He regarded it as reprehensible to refer to the months with foreign (Persian) names and to call people by Persian names—such as Ādhar-māh. When someone addressed him in that manner he retorted, “Magian ways, Magian ways?” and brushed his hand in the man’s face in disapproval. Similar statements occur so frequently in his transmitted remarks that they are beyond enumeration.

Harb al-Karmānī relates: “I asked Aḥmad, ‘If a man girds his waist with a rope and then performs the prayer, what is the ruling?’ He replied, ‘If he does so over a qabāʾ (cloak), there is no harm; but I dislike it over a shirt, for that resembles the dress of the Jews.’ I mentioned that when travelling we often tie such ropes around our waists, so he gave a slight concession. As for wearing a belt (minṭaqa), a turban, and the like, he did not object; he only disapproved of the simple cord, saying, ‘That is even more repugnant.’”

I say: His companions likewise considered it disliked to bind one’s waist in a way that imitates the People of the Book. Other than that, nothing is deemed reprehensible during the prayer according to the sound, explicit view; rather, anyone who prays in a shirt with a wide neckline is instructed to tie it around his waist, as mentioned in the ḥadīth, so that his private parts are not exposed.

The jurists from the school of Imām Aḥmad and others—among them al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā, Ibn ʿAqil, and Shaykh Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir—