Imitating the disbelievers: The lowest degree of it is that it is forbidden

Question : What is the ruling on opposing the polytheists and the Zoroastrians?

Answer : It is obligatory, because agreeing with them is imitating them, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This hadith is good or authentic, and Ahmad narrated it in Muslim from . Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said that the least of the implications of this hadith is prohibition, meaning that imitating them, even though its apparent meaning is that it is disbelief. Whoever imitates them is a disbeliever, that is its apparent meaning. What does its apparent meaning mean?
It means that the one who says it among them, its apparent meaning among them, is a disbeliever. But he (may Allah have mercy on him) said that the least of the states of this hadith is distortion, meaning we cannot say that imitating the disbelievers is disliked, we cannot say that. And he said, "He is one of them." We only say that the least of its states is that it indicates the prohibition of imitating the disbelievers, even though its apparent meaning requires that the one who imitates them is a disbeliever and that the one who imitates the disbelievers is a disbeliever among them.