our hair; nor shall we resemble them in their mounts. We will not speak as they speak, nor adopt their honorific surnames. We will crop the fronts of our heads, refrain from parting our forelocks, and gird our waists with the zunnār belt.

These stipulations are among the best-known items in the manuals of jurisprudence and learning, and, in general, they are unanimously accepted by the scholars—the followed imams, their students, and the rest of the jurists. Were it not for their wide renown among the fuqahāʾ, we would have quoted the precise wording used by each school.

They fall into several categories.

The first category comprises those provisions whose aim is to set the People of the Book apart from the Muslims in matters of hair, dress, names, mounts, speech, and the like, so that the Muslim remains visibly distinct from the unbeliever and neither outwardly resembles the other. ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—and the Muslims were not satisfied with a single token of distinction; rather, they insisted on a comprehensive differentiation in public comportment, details of which are discussed elsewhere.

This shows the unanimous agreement of the Muslims on the need to maintain an outward distinction from the unbelievers and to avoid imitating them. Indeed, the leaders of guidance—such as the two ʿUmars and others—applied this principle with great rigor until its objective was fully realized.