the noble Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

“Undoubtedly, remembrances and supplications are among the finest acts of worship. Acts of worship are founded upon revealed prescription and adherence, not upon whims and innovation. The Prophetic supplications and remembrances are therefore the best that anyone seeking to remember and supplicate Allah can pursue, and whoever follows them is upon a path of security and safety.... Other forms of remembrance may be forbidden or disliked, and may even involve associating partners with Allah in ways that most people fail to discern. This is a broad matter whose details would take long to set forth.

“No one may institute for people a form of remembrance or supplication that is not prescribed by the Sunnah and make it a regular act of worship to which they adhere as they adhere to the five daily prayers. Rather, this is to innovate a religion that Allah has not authorized. This differs from a person occasionally offering a supplication without establishing it as a Sunnah for people. If such a supplication is not known to contain a forbidden meaning, it cannot categorically be declared forbidden; nevertheless, it may contain such a meaning without the person realizing it. Likewise, in a time of need, a person may offer supplications that come to him spontaneously at that moment. Such cases and the like fall into a similar category.

“As for adopting an unprescribed litany or treating an unprescribed form of remembrance as Sunnah, this is among the things that are prohibited. Yet the prescribed supplications and remembrances contain the utmost fulfillment of sound aspirations and the loftiest aims. No one turns away from them to newly invented and innovated forms of remembrance except one who is ignorant, negligent, or transgresses the bounds.”1 Thus end his words, may Allah have mercy on him.