He therefore rules it forbidden, just like every comparable case: it is not permissible to sell bread, meat, or bouquets of flowers to libertines who will consume them while drinking wine. Such assistance may lead to the public display of their religion, to large crowds assembling for their festival, and to its open promotion—matters far graver than helping a single individual.

By contrast, whoever holds that the ruling is merely one of non-sinful dislike (karāhat tanzīh) argues that this case vacillates between selling grape must and selling pork. It is not, he says, the same as selling them grape must that they will ferment into wine, for we are only prohibited from selling unbelievers items that are intrinsically unlawful—wine and pork, for example. As for things that are lawful in some situations but not in others, such as silk, it is permissible to sell those to them.

Furthermore, the food and clothing sold to them for their festival are not unlawful in themselves. What is forbidden to the Muslim is the acts performed with those items, because they serve as symbols of unbelief and may lure him into certain offshoots of it. For the unbeliever, however, such acts do not add any further corruption, since the very reality of kufr is already present in him. Thus a mere sign or emblem of unbelief, so long as it is permissible in itself, does not constitute additional kufr—just as when a Muslim sells them the distinctive garb (thiyāb al-ghiyār) by which they are set apart from Muslims. Drinking wine and eating pork, on the other hand, do represent an increase in unbelief.