say: ‘There will be people who transgress the proper bounds in supplication.’ He then recited this verse: ‘Call upon your Lord humbly and privately. Indeed, He does not love those who transgress.’ And it is enough for you to say: ‘O Allah, I ask You for Paradise and for every word or deed that draws one nearer to it; and I seek refuge in You from the Fire and from every word or deed that draws one nearer to it.’”1.

Thus, he—may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him—informed us that some people from his community would transgress the proper bounds in supplication, thereby warning against it so that Muslims would remain guarded and wary of falling into any form of it. There is no way to remain safe from this except by adhering to the Sunnah and following the example of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), as he said: “Whoever among you lives on will see much disagreement. You must therefore adhere to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided caliphs after me. Hold fast to it and bite onto it with your molar teeth. Beware of newly introduced matters, for every newly introduced matter is an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance.”2.

Transgression in supplication is a vast domain and a broad, open road. As previously defined, it means exceeding the bounds within which one ought to remain. Accordingly, every departure from the Sunnah and every deviation from the noble prophetic guidance in supplication is deemed transgression. It is well known that such violations are numerous and varied and cannot all be subsumed under a single category. They also differ in seriousness: some forms of transgression may reach the level of disbelief, while others fall short of that. Thus, whoever transgresses in his supplication by calling upon someone other than Allah, asking him, or seeking from him