The Devil further aided their deception by exploiting the season itself: it was spring, the onset of the solar year, when meat, milk, eggs, and the like are plentiful. Yet the Christian festival is not tied to a fixed day of the solar calendar; it shifts forward and backward by roughly thirty-three days, as we have already explained.

All of this fulfills the Prophet’s statement—may Allah grant him peace: “You will surely follow the ways of those who came before you.”

Its root cause is the Muslims’ imitation of the unbelievers in even a minor aspect of their feast, coupled with a failure to forbid it. If resemblance in small matters becomes a means that leads to some of these reprehensible practices, then such resemblance is forbidden. How much more so when it opens the door to outright disbelief in Allah, such as seeking blessing from the cross, undergoing baptism in the font, or the claim, “The object of worship is one, even though the paths differ.” Words and deeds of this sort entail either believing that the altered and abrogated Christian and Jewish laws still lead to Allah, or approving elements within them that conflict with Allah’s religion, or even adopting those elements as one’s own religion. All of this constitutes disbelief in Allah, His Messenger, the Qur’an, and Islam—an undisputed matter among the balanced community—and its origin lies in imitation and participation.

From this you may appreciate the perfection of the upright sharia and glimpse some of the wisdom behind Allah’s command to His Messenger to keep the Muslims distinct from the unbelievers and contrary to them in most of their affairs. Such deliberate difference severs the roots of evil and keeps people far from the pitfalls into which others have fallen.