the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself was not favoured? 1
This is but one illustration, and scholars, praise be to Allah, have never ceased to censure the innovators in every age.
The Methodology of Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jamāʿah in Refuting the People of Innovation
Their approach rests squarely on the Qur’an and the Sunnah—a convincing, decisive method. They first present the doubts raised by the innovators and then dismantle them, adducing proof from the Qur’an and Sunnah for the obligation of clinging to the prophetic practices and for the prohibition of innovations and newly-introduced matters. They have authored numerous works on the subject and have rebutted the creeds of the Shiʿah, Khārijites, Jahmites, Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites concerning the fundamentals of faith and doctrine. They also composed dedicated treatises, such as Imam Aḥmad’s al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmiyyah. Other leading scholars—including ʿUthmān al-Dārimī, as well as Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, his pupil Ibn al-Qayyim, Shaykh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and others—produced refutations of those sects, the grave-worshippers and certain Ṣūfī trends.
Specialist works devoted to rebutting the people of innovation are many. Among the classical titles, for example, are:
- al-Iʿtiṣām by Imam al-Shāṭibī;
- Iqtiḍāʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm by Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah—a substantial portion of it addresses the innovators;
- Inkār al-Ḥawādith wa’l-Bidʿ by Ibn Waḍḍāḥ.