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For the good of your work, I am with you. I overlook what remains, filtering out the nonsense.

My wife, who cannot stand your tomfoolery, says to me, “Why are you listening to that fool?” I say, I take what benefits me and leave the rest.

Even so, sometimes it gets too much.

I too am a critic of men you criticise. But the mockery? If we are guided by the Quran as we say we are, then perhaps there are verses that may remind us. An ignoramus such as I need not enumerate verses before the learned.

I used to criticise one of these men even before it was fashionable to do so, taking issue with both his corpus and his tactics to gain influence. Ideologically, I might even consider him my bitter foe.

But to mock him as you mock him? To insult and defame him, deploying your amateur psychology to hypothesise on the wounds that fomented his fractious rage…

If you had been tested as he has been tested, you too might be broken, lashing out all over, leaving a trail of destruction in your wake.

If you knew what some know, but most are oblivious to — a private tragedy he never mentions — I am sure you would have second thoughts about laying into him so personally.

O you who have believed, let not a people ridicule people; perhaps they may be better than them; nor let women ridicule other women; perhaps they may be better than them. And do not insult one another and do not call each other with offensive nicknames. Wretched is the name of disobedience after faith. And whoever does not repent — then it is those who are the wrongdoers.

Quran 49:11

Criticise his sentiments, of course. Criticise mine too. Evaluate and appraise his output, critiquing and rebuffing ideas that must be challenged. Many of them are terrifying and must be rejected. Give the power to the argument. If you have something better, bring it.

But as for the ridicule, derision, insults, defamation… leave all this, for it only diminishes you. Those that listen to you — if they are grounded in a faith which demands the best of manners — think less of you for each insult deployed before the braying mob.

Certainly, I am less inclined to listen now. To me, you have become no different to the one you deride, who likewise insults and mocks and slanders everyone who crosses his path. It is truly a turnoff for the seeker.