the early generations said: “No people introduce an innovation into their religion without Allah removing from their Sunnah something equivalent to it; then He will not restore it to them until the Day of Resurrection.”1 How could a Muslim who recognizes the Messenger’s excellence, stature, and sincere concern for his nation nevertheless abandon his guidance and his magnificent, blessed supplications, and turn instead to the supplications and books of these pretentious fabricators?

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Walīd al-Tartūshī, author of al-Hawādith wa al-Bida (Newly Introduced Matters and Innovations), said: “It is astonishing indeed that you should turn away from the supplications that Allah relates in His Book from the prophets, the righteous, and the chosen—together with the account that they were answered—and then select the turns of phrase used by poets and writers, as though, in your estimation, you had already used every one of their supplications and only then resorted to the supplications of others.”2

Commenting on Allah’s words, “Indeed, He does not love transgressors,” Imam al-Qurtubī lists several forms of transgression in supplication and says: “One of them is to supplicate with words not found in the Book or the Sunnah, choosing affected expressions and rhyming phrases found in booklets that have no sound basis and cannot be relied upon. He makes them his hallmark and abandons the supplications of His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. All of this prevents supplication from being answered.”3

The gravest danger in this matter is that some of these composed supplications contain expressions of unbelief, polytheistic appeals for aid, and egregious excess. The following was stated by