1709 – ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz wrote to one of his governors:

“I advise you to have taqwā (God-consciousness) of Allah—exalted is He—to be moderate in obeying Him, to follow the sunnah of His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, and to abandon whatever the innovators have introduced after him, for his sunnah has already provided the precedent and spared you the burden.

Know that no one ever devises a bidʿah (religious innovation) without there already existing something that stands as evidence against it, and that others besides him have fallen into it as well. Therefore hold fast to the sunnah, for, by Allah’s permission, it will be a safeguard for you.

Realize also that those who established the sunnahs knew full well the error, slip, excess, and folly found in opposing them. The earliest generations, acting on knowledge, stopped where they did; with discerning insight they refrained—and they would have been the most capable of further inquiry had they wished to inquire.”