The Ruling on Imitating the Disbelievers

The questioner : The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ... We do not speak of a specific area now, but in most Islamic countries there is imitation. The one who raised this question one day was a brother of ours from among the Muslims. He wore a "coat," meaning he wore a short coat over his thobe...

The Shaykh : Meaning a jacket.

The questioner : Yes, a jacket. He said, "O my Muslim brother, you have imitated the enemies of Islam." He said, "Glory be to Allah, I wore a thobe and I wore this jacket over it. What do you say about the one who wears the pants, the jacket, and the tie?" He said, "That is complete imitation, but you are close to imitation." We want to know: is this clothing that is worn now such that they have exited the religion of Islam, or is it that they imitated the enemies and thus they are among the enemies? Clarify this hadith for us, knowing that Muslims today are falling into this problem?

The Shaykh : Yes, may Allah reward you , it does not mean that he has exited the circle of Islam.

The questioner : Praise be to Allah.

The Shaykh : And there are many hadiths that came in this manner and this way. For example, , . Many of the hadiths were cited by Imam Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi in his book *Mushkil al-Athar*, and then he interpreted them to mean that the intended meaning of such an expression is that he is not on our guidance and our way. It does not mean that he committed disbelief and apostatized from his religion, may Allah protect us from that. This is the first point. Second, imitation has degrees in terms of the strength of the appearance of imitation. So, the stronger and more obvious the appearance of imitation is, the more it is forbidden. And the weaker this appearance is, the further it is from being forbidden, fluctuating between permissibility and dislike, between permissibility and dislike. Let us give some examples of this. The Muslim who wears a cap and wears the "beret," the cap, this is placing the symbol of disbelief and the covering of disbelief on his head. So this is from the forbidden imitation... The necktie, but he ties the collar around his neck, which is called the cravat. This in imitation is close to the beret, but it is not like the beret, because the beret is a covering, meaning that whoever sees him says, "This is George or Antonios or something similar," so it does not occur to him to greet him with the Muslim greeting. The second is close to it, and so on. The one who wears the pants is like the one who wears the cravat here on the neck, and worse, not only in terms of imitation, but also in terms of it covering the 'awrah, especially when he bows or prostrates, and this is not permissible naturally. But now we come to the jacket. The jacket alone does not make the one who wears it think that he is imitating the disbelievers, because as you said about that man, he is wearing the shirt and over it a jacket. The jacket, as it appears to me, is like the shoe, like the sandal that many people wear today, other than the shoe or the sandal, I do not know what you call it today.

The questioner : The shoe.

The Shaykh : No, no, the slipper...

The questioner : The slipper.

The Shaykh : Ah, the slipper. What do you call the European shoe that has a strap?

The questioner : The Kandura.

The Shaykh : Yes, the Kandura.

The questioner : The boot.

The Shaykh : We call the boot the one that is long up to here, but the shoe that is here and has straps here, this is a Kandura.

The questioner : The Kandura that they wear in school.

The Shaykh : The Kandura is European clothing, but when one of us wears it today, it does not appear that he is imitating the Europeans. And from here, the understanding of the hadith of al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah in *Sahih al-Bukhari* becomes consistent, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) . The scholars said that the Messenger (peace be upon him), in his wearing of this Roman robe, did so because it was general clothing and was not a specific dress of the Romans at that time. And therefore the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) wore this robe. And this distinction is necessary, and it is mentioned in great detail in the books of the Hanafis, where they say: if the garment is from the specific characteristics of the disbelievers, then it is forbidden for Muslims to wear it. And if it begins to spread and Muslims wear it, then at that time it becomes disliked. And if it becomes a general thing with no difference between the Muslim and the disbeliever, it becomes a permissible thing, like the robe that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) wore. So we must observe this distinction: the stronger the appearance of imitation in the Muslim, the closer the ruling is to prohibition, or it is in prohibition with no escape. The weaker the imitation, the weaker the prohibition.

The questioner : Yes, exactly.

The questioner : If the Muslims generally engage in this imitation?

The Shaykh : If it becomes general such that it is for the righteous and the wicked, then at that time it takes the ruling of permissibility. And the example of this, do you know what is called in Damascus and other places, the tarboosh, the red tarboosh.

The questioner : The one from which a string hangs?

The Shaykh : It has... This is originally Roman clothing. When the Turks conquered those lands and opened them and lived with them, they were influenced by the tarboosh clothing, so the tarboosh moved from the Romans to the Turks, and to the Arabs, and so on. It has become general until now; the Christians in Lebanon wear the tarboosh, and they originally took it from the Muslim Turks who ruled Lebanon, and the Turks originally took it from the Romans, and the Romans were disbelievers from among the Christians, as you know. And the scholars say that when the matter becomes... what is it...

The questioner : General prevalence.

The Shaykh : Yes, general prevalence, yes. The point is this example. From the reality of Muslims today, if I show you a Muslim wearing a tarboosh, it does not occur to you that he is imitating the Romans, because the Romans no longer wear this clothing, the "tarboosh." Therefore, this distinction is a precise jurisprudential distinction, and it leads to understanding the Sharia ruling without extremism, "neither excess nor deficiency." Otherwise, an ignorant person would say that this Messenger imitated the Romans when he wore the Roman robe. May Allah protect him, but this was general clothing that included the Arabs and included the Romans as well in that time, and the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) wore this clothing, and there was no appearance of imitation in it. You have five minutes left with you.