience and sins). This includes discussing the states of women, gatherings involving intoxicants, the conditions of the openly sinful, the vain lifestyles of the wealthy, the arrogance of rulers, their censured ceremonies, and the narration of their disgraceful states, and similar matters. None of these topics are permissible to engage in; rather, they are forbidden. (Iḥyāʾ, INI, 143)
Bāṭıl is nonexistence (ʿadam, nothingness). (Iṣṭilāḥ, 539)
Bāṭıl is everything other than the Real (al-Ḥaqq); it is nonexistence. For, in ḥaqīqa (inner reality), nothing has true existence except the Real (al-Ḥaqq)... (Kāshānī, 35; Jāmiʿ, 78)
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: The truest verse composed by the Arabs is the saying of Labīd:
Everything except Allah
Is vain and will vanish
All blessings will depart
(Muslim, Poetry, 2-6)
(In another version, the following expressions are also present:
The words of Abū Bakr, Kaʿb, and Labīd:
Every person greets the morning calmly
Yet death is near to him
As close as his sandal's strap
No matter how long he lives
Everyone born of a mother
Will one day be carried in a coffin
Everything except Allah
Is vain and will vanish
All blessings will depart