course.
- Shaykh al-Islam devoted his entire book Iqtidaʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm to examining this very question. Among the passages he cites is a section entitled, “Evidence from the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and scholarly consensus for the command to differ from the disbelievers and the prohibition of resembling them.” He then says: “Al-Nasāʾī narrates (5074) from al-Zubayr that the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Alter this grey hair, and do not imitate the Jews.’
This wording is even clearer in commanding us to oppose them and forbidding us to resemble them, for if he prohibited imitating them by merely leaving the white hair and natural greyness—which is not something we ourselves cause—then it is even more appropriate that he forbid intentionally creating any resemblance to them. Hence, imitating them in such matters is forbidden, whereas the first case is merely discouraged.
Muslim also records (260) from Abū Hurayrah that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Clip the moustaches short and let the beards grow—differ from the Magians.”
Because the early generations understood from this and similar texts the undesirability of resembling the Magians, they regarded as disliked a number of practices—though no explicit prohibition from the Prophet ﷺ exists about each of them—simply because they originated with the Magians.
The very expression “differ from them” proves that the general principle of contravening the ways of the disbelievers is itself an intended aim of the Lawgiver.