Speaking about the prohibition of imitating the disbelievers.

The Shaykh : ... So today, some people have adopted certain means, imitating those disbelievers whom the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) warned us against imitating in many authentic, well-known hadiths, which are known to all of you present, if Allah wills. Among them is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him), as in Sahih al-Bukhari: And he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in a hadith in Musnad Ahmad and others: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), at the time when he prohibited imitating the disbelievers, also encouraged the Muslims to do something higher than that, and ... among that is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): This is what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) meant by the Muslims not imitating the disbelievers, but rather not sharing with the disbelievers in anything they do not possess except for sharing. However, the Messenger (peace be upon him) commanded them to differ from them in dyeing the hair, meaning in the matter where it is not possible for them to differ from them, which is gray hair. Gray hair is the Sunnah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His creation; there is no difference in it between a Muslim and a disbeliever. Every human being who reaches a certain age will be afflicted with gray hair. So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded the Muslim, when gray hair appears on him, to dye it, because the disbelievers among the Jews and Christians do not dye their hair. He (peace be upon him) said: The hadiths that command differing from the polytheists are very, very numerous. I have collected a good portion of them in my book *The Veil of the Muslim Woman*, so anyone who wants to expand in this field can refer to it. The point is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), at the time when he prohibited imitation, added to that that he encouraged differing from the disbeliever. Differing is broader than imitation; a Muslim may not imitate the disbeliever if, for example, he becomes gray-haired, because this is from the creation of the Exalted, but he can differ from the disbeliever by dyeing his hair. And so he (peace be upon him) said: If the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) eagerness reached this level in encouraging the Muslims to differ from the polytheists, how is it permissible for some Muslims today to adopt some of the means of the disbelievers to attract people to the mosques, for example, until some of them have brought images into the mosques, and even brought some musical instruments from some countries under the name of softening the hearts of the Muslims? And more sinister and more serious than this, in terms of deceiving people, is the means they have adopted and spread, and many tapes have been recorded with it, namely what they call Islamic songs. Satan, the accursed, led them to this means in the beginning through melody and composition with some of what they call Islamic songs, with the rhythms that the licentious singers sing with. Thus they began to spread the so-called Islamic songs. Then Satan led them and moved them from this first sin to another sin, which is uglier than the first, where they began to beat drums and tambourines in what they call Islamic songs. Then Satan elevated them to the point where they introduced other musical instruments that the previous licentious people did not know, which are instruments invented by the European disbelievers. They brought these songs and these instruments into the houses of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), along with images and video and the like of means, claiming that they are for attracting people to the obedience of Allah and the worship of Allah in the houses of Allah. So they have fallen into what the disbelievers fell into before. When some of the wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) returned from Abyssinia, they mentioned to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) a church they saw in Abyssinia and described the images and pictures in it. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Thus the mosques today have become very close to the churches of the Christians in terms of their adornment, their decoration, and the singing in them of what they call religious songs. And what I fear most is that a day will come when the immodest women are allowed to enter the mosques, just as the Christians do in the churches. We ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to protect us from the evil of those who innovate matters. This is what I am able to answer regarding that question. And we ask Allah for the Muslims to return to their religion in light of the Book and the Sunnah, and in accordance with what the righteous Salaf were upon.