If, however, the prohibition was issued because slaughtering there would constitute agreement with them in performing their festival, then that is precisely our point of inquiry. On that reading, the slaughter is disallowed only because it conforms with their festival, for no other objection exists in the act itself. The first possibility nevertheless remains the more apparent, because the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—asked only whether it was a place of their festival; he did not ask, “Will the slaughter occur during their festival?” He said instead, “Was there ever a festival of theirs held there?”—which makes it clear that, at the time the question was posed, no festival was actually taking place. Another report confirms this, stating that the incident occurred during the Farewell Pilgrimage, by which time no festivals of the idolaters were still being observed.

Accordingly, when the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—forbade slaughtering in a spot where the unbelievers had once celebrated a festival—even though those unbelievers had accepted Islam and abandoned that festival, and even though the questioner intended nothing more than to slaughter there—it becomes evident that the ruling was meant to close the door to the persistence of any remnant of their festivals. The concern was that slaughtering in that location might revive the memory of the site and lead to its being taken once again as a festival ground. Yet that festival was—Allah knows best—no more than a market in which they bought and sold and amused themselves, just as the Anṣār said to him: “We had two days in the pre-Islamic era in which we used to play.”

The festivals of the Age of Ignorance were not acts of worship for them; hence the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—differentiated between a place that housed an idol and one that merely hosted a festival. Even so, this amounts to a stern prohibition against carrying out any aspect of the pagan festivals in whatever form they may take.

The festivals of the disbelievers—whether of the People of the Scripture or of the pagans—fall, in Islamic law, under the same category, just as the unbelief of the two groups is equally forbidden, although some aspects are more severely prohibited than others; their legal status does not differ for the Muslim. The People of the Scripture, however, were granted permission to