…which points to several major issues: 1. The danger of being ignorant of tawhid (monotheism). Whoever is unaware of tawhid is liable to fall into shirk (associating partners with Allah) without noticing. Therefore one must study tawhid and also learn what contradicts it, so that he acts with clear insight and is not deceived by his own ignorance—especially when he sees others practising such acts and, through ignorance, assumes them to be correct. The passage thus underlines the peril of ignorance, above all in matters of creed. 2. The report warns against imitating the polytheists, for such imitation may lead to shirk. The Prophet said: “Whoever imitates a people is one of them” (1); hence it is forbidden to resemble the polytheists. 3. Seeking baraka (blessing) from stones, trees or structures is shirk even if given another label, because it entails requesting blessing from something other than Allah—stones, trees, graves or shrines. This remains shirk no matter how it is renamed. 16. The fourth and final principle is that the idolaters of our own time are more steeped in shirk than the earlier peoples to whom the Messenger of Allah was sent. The reason is plain: Allah, Mighty and Exalted, has declared that— (1) Abu Dawud, Sunan, no. 4031, Book of Dress, “Chapter on ostentatious clothing”; Ahmad, Musnad, 2/50, from the hadith of Abd Allah b. Umar. Ibn Taymiyyah judged the chain “good” in Iqtida al-Sirat al-Mustaqim, 1/236-239. Al-Hafiz al-‘Iraqi ruled it sound (Takhrij al-Ihya, 2/65), and Ibn Hajar graded it hasan (Fath al-Bari, 6/98).