to harmful consequences external to them. Marrying two sisters at the same time is prohibited because it leads to the severing of kinship ties, which is external to marriage itself. Intoxicants and gambling were forbidden and declared filth of Satan’s handiwork because they lead to neglecting prayer and foster enmity and hatred—consequences external to intoxicants and gambling themselves. Usury is forbidden because it leads to the wrongful consumption of wealth, which is external to contracts involving gambling and usury.

Everything Allah has forbidden must therefore contain some feature that warrants its prohibition. He cannot prohibit something for no reason inherent in it whatsoever, but solely for a reason entirely foreign to it. That would be akin to punishing someone for another person’s sin, and Islamic law is free of such injustice. Some things, however, are prohibited to block the means to harm: apart from their capacity to lead to harm, they would contain no harm in themselves. An example is the prohibition of prayer at the forbidden times before sunrise and sunset, and similar cases. This is because the act involves harm by leading to resemblance to the polytheists. This is a feature inherent in it.

Then, among those who say that a prohibition may arise from a consideration inherent in the prohibited act or from a consideration external to it, some say that it may concern an attribute of the act rather than its essential nature, and thus indicate that the act is valid. An example is the prohibition of fasting on the two Eid days. They say: “It is prohibited because of the particular character of the two Eid days, not because of fasting as such. Thus, if someone fasts, the fast is valid, because it is termed ‘fasting.’”