Allah, exalted is He, also says: “Have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his god? Allah, knowing him for what he is, lets him stray, seals his hearing and his heart, and places a veil over his sight. Who, then, can guide him after Allah?” (Q 45:23). Every innovation is nothing but cloth woven from such wayward desires.

c) Fanatical attachment to opinions and personalities. Blind partisanship for particular views or for certain individuals prevents a person from following the evidence and recognizing the truth. Allah the Exalted says: “When it is said to them, ‘Follow what Allah has sent down,’ they reply, ‘No; we will follow what we found our forefathers upon.’” (Q 2:170). This is precisely the attitude displayed today by some zealots among the adherents of certain Sufi orders and grave-centered sects. When they are called to follow the Book and the Sunnah and to abandon whatever in their practice contradicts them, they cling instead to the doctrines of their schools, their shaykhs, and their forefathers.

d) Imitation of the disbelievers. Few things lead people into innovation more surely than copying the unbelievers, as is shown by the narration of Abū Wāqid al-Laythī, who said: “We set out with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to Ḥunayn while we were …”