“I will not honor them when Allah has humiliated them, nor exalt them when Allah has abased them, nor draw them near when Allah has driven them away.”
Moreover, the purport of the Book points to this, and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—as well as the practice of his rightly guided caliphs, on which the jurists have unanimously agreed—has come establishing the duty to oppose them and to refrain from imitating them.
In the two Ṣaḥīḥs it is narrated from Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“The Jews and the Christians do not dye their grey hair, so differ from them.”
He thus commanded us to be unlike them, which indicates that the very act of differing from them is an aim intended by the Lawgiver. For if the command targets the general category of contrariety, the objective is obtained; and if it pertains only to differing from them in coloring the hair, it is still because of the contrariety it contains. Contrariety, then, is either an independent cause, a contributing cause, or part of a cause—and on every one of these suppositions it is a matter that is commanded and sought.
(1) I have not found this report in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad (the section devoted to Abu Musa). Al-Bayhaqi, however, refers to an incident resembling the one cited by the author; see Sunan al-Bayhaqi, 9/204, Book of Jizyah, chapter “They are not to enter a mosque without permission.”
(2) The printed edition reads wa jaat bihi (“and it was transmitted with it”). Compared with all the manuscript copies I have collated, this wording clarifies the passage, whereas the reading preserved in the manuscripts remains opaque—although still syntactically valid, it is stylistically weak. I therefore incline to think that the scribes, or perhaps even the author, inadvertently dropped a word or letter. Reflect on this.
(3) Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of the Prophets, chapter “What has been related about the Children of Israel,” nos. 3462 (Fath al-Bari, 6/496) and 5899; and Sahih Muslim, Book of Dress and Adornment, chapter on differing from the Jews in dyeing, no. 2103 (3/1663).
(4) Manuscript A reads: bi-jins (“of the same kind”).
(5) In other words, the mere act of contravention itself constitutes the sole cause for the prohibition.
(6) From this point until the phrase “there must be …” (roughly three lines) is missing from manuscript A.
(7) The printed edition has: wa ʿala jamiʿ al-taqdirat (“and under all possible considerations”), which gives the fuller meaning but conflicts with all the manuscript copies.
(8) Manuscript T reads: wa ʿala al-taqdīrayn (“and on both considerations”).