In the same vein comes the ḥadīth of ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir—may Allah be pleased with him—in which the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“The Day of ʿArafah, the Day of Sacrifice, and the Days of Minā are our festival, we people of Islam; they are days of eating and drinking.”

It was recorded by Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and al-Tirmidhī, who declared it “ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.”

This report proves our distinctness from other communities in the matter of festive days and restricts the ruling to these five days, for within them the two kinds of festival converge—the spatial and the temporal—and their duration is prolonged. For that reason they are called “the Greater ʿEid.” Once the qualities that constitute a festival are perfected in them, the ruling is confined to them on account of that perfection; or, put differently, they are the only festive days that span several days, and we have no other festival made up of days except these five.

Third point: The Prophet permitted the young girls to play the tambourine and to sing, explaining that every people has a festival and that this is our festival. This shows that the concession is tied to its being the Muslims’ festival and does not extend to the festivals of the unbelievers; no license is given for such amusement during the unbelievers’ celebrations as is given during the Muslims’. For if the kind of play allowed in our festival were likewise permissible in theirs, he would not have said, “For every…"