(1) Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah states in al-Ikhtiyarat, p. 48: “By unanimous agreement it is either disliked (makruh) or outright forbidden.” I add: let no one be misled by the approval recorded by the author of al-Baʿith, p. 65, for this bidʿah (innovation); it is merely a scholar’s slip (zallat ʿalim). (2) The claim that Muʿawiyah was the first to make the minbar fifteen steps high, as quoted by the author of al-Taratib al-Idariyyah 2/440, is unsubstantiated; his very prefacing of it with the phrase qila (“it is said”) already signals its weakness. Among the harms of this bidʿah is that it breaks the prayer rows. Some mosque imams, having noticed this, have tried to avert it through further novelties—such as placing the staircase against the wall—but had they simply adhered to the sunnah, they would have spared themselves the trouble.