Topic Five
Categories of people we have been forbidden to imitate

The author points out that the imitation that has been prohibited is not confined to imitating the People of the Book—Jews and Christians—nor to foreigners such as the Byzantines and Persians, nor to the Magians. Rather, the ban on imitation embraces additional matters as well.

There are clear texts prohibiting us from imitating Satan in his states and actions, such as eating or drinking with the left hand. Such behavior belongs to Satan’s deeds, and we have been forbidden from everything that stems from him; adopting the ways of Satan is censured both by the Sharīʿah and by sound reason.

Here we must pause and reflect: every trait found among those who follow Satan and have gone astray—the openly sinful, the disobedient, the criminals, the oppressors, the heretics, and the like—is likewise forbidden, for they follow Satan, and we have been ordered to avoid his path and his works.

Therefore, a Muslim committed to his religion must avoid every emblem of these followers of Satan and his faction, beware of associating with them, and keep away from their gathering places, for such locales are places of suspicion and merely drawing near to them sullies a Muslim.

Among the distinctive emblems of these groups in our time are tight-fitting clothes, wearing gold rings, shaving the beard, letting garments trail below the ankles, carrying pictures, and keeping dogs,