then do as you wish.”

The poet likewise said:
If you will not safeguard your honour nor fear the Creator,
and you still blush before a creature*, then do whatever you please.
If you approach a man exalting his right,
yet he denies you your due, then severance offers wider relief.

It is recognised that one who has no sense of shame has no remedy; rebuke does him no good. The obvious course, therefore, is to leave him alone and turn away, just as another poet said:
If a youth is endowed with an impudent face,
he will twist through matters just as he wishes.
No medicine, nor anything used to treat him,
will bring the slightest benefit.
Your scolding of a man devoid of shame
will bring you nothing but fatigue.

Yet keeping silent about such a person would expose many innocent people to being swept along in his wake and affected by his accusations and fabrications. It is therefore necessary to refute him and lay bare his lies, “so that he who perishes may perish upon clear evidence, and he who lives may live upon clear evidence.”

There is another benefit that returns to the slanderer himself: he may come back to his senses and thus lighten his load, for reducing the number of people he misleads will diminish the burdens he must carry in addition to his own. Allah, Exalted be He, says: “They will surely carry their own burdens, and burdens along with their burdens; and on the Day of Resurrection they will surely be questioned about what they used to fabricate.”