and Exalted be He: “They are nothing but names you and your fathers have invented; Allah has sent down no authority for them.”

The Prophet ﷺ alluded to the same phenomenon when he said, “A group from my community will declare wine lawful by giving it another name,” and in another wording, “They will call it by a name other than its own.” It is recorded in al-Silsilah al-Ṣaḥīḥah, 90, and will be cited on p. 86.

I fear that the situation may worsen until people forget this ruling entirely; then, when someone comes forward to explain it, he will be accused of extremism and backwardness. This is precisely what ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd — may Allah be pleased with him — foretold:

“How will you fare when a trial engulfs you, one in which the elderly grow old and the young are reared, so that people come to regard it as a norm? Then, when it is altered, they will say, ‘The sunnah has been changed.’”

Someone asked, “When will that be, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān?” He replied,

“When your reciters are many and your jurists few, your rulers are many and the trustworthy few, and the worldly life is sought through deeds of the Hereafter [and knowledge is pursued for other than religion].”

Narrated by al-Dārimī 1/64 and al-Ḥākim 4/514–515 with a sound chain. Al-Dārimī and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr also transmitted it through another route (Jāmiʿ Bayān al-ʿIlm wa-Faḍlihi 1/188) with a good chain, which contains the bracketed addition above. Although technically mawqūf, it carries the weight of a marfūʿ report because it concerns matters of the unseen that cannot be known by mere opinion—especially since everything it foretold has already come to pass. Allah’s help alone is sought.