in accordance with our command will be rejected.”

He ﷺ also said: “Adhere to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided caliphs after me. Hold on to it firmly, biting on it with your molars. Beware of newly introduced matters, for every newly introduced matter is an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance.”

Thus, performing any act of worship that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not legislate is a reprehensible innovation that is forbidden. It remains an innovation and a deviation no matter who endorses it or who practices it, so long as it lies outside what the Messenger ﷺ brought. Allah is to be worshiped only through what He prescribed on the tongue of His Messenger. All invented practices and superstitions are null, deficient, and a source of error for those who initiate them—even if their intent is good and they hope for reward. The criterion is not noble intentions; the true measure is conformity, obedience, and submission. Were we free to devise whatever we pleased and multiply acts of worship as we wished, there would have been no need for the Prophet’s mission ﷺ.

Yet out of His mercy, Allah did not leave us to our own reasoning, nor to the whims of this person or that, for these matters ultimately refer back to