for his error and is rewarded for performing an act within a generally prescribed category of worship. The same applies to someone who fasts on the day of Eid without knowing of the prohibition.

This differs from acts whose very category has not been prescribed, such as shirk (associating partners with Allah). There is no reward for this, even though Allah does not punish the person who commits it until the message has reached him. As Allah Most High says:

“We never punish until We have sent a messenger.”

Yet although He does not punish him, the person receives no reward for this. Rather, it is as Allah Most High says:

“And We will turn to whatever deeds they did and make them scattered dust.”

Ibn al-Mubārak said: “These are deeds performed for other than Allah.” Mujāhid said: “These are deeds that were not accepted.” Allah Most High also says:

“The deeds of those who disbelieve in their Lord are like ashes swept away by a fierce wind,”

to the end of the verse. Their deeds are therefore invalid and carry no reward. If the Messenger forbids them from these acts and they do not desist, they are punished. Punishment for them is thus conditional upon the Messenger’s conveying the prohibition. Their inherent invalidity, however, is because they have not been commanded. Every act of worship that has not been commanded must therefore be forbidden.

If someone knows that it is forbidden and performs it, he deserves punishment; if he does not know, he does not deserve punishment. If he believes it to have been commanded, and it belongs to a generally prescribed category of worship, he is rewarded for it. But if it belongs to the category of shirk, nothing within that category has been commanded, although some people may suppose that certain forms of it have been commanded.

Such a person does not qualify as an independent jurist, because an independent jurist must follow evidence from revealed law, and these practices can have no such evidence. He may, however, perform them through the sort of reasoning exercised by someone like him: namely, following the shaykhs and scholars who have done so. Those who performed them may have done so because they found them beneficial, or because of a fabricated hadith they heard.

If the proof establishing the prohibition has not been made clear to these people, they are not punished. As for reward, their reward may consist in their being better than others of their kind. But reward for drawing near to Allah cannot be attained through such deeds.