The harm involved in this matter is hidden from most people for several reasons:
First: Sharing the same outward conduct creates a natural affinity and resemblance among those who look alike, and this, in turn, leads to conformity in morals and actions. This is something palpable. Whoever puts on the garb of the scholars feels within himself a certain attachment to them; and whoever wears, for example, the uniform of fighting troops finds himself adopting some of their characteristics. His very temperament begins to incline that way—unless some restraining factor intervenes.
Second: Differing from them in outward conduct produces a clear separation and distinction that cuts one off from the causes of divine anger and the roots of misguidance, and inclines one toward the people of guidance and divine pleasure. It thus realizes the severance of allegiance that Allah has decreed between His victorious hosts and His defeated enemies.
(1) In copy (B): “yaʿud” (returns).
(2) The printed edition reads: “to conformity in morals.”
(3) In copy (B): “garments.”
(4) Copy (B) adds: “He said: adopting their manners is a kind of affiliation with them,” the extra phrase “affiliation with them” being most likely a scribal slip.
(5) Copy (A): “muqāḍiyan”; printed edition: “muqtaḍiyan.” Both taqāḍī and iqtidhāʾ signify seeking or desiring.
(6) Printed edition: “unless something prevents him from doing so.”
(7) The author’s remark that sharing outward forms produces affinity and resemblance among those who share them is confirmed today by psychology and sociology, in addition to what is affirmed in the Quran and the Sunnah and witnessed in the lived experience of nations and individuals. Thus, those who imitate Europeans in dress, speech, and behaviour generally incline toward the rest of foreign customs and conduct—and, more often than not, their ideas, beliefs, and conceptions as well. Some even venerate them, showing admiration and reverence, to the point of belittling themselves, their community, and their religion, and feeling inferior before the unbelievers.