To imitate the People of the Scripture or the non-Arabs in matters that are not part of Muslim practice is a more serious and emphatically prohibited offense than anything the jurists of Kūfa ever maintained—despite the fact that those Kūfans themselves took an extreme stance on the issue: some of Abū Ḥanīfah’s disciples even declared a person an unbeliever for adopting the infidels’ dress or taking part in their festivals.

Some of Mālik’s followers said, “Whoever cuts open a melon on their feast days is as if he had slaughtered a pig.”

The Shāfiʿī scholars likewise applied this foundational principle in many of their discussions, supported by transmitted reports, just as other jurists did. Thus, when they forbade performing prayers at the times in which prayer is prohibited—sunrise and sunset—they explained that reason by noting that the idolaters prostrate to the sun then, in line with the ḥadīth: “It is an hour when the unbelievers prostrate to it.”

They also cited the pre-dawn meal (suḥūr) and its postponement, saying that this distinguishes our fast from the fasting of the People of the Book. In matters of clothing, they mentioned the prohibition of men resembling women and women resembling men.

They further recalled the report that the idolaters would remain at ʿArafāt until the sun turned yellow and would depart from Muzdalifah after sunrise, whereas the Sunnah came commanding us to do the opposite.