about intoxicants and gambling. Say, ‘In them is great sin and benefit for people, but their sin is greater than their benefit.’” For this reason, Allah Most High subsequently prohibited them. The same applies to deeds that people regard as bringing them closer to Allah, but which Allah and His Messenger have not prescribed: their harm must outweigh their benefit. Otherwise, if their benefit predominated over their harm, the Lawgiver would not have neglected them. For he—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—is wise: he neither neglects the interests of religion nor deprives believers of what brings them closer to the Lord of all worlds.

With this understood, we say to the questioner:

The fact that the aforementioned shaykh sought to bring those gathered to commit major sins to repentance, but could do so only through the innovated method described, shows that he is either ignorant of the prescribed means by which sinners repent or unable to employ them. The Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—the Companions, and their successors used to call people worse than these—people guilty of disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience—through prescribed means with which Allah enabled them to dispense with innovated methods.

It is therefore impermissible to say that the prescribed means with which Allah sent His Prophet contain nothing through which sinners can repent. For it is established by incontrovertible knowledge and mass-transmitted reports that people from various nations, whose number Allah Most High alone knows, have repented of disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience through prescribed means that contain nothing of the innovated gathering described;