Susan Carland grew tired of having online bullies hate on her religious beliefs and her choice of dress.
The Muslim academic from Australia tried debating, ignoring, and finally shutting them out.
But none of it seemed right for the high-profile media commentator, who calls herself "Hijabulous" on her Twitter profile.
So she turned to her faith, and decided to fight hate with kindness.
Carland was raised Christian, but later developed an interest in Islam after initially considering it a "sexist, disgusting religion," Ozy.com reported.
She converted when she was 19, despite her mother's opposition, and has since completed a Ph.D that examined the ways in which Muslim women employ their faith to defend feminism.
Carland has offered her plenty of media commentary on her research. Her profile has grown so much that people have joked that she and her husband, radio and TV host Waleed Aly, are a "Muslim Brangelina."
Now a lecturer at Monash University's School of Social Sciences, she wrote about her new method for battling trolls in an op-ed for the Sydney Morning Herald.
"I regularly get tweets and Facebook messages from the brave freedom-fighters behind determinedly anonymous accounts telling me that, as a Muslim woman, I love oppression, murder, war and sexism," she wrote.
"My response to them is not an act of angry defiance but a calm reaction that is deeply rooted in who I am and the faith that defines me," she added.
Carland's reply was inspired by a verse in chapter 41 of the Qur'an:
"The good deed and the evil deed are not alike. Repel the evil deed with one which is better."
Carland is more proof that you should never descend to a bully's level. There are always better ways to fight back.
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