Among the calamities of blurring the line between the real world and the online world is the false sense of obligation to relentlessly command the good and forbid the evil on social platforms. Know that it is impossible to refute every falsehood online, including everything that trends today and tomorrow. The remedy is to starve falsehood rather than feed it, and feeding it means giving it attention. Reflect on the words of some of the leading Imams of the Salaf, and those who followed in their footsteps (رحمهم الله).

Imām Muslim [d. 261 AH] said:

“Ignoring a baseless opinion is the best way to let it die and its author be forgotten. It is also the best way to avoid drawing the attention of the unaware to it.”^[1]

Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī Ādam al-Ithyūbī [d. 1442 AH], explains this statement of Imām Muslim by saying:

“Mentioning an evil statement or a foolish act harms the common people, since it alerts them to it, turns their attention toward it, and may lead them to follow in those evil footsteps.”^[2]

Al-Aʿmash [d. 148 AH] said:

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‎السكوت جواب، والتغافل يطفئ شرا كثيرا
Silence is an answer, and deliberately overlooking extinguishes much evil.^[3]

Shaykh Muqbil al-Wādiʿī [d. 1422 AH] was asked if he intended to write a refutation of a certain individual. He refused because the proponent was irrelevant:

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فنحن نرد على طلبة العلم، أما أصحاب الهراء، فلا
We refute students of knowledge. As for the people of nonsense, then no.

Then he cited the lines of poetry:

لَوْ كُلُّ كَلْبٍ عَوَى أَلْقَمْتُهُ حَجَرًا … كَانَ الْحَصَى كُلُّ مِثْقَالٍ بِدِينَارِ
If I threw a stone at the mouth of every dog that barked, stones would sell at a dinar each.

أَوَكُلَّمَا طَنَّ الذُّبَابُ زَجَرْتُهُ … إِنَّ الذُّبَابَ إِذَنْ عَلَيَّ كَرِيمُ
Do I have to shoo away the fly every time it buzzes? Then the fly would become dear to me.^[4]

Shaykh Muqbil cited the same lines elsewhere as well and swore by Allāh that he paid no mind to any newspaper, radio station or magazine, nor to anyone refuting him in a book, because this daʿwah belongs to Allāh, and if Allāh wills it to remain, it will remain.^[5]

With this in mind, it is inadvisable to consume one’s time interacting with internet trolls, influencers or deviant personalities, as it only brings light to their darkness. And Allāh knows best.