until the matter worsened and patience became exhausted and we ended up with a gang defect if we refrained from answering it and protesting about it knowing that it is the nature of the envious to slander what he is envied for and it is the nature of the deprived to criticize what he is deprived of and belittle it and attack its people we had room to refrain. for envy is a punishment that is required of the envious person because of what he gets from him and disgraces him from disobeying his lord and belittling his blessings and discontent with his fate with the necessary distress and constant sadness and breathing heavily and being preoccupied with what is unattainable and innumerable. and that the one who is grateful his gratitude is for a limited matter and the one who is envious his envy is for something that has no limit. so his envy is broad according to the change in the breadth of what he embodied. because we feared that an ignorant person would think that our refraining from answering is an admission of the truth of the bite and that our overlooking the one who is backbitten is an inability to repel it.
إلى أن تفاقم الأمر وعيل الصبر، وانتهى إلينا عيب عصابة لو أمسكنا عن الإجابة عنها والاحتجاج فيها، علما بأن من شأن الحاسد تهجين ما يحسد عليه، ومن خلق المحروم ذم ما حرم وتصغيره والطعن على أهله كان لنا في الإمساك سعة. فإن الحسد عقوبة موجبة للحاسد بما يناله منه ويشينه، من عصيان ربه واستصغار نعمته، والسخط لقدره، مع الكرب اللازم والحزن الدائم، والتنفس صعدا، والتشاغل بما لا يدرك ولا يحصى. وأن الذي يشكر فعلى أمر محدود يكون شكره، والذي يحسد فعلى ما لا حد له يكون حسده. فحسده متسع بقدر تغير اتساع ما جسد عليه. لأنا خفنا أن يظن جاهل أن إمساكنا عن الإجابة إقرار بصدق العضيهة، وأن إغضاءنا لذي الغيبة عجز عن دفعها.