two units and keep them short,’ that is, pray lightly. Notice that he did not order the man to rise and pray until he had first asked him; this is true wisdom.

The third condition for enjoining right and forbidding wrong is that prohibiting the wrong must not give rise to something even worse. If the intervention will lead to a greater evil, it is impermissible, for the law seeks to avert the greater of two harms by tolerating the lesser.

Imagine, for example, that we encounter someone committing a sin—say, smoking—and we know that if we tell him to stop, he will instead turn to drinking alcohol. In that situation we do not forbid him from smoking, because we are certain he will move on to something more serious. Smoking is undoubtedly less harmful than drinking. The proof for this principle is Allah’s statement: “And do not insult those they invoke besides Allah, lest they then insult Allah in hostility without knowledge” (Q 6:108). Reviling the idols of the polytheists is, in itself, a legitimate act, but if it will lead them to revile Allah—He who is worthy of all praise and glory—it becomes forbidden.

For the same reason the Messenger of Allah said, “May Allah curse the one who curses his parents,” and he also said, “Among the major sins is for a man to insult his parents.” They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, can a man really insult his own parents?” He replied, “Yes. He insults another man’s father, so that man in turn insults his father; and he insults another man’s mother, so that man insults his mother.”

In short, any act of censure must never entail an evil greater than the one being condemned; this is done to ward off the greater harm with the lesser.