Had they known of it, it would have been impossible—given their eagerness for righteous works, their zeal to teach the people, and their sincere counsel—to keep such a virtue hidden or fail to hasten toward it themselves. Hence, if the virtue now being claimed necessarily implies that the Messenger and the finest generations were either ignorant of part of Allah’s religion or knowingly concealed and neglected what their Law and their very habits required them to proclaim and practice, then both implications are untenable—by the testimony of the Sacred Law and of customary practice alongside the Law. Once the implications are ruled out, the thing that depends on them—namely the alleged virtue—must likewise be ruled out.
An innovated act—such as the newly invented festivals—inevitably involves a misguided belief and the doing of what is unlawful. Indeed, every such innovation entails one of two matters: either a conviction that is misguidance in the religion, or the performance of devotion for other than Allah, the adoption of corrupt doctrines, or acts of worship directed to someone other than Allah—all of which are impermissible.
These innovations, and the like, therefore lead—certainly or at least most apparently—to actions that are not allowed. At the very least, if the consequence itself is not outright forbidden, it is detested, and this principle applies to every newly introduced innovation.
Furthermore, that belief engenders states of the heart—reverence and veneration—and those states too are invalid and have no place in Allah’s religion.
Even if a man were to claim, “I do not believe it has any special merit,” he would still be unable, while engaging in the act as worship, to purge from his heart the reverence and veneration it produces. Such reverence arises only from some perception akin to belief, even if it be mere fancy or the assumption that the practice is necessary. For if the soul were wholly devoid of any sense of the thing’s merit, it could not possibly revere it. Yet conflicting notions may occur within him. Thus, inasmuch as he believes it to be an innovation, that belief demands he show it no reverence; but inasmuch as he is conscious of what is reported about it, or of people’s practice of it, or that so-and-so has done it, or of some benefit he imagines it contains, his heart is stirred