Know, then, that even if we had never witnessed with our own eyes that conforming to them leads to these abominations, our understanding of human nature and our deduction from the foundational principles of the Sacred Law would still compel us to forbid such an avenue. How much more so now that we have actually seen, among the evils produced by imitation, matters that can drive a person entirely out of Islam!

The crux of the matter is this: imitation generally leads either to outright disbelief or to sin, or at the very least inclines toward one of the two—and no benefit whatsoever lies in a path that ends there. Whatever serves as a means to such an end is therefore unlawful; hence imitation itself is unlawful.

As for the second premise, it is beyond dispute. A thorough survey of the Law’s texts and sources shows that whatever ordinarily leads to disbelief is forbidden; whatever leads to it in a subtle or indirect manner is likewise forbidden; and whatever leads to it in any respect, when no genuine need calls for it, is also forbidden. We have addressed this at length under the principle of “blocking the means” in works other than the present one.

The first premise is confirmed by reality itself—evident to the sharp-sighted and the blind alike. The causal link is natural, and the Lawgiver has taken it into account in most of the avenues He has closed, as we have demonstrated with some thirty explicit or consensus-based principles in the treatise The Invalidity of Tahlil.