It is incumbent upon people to adhere to the Book and the Sunnah, even when they do not perceive the benefits or harms involved. Still, we shall draw attention to some of the harms.

One such harm is this: when someone invents a devotional act for a particular day—such as instituting a fast on the first Thursday of Rajab or performing the prayer on the night of that Friday which the ignorant call “Ṣalāt al-Raghāʾib”—and adds to it special foods, decorations, extra spending, and the like, that outward practice is inevitably accompanied by an inward conviction. He must believe that this day is superior to its peers; that fasting on it is more meritorious than fasting on the Thursday before or after; that this night surpasses other Friday nights; and that praying on it is better than praying on any other Friday night in particular, and on all other nights in general. Were such a belief not lodged in his heart—or in the heart of the one he follows—the heart would never be stirred to single out this day and night, for preference without a reason is impossible.

This very consideration has been acknowledged by the Law in this ruling, and the Law explicitly states its effect; thus it counts among the suitable, operative causes. Mere suitability accompanied by consistent conjunction is taken as evidence of causation by those who accept “proximate suitability,” and they include many jurists of our school and others. Those who accept only effective causes are not content with mere suitability until the Law indicates that such an attribute is indeed effective for such a ruling; this, too, is the position of many jurists, both from our school and beyond. Whenever these scholars find a textual ruling joined to an attribute that has produced the same ruling elsewhere, they treat that attribute as the rationale for the stated ruling.