—misguidance. It is therefore clear that the reply to anything cited in opposition on the plea that it is “good,” while it is in fact an innovation, is that it is either not an innovation at all, or else a particular exception; in either case the purport of the ḥadīth remains intact. This response applies only to what has been decisively proven to be good. As for practices that some merely suppose to be good but are not, or matters that may or may not be good, they cannot be used to challenge the text. Instead they are met with a compound answer: if it is proved that the practice is good, then it is not an innovation, or it is a specific exception; but if its goodness is not established, it falls under the general ruling.

Once you realise that every such objection is met by one of these two answers, it follows that, on either reckoning, the indication of the ḥadīth stands and is not overturned by what they have advanced. No one has the right to confront this all-embracing declaration of the Messenger of Allah—“Every innovation is misguidance”—by stripping it of its universality and claiming, “Not every innovation is misguidance.” That stance is nearer to opposing the Messenger than to interpreting his words. What may be said when one seeks to validate certain deeds that people allege to be innovations is rather: “This particular act, for example, is not an innovation and therefore does not fall within the ḥadīth; or, if it does fall within it, then it is excluded from the general wording by such-and-such evidence that outweighs the general rule.” The first answer is the stronger, while the second remains questionable, for the Prophet’s intention to encompass everything is manifest in this comprehensive utterance; one must not deviate from his purpose—may my father and mother be sacrificed for him, peace and blessings be upon him.

As for the Tarāwīḥ prayer, it is not an innovation in the Sacred Law; on the contrary, it is an established Sunnah by the statement