You will be rewarded if you forbearance to their criticism and to their impertinent remarks. The more they criticize you, the more you are increased in worth, because only someone who is unaccomplished has no one who is jealous of him, and according to the Arab saying,
“people do not kick a dead dog.”
One poet said:
“They are jealous of he who has surpassed them, People show him enmity and opposition, Just like spiteful women, who speak of the fair maiden, With jealousy and malice – that she is of a low and base character.”
Zuhayr said:
“They are jealous of that which he has been blessed with; God will not take away from him the cause of their resentment.”
Another said:
“They will envy my death, what wretchedness is this, Even in my death, I am not spared from their jealousy.”
Another poet said:
I complained about the injustice of gossip-mongers, and you will not find,
The honorable and successful person who has escaped from jealousy,
You remain, O’ honorable and worthy friend, the victim of it, yet no one begrudges the one who is miserable and wretched.”
In another poem:
“If a person reaches the sky with his nobleness, then his enemies will be the number of the stars in the sky, they shoot at him using a bow with every kind of persecution, yet their abuses will never bring them to the level of this nobility.”
Prophet Moosa (Moses) asked his Lord to prevent people from abusing him with their tongues. God said, “O’ Moosa, I have not done so for myself, I have created them and provided for them and they blaspheme and curse me!”
You may not be able to prevent people from attacking your honor, but you are able to do well and ultimately, to ignore and turn away from their criticism and scorn.
Another poet said:
“I move past the fool who curses me, And I continue on my previous course saying : he does not refer to me!”
And yet another said:
“When the fool speaks, then do not respond to him, for better than to answer him is silence.”
Idiots and fools clearly feel insulted by those who shine, those who are nobles, and those who display genius.
