although some later scholars have discussed that narration, the correct view is what we have just stated: it simply does not prove what they allege, as the critical scholars have clarified. The other reports they cite are weak and inauthentic, and many are outright fabrications—such as the story, “When Adam committed the sin…,” in which he supposedly says, “I ask You by the right of Muhammad that You forgive me.” I have shown this in my commentary on al-Muʻjam al-Saghir (2/148) and in al-Silsila al-Daʻifa, no. 25. I do not wish to elaborate further here; my aim is only to alert the clear-sighted Muslim to how religious innovations divert people from what is soundly established from the Master of the Messengers. This fulfills the saying of one of the Companions: “No bidʻa (innovation) is introduced except that a sunnah is thereby extinguished.” (*) What is truly astonishing is that most of our later jurists will not allow anyone to depart from their school even when he possesses an explicit proof from the Quran and the Sunnah—yet they themselves depart from the school by permitting this innovated tawassul without a single explicit proof from the Book or from an authentic Sunnah! In reality they are contradicting their own madhhab, for there are explicit statements from Abu Hanifa—may Allah have mercy on him—and his disciples prohibiting what they now allow. Abu Hanifa said, “I deem it disliked for a person to ask Allah except by Him.” Abu Yusuf said the same and added, “I also deem it disliked for someone to say: by the right of so-and-so, or by the right of Your prophets and messengers.” The standard manuals of the school are full of this position. And when our jurists use the term “disliked” (karaha) without qualification, it denotes prohibition, as is well known among them. Quduri states: “Asking [Allah] by His creation is not permissible, for the creation have no claim upon the Creator; therefore it is, by consensus, impermissible.” (*) A similar wording is reported from Hassan ibn Atiyya, a tabiʻi; see Mishkat, no. 188.