and with the same boldness and courage exemplified by the Anṣār al-Sunnah al-Muḥammadiyyah Society in Sudan and Egypt, as well as by countless other individuals and associations wherever they may be found.

Thus the claim that the Muslim community has unanimously approved these practices collapses; far be it from the Ummah ever to concur upon misguidance.

In addition to this, the author has set out further reasons for prohibiting and denouncing these innovated feasts, and for warning of the harm they inflict upon Muslims, such as:

• Festivals are part of the divinely ordained rites—like the qiblah, the prayer, and the fast—and are not mere social customs. Hence imitating the unbelievers in this matter is all the more grave, and legislating festivals that Allah has not legislated is to rule by other than what Allah has revealed, to speak about Him without knowledge, to fabricate lies against Him, and to introduce innovations into His religion.

• Innovated feasts and celebrations are taken from the religious rites of the unbelievers and from the symbols of their distorted faiths; therefore it is unlawful for Muslims to imitate anything that is peculiar to the unbelievers and their false rituals.

• The festivals of the unbelievers, and whatever they do during them, are acts of disobedience—either because they were innovations in their faith from the outset, or because they have been abrogated by Islam—so they stand in the same position as a Muslim today directing his prayer toward Jerusalem.

• If Muslims adopt even a few of these innovated festivals, they will inevitably adopt many, for no limit exists here except that which the Sharīʿah sets. Consequently, the festivals multiply and distract the Muslims from their worship and from their worldly concerns and interests.

This is precisely what has happened today: every land in the Muslim world now has its own feasts and celebrations—one for the Prophet’s birthday, peace and blessings be upon him and his family; another for the president’s birthday; a third for the nation; a fourth for independence; a fifth for accession; a sixth for women; a seventh for children; an eighth for mothers; a ninth for spring; a tenth for victory, and so on—an endless list of festivals whose beginning is a trickle and whose end is a flood. Indeed, in some Muslim countries the catalogue of innovated feasts has grown even longer, all of which amounts to a blatant attempt to rival the religion of Allah.