its benefit. However, assessing the relative weight of benefits and harms must be done according to the scales of the Shariah. Whenever a person is able to follow the textual proofs he may not depart from them; if he cannot, he must exert his reasoning to identify parallels and analogues. Seldom will the texts fail someone who is truly versed in them and in the ways they indicate the rulings.

Accordingly, if an individual or a group combines both right and wrong in such a way that they will either commit them both together or abandon them both together, it is not permissible to command them to do the right or to forbid them from the wrong. Rather, the matter must be examined: if the right outweighs, it is to be enjoined even though that entails a lesser wrong, and one must not forbid a wrong whose avoidance would forfeit a greater right. In such a case, forbidding would amount to blocking the path of Allah, striving to eliminate obedience to Him and His Messenger, and eradicating righteous deeds. But if the wrong predominates, it must be prohibited even though that entails the loss of a lesser right; to enjoin a right that brings about a greater wrong would itself be wrong and an attempt to disobey Allah and His Messenger. If the intertwined right and wrong are equivalent, then neither should be enjoined nor forbidden.

Thus, sometimes commanding is proper, sometimes forbidding is proper, and at other times neither commanding nor forbidding is appropriate when right and wrong are inseparable; this applies to specific, concrete situations. As for matters considered in the abstract, right is always to be enjoined and wrong always to be forbidden, and with respect to a single individual or a single group one commands the right they do and forbids the wrong they do,