their supplication. He walked over to them and said, “People, if you think you have gained a merit that those before you never attained, then you are surely misguided.” He added, “They began to slip away one by one until they abandoned the practice they had been engaged in.”

Al-Khallāl also transmitted—with his chain—from Ibn Shawdhub, from Abū al-Tiyāḥ, who said: “I asked al-Ḥasan, ‘Our imam delivers narrative sermons; men and women gather, and they raise their voices in supplication.’ Al-Ḥasan replied, ‘Raising the voice in supplication is an innovation; stretching out the hands in supplication is an innovation; and the mingling of men and women is an innovation.’

“There is, however, a scholarly dispute about raising the hands in supplication, and relevant ḥadīths exist—this is not the place to discuss them.”

The difference between this contested taʿrīf and those undisputed taʿrīf gatherings is that, in the latter, people deliberately seek out a particular spot for the rite—such as the grave of a righteous person or al-Masjid al-Aqṣā—in imitation of ʿArafāt. By contrast, when one heads to the central mosque of a town, one seeks a mosque as a type, not a specific location.