“WHOEVER IMITATES A PEOPLE IS ONE OF THEM”

Bismillah



Excerpts from “Imitating the Disbelievers” by Imam Adh-Dhahabi (d.748H) by Dar-us-Sunnah Publishers


“WHOEVER IMITATES A PEOPLE IS ONE OF THEM”


“O miserable one! Where is your intellect taking you? How far will you flee from following the Sunnah of your Prophet, Muhammad, salla’Allahu alahi wa salam, to enacting the manifest signs of your enemies?


How far [have these people] fled from traversing the Straight Path and how close they have come to the way of the misguided devils! [For example] when you perform an action of worship, you [soon] flee from it, looking left and right for a place of refuge! When you traverse the path of knowledge you preoccupy yourself with finding loopholes and concessions under the pretext, ‘we are performing taqlid of the Imams” (p.30)


“How can you bring yourself to imitate a people… who are but fuel for the fire?!


“If it was said to you, ‘imitate an object of ridicule, a laughing stock’, you would surely scorn this and become angry. How is it then that you imitate the uncircumcised worshipper of the cross in his celebrations? How is it that you dress your children with new clothes and inculcate a sense of joy in them? How is it that you decorate eggs for them, buy incense and celebrate the festival of your enemy in the same fashion as you would celebrate the ‘eid legislated by your Prophet, sall’Allahu alaihi wa salam?


Where would such a practice take you except to the anger of Allah and His Displeasure? Provided, He does not forgive you that is, and provided that you know that your Prophet Muhammad, sall’Allahu alaihi wa salam, used to encourage differing from the People of the Book in everything that was specific to them” (p.10)

Now imagine dear brothers and sisters, if the censure coming from this scholar was this severe regarding imitating the kufaar nearly seven hundred years ago, how much more relevant is his advice today?


Wa’Allahu Musta’aan


“You will surely follow the ways of those who came before you, in exactly the same fashion, to the point that were they to enter the hole of a lizard, you too would enter it.’ It was asked of him, ‘O Messenger of Allah! Do you mean the Jews and Christians?’ He replied, ‘who else’?” [Bukhari & Muslim]