one who had embezzled from the spoils of war, and said, ‘Offer the funeral prayer for your companion.’”

They said to Samurah ibn Jundub, “Your son did not sleep last night.” He asked, “Because of indigestion from overeating?” They replied, “Yes.” He said, “Had he died, I would not have offered the funeral prayer for him.” Samurah thus explained that, had his son died from overeating, he would not have offered the funeral prayer for him, because he would have killed himself by eating excessively.

There is even greater reason, then, for people of knowledge and religious devotion to refrain from offering the funeral prayer for this man, who prevented the serpent from being killed and held it in his hand until it killed him, for he killed himself. Indeed, had someone else done this to him, that person would have been liable to execution in retaliation.

If it is said that he thought it would not kill him, then his action is comparable to that of someone who ate until he suffered indigestion: he too did not intend to kill himself. When someone commits an injurious act that does not ordinarily cause death, this constitutes quasi-intentional homicide. Handling serpents is a form of wrongful injury, since it is not a permissible act. This man intended nothing by his action except to display something extraordinary, and he had nothing with him to prevent a breach of the ordinary course of events.

How much more so when most of these people are liars and deceivers who disregard Allah Most High’s commands and prohibitions! They lead people away from obedience to the Most Merciful and into obedience to Satan, corrupting their reason, their religion, and their worldly lives. They turn a rational person into someone bereft of his senses like a madman, or frenzied like a deluded devil. They lead people away from the revealed law with which Allah sent His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, into innovations opposed to it. Thus, they twist their hair