and I have already conveyed it to you.¹ Now, this practice you are performing—do you mean to draw nearer to Allah by it? If the answer is, “Yes,” then bring a textual proof from the Messenger ﷺ. The reply: there is no such text. In that case it is an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.

Let no one object, saying, “Is the matter really so simple—and yet still a misguidance that consigns its practitioner to the Fire?!”

Imam al-Shāṭibī addressed this very point when he said, “Every innovation, no matter how small, is misguidance.”

The ruling that it is misguidance does not look at the act in and of itself; rather, it looks at the sphere into which the act has been inserted. And what is that sphere? It is the law of Islam, already completed and perfected. Within that domain there is no room for anyone to append a correction, whether by a small innovation or a large one. That is where the deviance of innovation lies—not merely in inventing something new, but in the implicit claim to amend what our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, and our Prophet ﷺ have already perfected.