18 — Chapter: The Prohibition of Innovations and Newly-Invented Matters

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—writes: “Chapter on the prohibition of innovations and newly-invented matters.” In Arabic, bidʿa (innovation) refers to whatever a person originates; hence the Almighty’s words: “Originator of the heavens and the earth; when He decrees a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is” (Q 2:117). That is, He created them without any prior model—nothing like them had existed before; He originated and brought them into being first.

In the religious sense, an innovation is any belief, statement, or deed by which someone seeks Allah’s nearness although Allah has not legislated it. Whoever worships Allah with something He has not prescribed—whether a creed, a word, or an action—is an innovator.

If, for instance, a person devises a doctrine concerning Allah’s names and attributes, he is an innovator; if he utters a statement that neither Allah nor His Messenger legislated, he is an innovator; and if he performs an act that neither Allah nor His Messenger legislated, he is likewise an innovator.

Let it be known that an innovator exposes himself to many perils:

First: Whatever he has introduced is misguidance, by the explicit testimony of the Quran and the Sunnah. What the Prophet ﷺ brought is the truth, and Allah says, “What, then, is there after the truth except error?” (Q 10:32). As for the Sunnah, he ﷺ declared, “Every innovation is misguidance.” Clearly, a believer would never choose to follow the way of those who have gone astray—those from whom the worshipper dissociates himself in every prayer, saying, “Guide us to the Straight Path, the path of those You have favored…” (Q 1:6-7).