Fourth:

His words, “Every innovation is misguidance,” and “Beware of newly-invented matters”—if they were meant to cover only those practices for which a specific prohibition exists—would have directed the listeners, in order to understand the import of this ḥadīth, to a body of knowledge that hardly anyone could fully master, known in its greater part only to a select few of the ummah. Such a referral is, under any circumstance, impermissible.

Fifth:

If the ḥadīth were confined to those innovations that carry an explicit ban, such cases would be fewer than the innovations for which no specific ban exists. Indeed, should you examine the innovations that were expressly forbidden and those that were not, you would find the latter far more numerous; it is therefore impermissible to interpret a general wording as though it applied only to a small or rare subset.

These and similar considerations oblige us to conclude decisively that this interpretation is unsound; the ḥadīth simply cannot be bent to it—whether or not the interpreter seeks to support his reading with some external evidence. Anyone proposing such an interpretation must first prove, on the basis of the ḥadīth itself, that the meaning he assigns is even possible, and then present the proof that diverts the wording in that direction. The foregoing points bar the possibility that the ḥadīth was intended in this sense. This is our reply to their first argument.

As for their second argument, we say: Even if innovations were admitted to fall into good and bad, that concession would still not negate the ḥadīth’s indication that all innovations are blameworthy. At most one might claim that, once a particular innovation is firmly established as good, it is exempted from the general ruling; otherwise, the default remains that every innovation is—