As for the realm of Islam and Hijrah—where Allah has honoured His religion and subjected the unbelievers therein to humiliation and the payment of jizyah—the injunction to differ from them was explicitly legislated. Once it is realised that conformity or non-conformity with them changes with time and place, the true purport of the relevant ḥadiths becomes evident.

Second angle: Even supposing that none of this had been abrogated, the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—alone had the right to agree with them, for he knew, by Allah’s teaching, what of their practice was true and what was false, and we are commanded to follow him. As for us, it is impermissible to take any part of our religion from them—neither their words nor their deeds—by the unanimous, self-evident consensus of the Muslims derived from the religion of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. Were someone to claim that it is recommended for us to imitate the People of the Book who live in our own time, he would have departed from the religion of the Ummah.

Third angle: We may concede that the Prophet found it pleasing to agree with the People of the Book in matters for which he had received no directive; yet he was later commanded to oppose them, and we have been ordered to follow his guidance and that of his earliest Companions—the foremost Emigrants and Helpers.

Our discussion concerns the prohibition against imitating them in matters for which no precedent exists among the early generations of this community. As for whatever those generations practised, there is no debate—whether the unbelievers do it or abandon it—for we do not forsake what Allah has commanded merely because the disbelievers do the same. Moreover, Allah has never enjoined upon us anything in which they concur without stipulating some form of distinction, whereby the sound, unaltered religion is set apart from what has been abrogated or distorted.