—and that was part of his penetrating juristic insight, may Allah have mercy on him and be pleased with him. Accordingly, if a person fears that removing an evil will only lead to something even worse, silence becomes obligatory.

Among the courtesies of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong—and note that it is not a legal condition that the one who gives the admonition be the very first to perform the good or the very first to abandon the evil, such that he would tell others to do good yet not do it himself, or forbid them from evil and then fall into it—for that falls under Allah’s words: “O you who believe, why do you say what you do not do? It is most hateful in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do” (Qur’an 61:2-3). The sound hadith likewise states: “A man will be brought on the Day of Resurrection and flung into the Fire until his intestines spill out; he will circle around them as a donkey circles a millstone. The inhabitants of Hell will gather around him and say, ‘O so-and-so, what has happened to you? Were you not the one who used to enjoin us to do good and forbid us from evil?’ He will reply, ‘I used to order you to do good while I failed to do it myself, and I forbade you from evil while I committed it.’”

Therefore, it is part of the proper etiquette of enjoining good and forbidding evil that a person be the first to act on what he commands and the first to refrain from what he prohibits.

It has been reported that Ibn al-Jawzi—may Allah have mercy on him—the famed preacher, who was among the