“Whoever mistreats his family and neighbours is the lowest of them; whoever repays their mistreatment in kind is their equal; and whoever does not repay them for it is their master, the best and finest of them.”

Ibn Hazm ranks three ways of dealing with the people closest to you, and the ranking deliberately puts ordinary retaliation in the middle rather than at the bottom: answering like with like is not wrong, it is simply not greatness. The top rank is the Qur’an’s own instruction in practice: “repel evil by that which is better” (41:34).