Thus, if the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prescribed those forms through either his words or his practice, and in many cases did not favor one over another, then treating them equally is just, while favoring one over another is unjust. Many forms of practice whose relative merits are disputed by groups within the Muslim community are not unequal in merit at all; rather, they are equal. The distinctive merit of one may counterbalance the distinctive merit of the other. Yet you find someone asking, “Which is better, this or that?” This is an ill-founded question, for asking which one is superior presupposes that a difference in merit has been established. Who has established that one surpasses the other, such that we should seek to identify the superior one?

What should be asked is: “Are these two equal in merit, or does one surpass the other? If one surpasses the other, is that superiority unconditional, or does it depend on the circumstances, so that one is better at one time and the other is better at another?”

Yet, despite the matter being as you see, most answers arise from personal desire and false, mistaken suppositions. One of the greatest causes of this is continually observing a practice when such continual observance has not been prescribed. And Allah knows best.