Today Muslims simply do not possess this juristic insight into the religion at all.

If you say to the person who kisses the mushaf, “How can you do something the Messenger of Allah ﷺ never did?”, he comes back at you with the strangest, most astonishing replies. One of them is: “My brother, what harm is there in it? It is an act of reverence for the Qur’an!” Say to him: “My brother, that argument turns back on you: did the Messenger ﷺ not revere the Qur’an? Of course he did—yet he never kissed it.”

Or they will say, “You object to our kissing the mushaf, while you yourself ride in cars and travel by airplane—are those not innovations as well?” The answer, as you have already heard, is that the innovation that counts as misguidance is only what is introduced into the religion.

As for worldly matters, as we hinted earlier, they may be permissible, they may be forbidden, and so on; this is well known and needs no example.

A man who boards an airplane to travel to the Sacred House of Allah for Hajj—there is no doubt that this is permissible. A man who boards an airplane to go to Western lands and make pilgrimage there—there is no doubt that this is a sin. And so it continues.

When it comes to devotional acts, if someone is asked, “Why are you doing this⦗20⦘?”, he will answer, “To draw nearer to Allah!”