Thus they combined both associating partners with Allah and unlawfully forbidding things. Shirk encompasses every act of devotion for which Allah has given no permission, for the idolaters claim that their worship is either obligatory or commendable, and that performing it is superior to leaving it.
Among them are those who worship others beside Allah, seeking by that worship to draw nearer to Him; and among them are those who invented an entire religion by which, in their estimation, they worshipped Allah—just as the Christians introduced various newly-devised acts of devotion.
The root of all misguidance on earth stems from these two matters: adopting a religion that Allah has not legislated, or declaring unlawful what Allah has not declared unlawful.
For this reason Imām Aḥmad and the other leading scholars based their legal methodology on the principle that human actions fall into two categories:
- Acts of worship that people adopt as religion, seeking benefit through them in the Hereafter—or in both this world and the Hereafter;
- Customary practices by which they seek benefit in their worldly lives.
The foundational rule concerning acts of worship is that nothing may be prescribed except what Allah has prescribed, whereas the foundational rule concerning customary practices is that nothing is forbidden except what Allah has forbidden.
These newly introduced seasons and festivals were prohibited solely because they were innovations