Relying on arguments of this sort—and the answer to them is well-known—is not the method of the people of knowledge. Yet, because ignorance is so widespread, a great many people fall back on them, even some who lay claim to knowledge and piety. A scholar or devout person may then present another ostensible Sharʿī proof in their support, but Allah knows that his endorsement of the practice and his acting upon it are not in fact grounded in the proof he has put forward, flimsy though it is. Rather, his real reliance is on matters not taken from Allah and His Messenger—the very kinds of props to which those devoid of knowledge and faith cling. He cites the Sharʿī evidence only as a weapon against others and as a shield in debate.

Commendable disputation, by contrast, is to disclose the actual grounds and bring forth the proofs that truly undergird one’s words and deeds. Displaying reliance on something that is not one’s real basis in speech and action is a form of hypocrisy in scholarship, argumentation, speech, and conduct.

Moreover, it is impermissible to confine the Prophet’s words, “Every innovation is misguidance,” to only those particular innovations he explicitly forbade; doing so would nullify the benefit of the ḥadīth. Whatever he prohibited—whether disbelief, depravity, or any other kind of sin—is already known by that very prohibition to be vile and unlawful, whether it is an innovation or not. If nothing were deemed objectionable in the religion except what he specifically forbade—whether it was practiced in the Messenger of Allah’s lifetime or arose later—and if anything he forbade were evil, innovation or otherwise, then describing something as an innovation would carry no weight at all,