And his (1) mosque—may blessings and peace be upon him—had once been a cemetery (2); only after he had the graves exhumed did he make it a mosque (3).
So if the Sacred Law has forbidden us to share with the unbelievers the very places upon which punishment descended, how much more emphatically must it forbid sharing with them in the deeds they practice (4).
Now, if someone were to say, “This particular act (5) which they perform would not be unlawful in itself were it stripped of their distinctive manner, and we do not intend to imitate them,”—well, merely entering the place would likewise not be sinful were it not one of their relics and were we free of any intent to resemble them (6). Yet taking part in their deed is nearer to incurring punishment than simply entering their dwellings, for everything they do that was unknown to the early Muslims is either disbelief, or sin, or a hallmark of disbelief or sin (7), or a probable means to disbelief and sin, or at the very least feared to lead to sin (8).
I do not think anyone will dispute this; and even if someone should, he could not deny that avoiding such deeds is closer to avoiding disbelief and disobedience.
(1) The printed edition reads: wa kana mawdiʿ masjidihi (“and it was the site of his mosque”).
(2) The printed edition adds: li-l-mushrikin (“of the polytheists”).
(3) The two Sahih collections and others report that when the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—reached Madinah as an emigrant and ordered the mosque to be built, the ground contained graves of polytheists, so he commanded that they be exhumed. See: Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Prayer, chapter “May the graves of the idolaters of the Jahiliyyah be dug up and their places turned into mosques?”, hadith no. 428 (Fath al-Bari, 1:524); and Sahih Muslim, Book of Mosques and Places of Prayer, chapter “The building of the Prophet’s mosque,” hadith no. 524 (1:373).
(4) The printed edition also adds: wa-istaḥaqqū bihā al-ʿadhāb (“and thereby deserved punishment”).
(5) The word al-ʿamal (“deed”) is absent from manuscripts J and D.
(6) From the word fīhi (“in it”) up to the phrase wa-naḥnu lā naqṣidu al-tashabbuh bihim (“and we do not intend to imitate them”) is omitted in manuscripts J and D.
(7) The printed edition reads: aw shiʿār maʿṣiya (“or a symbol of sin”), inserting the additional word shiʿār (“symbol”).
(8) The printed edition has: al-maʿṣiya (“the sin”).