“The Day of Sacrifice is the day on which the people offer their sacrifice, and the day of ending the fast is the day on which the people break their fast.”

I say: This perfectly accords with the lenient Sacred Law whose aims include gathering the people together, uniting their ranks, and keeping them away from every individual opinion that would split their union. Thus the Sharīʿah pays no heed to a lone person’s view—even if he considers it correct—when the act of worship is communal, such as fasting, the ʿĪd celebrations, or the congregational prayer. Do you not see that the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) would pray behind one another even though among them were those who believed that touching a woman, touching one’s private part, or the flow of blood nullifies minor ablution (wudu), and others who did not; among them were those who completed the full prayer while travelling and others who shortened it? Yet these and similar differences never stopped them from praying behind a single imām and counting the prayer as valid, because they knew that division in religion is worse than differing over some subsidiary questions.

The matter even reached the point that some of them, when gathered with the greater community in Minā, would abandon their own view altogether if it clashed with that of the chief imām, fleeing from the evil that might arise from acting on their personal opinion. Abū Dāwūd reports (1/307) that ʿUthmān (may Allah be pleased with him) prayed four rakʿahs in Minā. ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd objected, saying: “I prayed two rakʿahs with the Prophet ﷺ, two with Abū Bakr, two with ʿUmar, and during the early part of ʿUthmān’s rule, then he completed the prayer to four. Your ways have now diverged; I would rather have two accepted rakʿahs than these four.” Yet Ibn Masʿūd then prayed four rakʿahs himself! When he was asked, “You criticised ʿUthmān and then prayed four?” he replied, “Division is evil.” Its chain is authentic. Aḥmad records something similar from Abū Dharr (5/155), may Allah be pleased with them all.

Let those who still split up in their prayers, refusing to follow certain mosque imāms—especially in the witr prayer during Ramaḍān on the pretext that the imām’s practice differs from their school—reflect on this ḥadīth and on the report just cited. And let those who claim expertise in astronomy, who fast and break their fast on their own—earlier or later than the mass of Muslims—relying on their personal knowledge and opinion, heed this as well, heedless of the fact that they are distancing themselves from the community,