حَدَّثَنَا عُثْمَانُ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَةَ، حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو النَّضْرِ، حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنُ ثَابِتٍ، حَدَّثَنَا حَسَّانُ بْنُ عَطِيَّةَ، عَنْ أَبِي مُنِيبٍ الْجُرَشِيِّ، عَنِ ابْنِ عُمَرَ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم
مَنْ تَشَبَّهَ بِقَوْمٍ فَهُوَ مِنْهُمْ
The Prophet (ﷺ) said: He who copies (a)ny people is one of them.
Abu Dawud 4031
(Sakhawy said there was weakness in the chain. Ibn Taymiyya said the hadith was good. Ibn Hajr said the chain was good. Iraqi said the chain is weak. Albani says the hadith is sahih.)
Many Muslims spout their ignorance with no shame because there has developed a culture of calling everything that came before the blessed prophet (saw) kufr. This is not the way of those genuinely learned in Islam. The ignorant Muslims will even call the Banu Israel kuffar (disbelievers) even though to do this is actually against the sharia, but they are ignorant twice because calling an ethnicity disbelieving is not just ignorant but absurd. These same Muslims will say that imitating the Kuffar is haram but they seem to be unaware of the sunnah of our blessed Prophet (saw) who indeed did that exact thing. The Prophet (saw) didn’t just copy them by accident he did so deliberately and because they were the Children of Israel. In an authentic narration recorded in both Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim Ibn Abbas (ra) said:
حَدَّثَنَا مَنْصُورُ بْنُ أَبِي مُزَاحِمٍ، وَمُحَمَّدُ بْنُ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ، قَالَ مَنْصُورٌ حَدَّثَنَا وَقَالَ، ابْنُ جَعْفَرٍ أَخْبَرَنَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ، – يَعْنِيَانِ ابْنَ سَعْدٍ – عَنِ ابْنِ شِهَابٍ، عَنْ عُبَيْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عَبْدِ، اللَّهِ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ، قَالَ كَانَ أَهْلُ الْكِتَابِ يَسْدُلُونَ أَشْعَارَهُمْ وَكَانَ الْمُشْرِكُونَ يَفْرُقُونَ رُءُوسَهُمْ وَكَانَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يُحِبُّ مُوَافَقَةَ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ فِيمَا لَمْ يُؤْمَرْ بِهِ فَسَدَلَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم نَاصِيَتَهُ ثُمَّ فَرَقَ بَعْدُ .
“The people of the book used to let their hair hang down, the polytheists used to separate and divide their hair, the messenger of Allah (swt) used to love imitating the people of the book in whatever he did not receive revelation to the contrary, then he separated after”
متفق عليه بخاري 3944Sahih Muslim 2336
This hadith clearly states that the blessed prophet (saw) used to love to imitate the people of the book or to be in conformity with them. So, this hadith presents a problem for those that use other hadiths to say we should be different from the disbelievers when referring to the Children of Israel. One possible problem is that some Muslims wrongfully classify the Children of Israel as Kuffar or there are two authentically classified hadith that directly contradict each other. This could be reconciled by simply saying the interpretation is incorrect. Nowhere in the Quran does Allah (swt) refer to the Children of Israel as kuffar (disbelievers). Is this an oversight by Allah (swt) that he does not do so or is this a case of Allah (swt) making it clear to the ummah of Muhammed (saw) that they should not call them Kuffar but that their name and status is exactly made clear by Him. Indeed Allah (swt) does say that from among the Children of Israel there are those that committed kufr but Allah (swt) didn’t call them kafir and this is no different from the Muslims today who commit acts of disbelief to a lesser or major extent. The person and the acts are then judged in the context of the situation to see indeed if they have left the fold of Islam. But, Allah (swt) refrained from making this a general declaration over the Children of Israel as a whole.
لُعِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ مِنۢ بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ عَلَىٰ لِسَانِ دَاوُۥدَ وَعِيسَى ٱبْنِ مَرْيَمَ ذَٰلِكَ بِمَا عَصَوا۟ وَّكَانُوا۟ يَعْتَدُونَ
“Cursed were those that disbelieved from the Children of Israel upon the tongues of David and Jesus son of Mary that was with what they were disobedient in and transgressions.”
المائدة سورة 78
Our Question is if we take the hadith of Abu Dawud and derive the meaning that it is a prohibition against copying the Kuffar and, the Muslims then make the declaration that the Children of Israel are Kuffar then we have the blessed prophet literally imitating the Kuffar and loving it, the implications are very clear to see. But, if they are not classed as Kuffar by Allah (swt) and his messenger then this would avoid the manifest contradiction. The actual text does not mention the kuffar but instead makes a very general statement, that “whoever imitates a people then he is from them.” The Prophet in imitating the Children of Israel was imitating a people who believe in Allah (swt) and the last day so from this perspective the prophet was associating himself with a people who believed. But, do those same people take a consistent view when you see Muslims wearing western secular clothes. Why do they not declare kufr on the people who dress like the disbelieving people of the west who have as their core beliefs democracy, capitalism, atheism, liberalism, feminism, socialism. There seems to be a double standard at play.