and he sat down without praying the two-rakʿah greeting of the mosque. The Prophet ﷺ asked him, “Have you prayed?” He replied, “No.” He said, “Then stand up and pray two rakʿahs.” The Prophet did not tell him to pray until he had first asked whether he had already done so, even though outwardly it looked as if the man had entered, sat down, and not prayed. The Messenger ﷺ feared that the man might have prayed without his noticing, so he asked, “Have you prayed?” When the man answered, “No,” he said, “Then stand up and pray two rakʿahs.”

In the same way, when dealing with wrongdoing you may not censure anyone unless you know for certain that he has in fact fallen into the wrong. If, for example, you see a woman in a car with a man, it is not permissible to criticise either of them, for the woman may be one of his maḥrams—his wife, mother, sister, and so forth. Only when you know that the man has seated beside him a woman who is not his maḥram, or you possess a strong, compelling indication of that, may you speak. Situations of this sort are numerous. The essential point is that a person must be sure a matter is truly right before he commands it, and truly wrong before he forbids it, and he must also know that the one addressed has actually done something that calls for being commanded or forbidden.

Furthermore, anyone who enjoins right and forbids wrong should be gentle in both his commanding and his forbidding, for when a person is gentle Allah grants him what He does not grant through harshness. As the Prophet ﷺ said, “Allah gives for gentleness what He does not give for severity.” If you reprimand the person you are advising with roughness, he may well turn away,