a sunnah that had been abandoned.

The second category of good sunnahs is for a person to be the very first to hasten to it, like the man who rushed to give charity until the people followed him and approved of what he had done. In sum, whoever initiates in Islam a good sunnah—and no sunnah is truly good except what the Sacred Law has already sanctioned—receives his own reward and the reward of everyone who practices it after him.

Some people have used this hadith to justify introducing into Allah’s religion things that have no place in it: they invent devotional litanies and compose prayers for which Allah has given no authority, then claim, “This is a good sunnah.” We reply, “No. Every bidʿah (innovation) is misguidance; all of it is evil, and there is nothing good in innovations.” The hadith only concerns the one who is first to perform a prescribed act—as is clear from the event that occasioned the Prophet’s words—or the one who revives a practice after it has died out; such a person gains its reward and the reward of all who act upon it.

Thus the hadith encourages reviving sunnahs that have died out, been neglected, and abandoned, for whoever brings them back to life is credited with their reward and the reward of everyone who practices them. It also warns against evil sunnahs: whoever inaugurates an evil sunnah bears its sin and the sin of everyone who adopts it until the Day of Resurrection—even if the matter was easy at first and later spread, he remains accountable for that expansion. For example, if someone grants another a dispensation in something permissible that is an obvious and near pathway to what is unlawful, and the matter then becomes widespread because of that fatwa, he will carry the sin of it and the sin of all who act upon it until the Day of Resurrection. However, if the matter is genuinely permissible and there is no fear that it will become a gateway to the forbidden, then there is no