Bi ismillahir rahmanir raheem
assalamu alaikum
Concept of Bid'a in Sharia'
Nuh Ha Mim Keller
There are few topics that generate as much controversy
today in Islam as what is sunna and what is bid�a or �reprehensible innovation,�
perhaps because of the times Muslims live in today and the challenges they face. Without a
doubt, one of the greatest events in impact upon Muslims in the last thousand years is the
end of the Islamic caliphate at the first of this century, an event that marked not only
the passing of temporal, political authority, but in many respects the passing of the
consensus of orthodox Sunni Islam as well. No one familiar with the classical literature
in any of the Islamic legal sciences, whether Koranic exegesis (tafsir), hadith, or
jurisprudence (fiqh), can fail to be struck by the fact that questions are asked today
about basic fundamentals of Islamic Sacred Law (Shari�a) and its ancillary disciplines
that would not have been asked in the Islamic period�not because Islamic scholars were
not brilliant enough to produce the questions, but because they already knew the answers.
My talk tonight is will aim to clarify some possible
misunderstandings of the concept of innovation (bid�a) in Islam, in light of the
prophetic hadith,
�. . . Beware of matters newly begun, for every matter
newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in
hell.�
The sources I use are traditional Islamic sources, and my
discussion will center on three points:
The first point is that scholars say that the above hadith
does not refer to all new things without restriction, but only to those which nothing in
Sacred Law attests to the validity of. The use of the word every in the hadith does
not indicate an absolute generalization, for there are many examples of similar
generalizations in the Koran and sunna that are not applicable without restriction, but
rather are qualified by restrictions found in other primary textual evidence.
The second point is that the sunna and way of the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace) was to accept new acts initiated in Islam that were
of the good and did not conflict with established principles of Sacred Law, and to reject
things that were otherwise.
And our third and last point is that new matters in Islam
may not be rejected merely because they did not exist in the first century, but must be
evaluated and judged according to the comprehensive methodology of Sacred Law, by virtue
of which it is and remains the final and universal moral code for all peoples until the
end of time.
Our first point, that the hadith does not refer to all new
things without restriction, but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the
validity of, may at first seem strange, in view of the wording of the hadith, which
says, says �every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is
misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell.� Now the word bid�a or �innovation�
linguistically means anything new, So our first question must be about the
generalizability of the word every in the hadith: does it literally mean that everything
new in the world is haram or �unlawful�? The answer is no. Why?
In answer to this question, we may note that there are many
similar generalities in the Koran and sunna, all of them admitting of some qualification,
such as the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-Najm,
�. . . A man can have nothing, except what he strives for�
(Koran 53:39),
despite there being an overwhelming amount of evidence that a Muslim
benefits from the spiritual works of others, for example, from his fellow Muslims, the
prayers of angels for him, the funeral prayer over him, charity given by others in his
name, and the supplications of believers for him;
Or consider the words of Allah to unbelievers in Surat
al-Anbiya�,
�Verily you and what you worship apart from Allah are the
fuel of hell� (Koran 21:98),
�what you worship� being a general expression, while there is
no doubt that Jesus, his mother, and the angels were all worshipped apart from Allah, but
are not the fuel of hell, so are not what is meant by the verse;
Or the word of Allah Most High in Surat al-An�am about
past nations who paid no heed to the warners who were sent to them,
�But when they forgot what they had been reminded of, We
opened unto them the doors of everything� (Koran 6:44),
though the doors of mercy were not opened unto them;
And the hadith related by Muslim that the Prophet (Allah
bless him and give him peace) said,
�No one who prays before sunrise and before sunset will
enter hell,�
which is a generalised expression that definitely does not mean
what its outward generality implies, for someone who prays the dawn and midafternoon
prayers and neglects all other prayers and obligatory works is certainly not meant. It is
rather a generalization whose intended referent is particular, or a generalization that is
qualified by other texts, for when there are fully authenticated hadiths, it is obligatory
to reach an accord between them, because they are in reality as a single hadith, the
statements that appear without further qualification being qualified by those that furnish
the qualification, that the combined implications of all of them may be utilized.
Let us look for a moment at bid�a or innovation in the
light of the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) concerning new
matters. Sunna and innovation (bid�a) are two opposed terms in the language of the
Lawgiver (Allah bless him and give him peace), such that neither can be defined without
reference to the other, meaning that they are opposites, and �things are made clear by
their opposites.� Many writers have sought to define innovation (bid�a) without
defining the sunna, while it is primary, and have thus fallen into inextricable
difficulties and conflicts with the primary textual evidence that contradicts their
definition of innovation, whereas if they had first defined the sunna, they would have
produced a criterion free of shortcomings.
Sunna , in both the language of the Arabs and the Sacred
Law, means way , as is illustrated by the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give
him peace),
�He who inaugurates a good sunna in Islam [dis: p58.1(2)]
...And he who introduces a bad sunna in Islam...,�
sunna meaning way or custom. The way of the Prophet (Allah
bless him and give him peace) in giving guidance, accepting, and rejecting: this is the
sunna. For �good sunna� and �bad sunna� mean a good way or bad way, and cannot
possibly mean anything else. Thus, the meaning of sunna is not what most students,
let alone ordinary people, understand; namely, that it is the prophetic hadith (n:
as when sunna is contrasted with Kitab , i.e. Koran, in distinguishing textual
sources), or the opposite of the obligatory (n: as when sunna , i.e. recommended, is
contrasted with obligatory in legal contexts), since the former is a technical usage
coined by hadith scholars, while the latter is a technical usage coined by legal scholars
and specialists in fundamentals of jurisprudence. Both of these are usages of later origin
that are not what is meant by sunna here. Rather, the sunna of the Prophet (Allah
bless him and give him peace) is his way of acting, ordering, accepting, and rejecting,
and the way of his Rightly Guided Caliphs who followed his way acting, ordering,
accepting, and rejecting. So practices that are newly begun must be examined in light of
the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and his way and path in
acceptance or rejection.
Now, there are a great number of hadiths, most of them in
the rigorously authenticated (sahih) collections, showing that many of the prophetic
Companions initiated new acts, forms of invocation (dhikr), supplications (du�a�), and
so on, that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) had never previously done or
ordered to be done. Rather, the Companions did them because of their inference and
conviction that such acts were of the good that Islam and the Prophet of Islam came with
and in general terms urged the like of be done, in accordance with the word of Allah Most
High in Surat al-Hajj,
�And do the good, that haply you may succeed� (Koran
22:77),
and the hadith of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace),
�He who inaugurates a good sunna in Islam earns the
reward of it and all who perform it after him without diminishing their own rewards in the
slightest.�
Though the original context of the hadith was giving
charity, the interpretative principle established by the scholarly consensus (def: b7) of
specialists in fundamentals of Sacred Law is that the point of primary texts lies in the
generality of their lexical significance , not the specificity of their historical context
, without this implying that just anyone may make provisions in the Sacred Law, for Islam
is defined by principles and criteria, such that whatever one initiates as a sunna must be
subject to its rules, strictures, and primary textual evidence.
From this investigative point of departure, one may observe
that many of the prophetic Companions performed various acts through their own personal
reasoning, (ijtihad), and that the sunna and way of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give
him peace) was both to accept those that were acts of worship and good deeds conformable
with what the Sacred Law had established and not in conflict with it; and to reject those
which were otherwise. This was his sunna and way, upon which his caliphal successors
and Companions proceeded, and from which Islamic scholars (Allah be well pleased with
them) have established the rule that any new matter must be judged according to the
principles and primary texts of Sacred Law: whatever is attested to by the law as being
good is acknowledged as good, and whatever is attested to by the law as being a
contravention and bad is rejected as a blameworthy innovation (bid�a). They
sometimes term the former a good innovation (bid �a hasana) in view of it
lexically being termed an innovation , but legally speaking it is not really an innovation
but rather an inferable sunna as long as the primary texts of the Sacred Law attest
to its being acceptable.
We now turn to the primary textual evidence previously
alluded to concerning the acts of the Companions and how the Prophet, (Allah bless him and
give him peace) responded to them:
(1) Bukhari and Muslim relate from Abu Hurayra (Allah
be well pleased with him) that at the dawn prayer the Prophet (Allah bless him and give
him peace) said to Bilal, �Bilal, tell me which of your acts in Islam you are most
hopeful about, for I have heard the footfall of your sandals in paradise,� and he
replied, �I have done nothing I am more hopeful about than the fact that I do not
perform ablution at any time of the night or day without praying with that ablution
whatever has been destined for me to pray.�
Ibn Hajar �Asqalani says in Fath al-Bari that �the
hadith shows it is permissible to use personal reasoning (ijtihad) in choosing times for
acts of worship, for Bilal reached the conclusions he mentioned by his own inference, and
the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed him therein.� Similar
to this is the hadith in Bukhari about Khubayb (A: who asked to pray two rak�as before
being executed by idolaters in Mecca) who was the first to establish the sunna of two rak
�as for those who are steadfast in going to their death. These hadiths are explicit
evidence that Bilal and Khubayb used their own personal reasoning (ijtihad) in choosing
the times of acts of worship, without any previous command or precedent from the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace) other than the general demand to perform the prayer.
(2) Bukhari and Muslim relate that Rifa�a ibn Rafi�
said, �When we were praying behind the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and
he raised his head from bowing and said , �Allah hears whoever praises Him,� a man
behind him said, �Our Lord, Yours is the praise, abundantly, wholesomely, and blessedly
therein.� When he rose to leave, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) asked
who said it, and when the man replied that it was he, the Prophet (Allah bless him and
give him peace) said, �I saw thirty-odd angels each striving to be the one to write it.�
�
Ibn Hajar says in Fath al-Bari that the hadith �indicates
the permissibility of initiating new expressions of dhikr in the prayer other than
the ones related through hadith texts, as long as they do not contradict those conveyed by
the hadith [n: since the above words were a mere enhancement and addendum to the known,
sunna dhikr].�
(3) Bukhari relates from �A�isha (Allah be well pleased
with her) that �the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) dispatched a man at the
head of a military expedition who recited the Koran for his companions at prayer,
finishing each recital with al-Ikhlas (Koran 112). When they returned, they mentioned this
to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), who told them, �Ask him why he does
this,� and when they asked him, the man replied, �because it describes the
All-merciful, and I love to recite it.� The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace)
said to them, �Tell him Allah loves him.� �
In spite of this, we do not know of any scholar who holds that
doing the above is recommended, for the acts the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him
peace) used to do regularly are superior, though his confirming the like of this
illustrates his sunna regarding his acceptance of various forms of obedience and acts of
worship, and shows he did not consider the like of this to be a reprehensible
innovation (bid�a), as do the bigots who vie with each other to be the first to brand
acts as innovation and misguidance. Further, it will be noticed that all the preceding
hadiths are about the prayer, which is the most important of bodily acts of worship,
and of which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
�Pray as you have seen me pray,�
despite which he accepted the above examples of personal
reasoning because they did not depart from the form defined by the Lawgiver, for every
limit must be observed, while there is latitude in everything besides, as long as it is
within the general category of being called for by Sacred Law. This is the sunna of the
Prophet and his way (Allah bless him and give him peace) and is as clear as can be.
Islamic scholars infer from it that every act for which there is evidence in Sacred Law
that it is called for and which does not oppose an unequivocal primary text or entail
harmful consequences is not included in the category of reprehensible innovation (bid�a),
but rather is of the sunna, even if there should exist something whose performance is
superior to it.
(4) Bukhari relates from Abu Sa�id al-Khudri that a band
of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) departed on one of
their journeys, alighting at the encampment of some desert Arabs whom they asked to be
their hosts, but who refused to have them as guests. The leader of the encampment was
stung by a scorpion, and his followers tried everything to cure him, and when all had
failed, one said, �If you�d approach the group camped near you, one of them might have
something.� So they came to them and said, �O band of men, our leader has been stung
and we�ve tried everything. Do any of you have something for it?� and one of
them replied, �Yes, by Allah, I recite healing words [ruqya, def: w17] over people, but
by Allah, we asked you to be our hosts and you refused, so I will not recite anything
unless you give us a fee.� They then agreed upon a herd of sheep, so the man went and
began spitting and reciting the Fatiha over the victim until he got up and walked as if he
were a camel released from its hobble, nothing the matter with him. They paid the agreed
upon fee, which some of the Companions wanted to divide up, but the man who had done the
reciting told them, �Do not do so until we reach the Prophet (Allah bless him and give
him peace) and tell him what has happened, to see what he may order us to do.� They came
to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and told him what had occurred, and he
said, �How did you know it was of the words which heal? You were right. Divide up the
herd and give me a share.�
The hadith is explicit that the Companion had no previous
knowledge that reciting the Fatiha to heal (ruqya) was countenanced by Sacred Law, but
rather did so because of his own personal reasoning (ijtihad), and since it did not
contravene anything that had been legislated, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him
peace) confirmed him therein because it was of his sunna and way to accept and confirm
what contained good and did not entail harm, even if it did not proceed from the acts of
the Prophet himself (Allah bless him and give him peace) as a definitive precedent.
(5) Bukhari relates from Abu Sa�id al-Khudri that one man
heard another reciting al-Ikhlas (Koran 112) over and over again, so when morning came he
went to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and sarcastically mentioned it to
him. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, �By Him in whose hand is my
soul, it equals one-third of the Koran.� Daraqutni recorded another version of this
hadith in which the man said, �I have a neighbor who prays at night and does not recite
anything but al-Ikhlas.�
The hadith shows that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him
peace) confirmed the person�s restricting himself to this sura while praying at night,
despite its not being what the Prophet himself did (Allah bless him and give him peace),
for though the Prophet�s practice of reciting from the whole Koran was superior, the man�s
act was within the general parameters of the sunna and there was nothing blameworthy about
it in any case.
(6) Ahmad and Ibn Hibban relate from �Abdullah ibn
Burayda that his father said, �I entered the mosque with the Prophet (Allah bless him
and give him peace), where a man was at prayer, supplicating: �O Allah, I ask You by the
fact that I testify You are Allah, there is no god but You, the One, the Ultimate, who did
not beget and was not begotten, and to whom none is equal,� and the Prophet (Allah bless
him and give him peace) said, �By Him in whose hand is my soul, he has asked Allah by
His greatest name, which if He is asked by it He gives, and if supplicated He answers.�
�
It is plain that this supplication came spontaneously from
the Companion, and since it conformed to what the Sacred Law calls for, the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace) confirmed it with the highest degree of approbation
and acceptance, while it is not known that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him
peace) had ever taught it to him (Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa-al-Jama�a (y119),
119-33).
We are now able to return to the hadith with which I began my
talk tonight, in which the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, �...
Beware of matters newly begun, for every innovation is misguidance.� And understand it
as expounded by a classic scholar of Islam, Sheikh Muhammad Jurdani, who said:
Beware of matters newly begun �Distance yourselves and be
wary of matters newly innovated that did not previously exist,� i.e. things invented in
Islam that contravene the Sacred Law, for every innovation is misguidance
meaning that every innovation is the opposite of the truth, i.e. falsehood, a hadith that
has been related elsewhere as:
for every newly begun matter is innovation, every
innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell meaning that everyone who is
misguided, whether through himself or by following another, is in hell, the hadith
referring to matters that are not good innovations with a basis in Sacred Law. It has been
stated (A: by �Izz ibn �Abd al-Salam) that innovations (bid�a) fall under the five
headings of the Sacred Law (n: i.e. the obligatory, unlawful, recommended, offensive, and
permissible):
(1) The first category comprises innovations that are
obligatory , such as recording the Koran and the laws of Islam in writing when it was
feared that something might be lost from them; the study of the disciplines of Arabic that
are necessary to understand the Koran and sunna such as grammar, word declension, and
lexicography; hadith classification to distinguish between genuine and spurious prophetic
traditions; and the philosophical refutations of arguments
advanced by the Mu�tazilites ( def: w6.4) and the like.
(2) The second category is that of unlawful
innovations such as non-Islamic taxes and levies (dis: p 32), giving positions of
authority in Sacred Law to those unfit for them, and devoting one�s time to learning the
beliefs of heretical sects that contravene the tenets of faith of Ahl al-Sunna.
(3) The third category consists of recommended
innovations such as building hostels and schools of Sacred Law, recording the
research of Islamic schools of legal thought, writing books on beneficial subjects,
extensive research into fundamentals and particular applications of Sacred Law, in-depth
studies of Arabic linguistics, the reciting of wirds (def: w20) by those with a
Sufi path, and commemorating the birth (mawlid), of the Prophet Muhammad
(Allah bless him and give him peace ) and wearing one�s best and rejoicing at it.
(4) The fourth category includes innovations that are
offensive, such as embellishing mosques, decorating the Koran and having a backup man
(muballigh) loudly repeat the spoken Allahu Akbar of the imam when the latter�s voice is
already clearly audible to those who are praying behind him.
(5) the fifth category is that of innovations that are
permissible , such as sifting flour, using spoons and having more enjoyable food, drink
and housing (al Jawahir al-lu�lu�iyya fi sharh al-Arba�in
al-Nawawiyya (y68), 220-21).
I will conclude my remarks tonight with a translation of
Sheikh �Abdullah al-Ghimari, who said:
In his al-Qawa�id al-kubra, �Izz ibn �Abd al-Salam
classifies innovations (bid�a), according to their benefit, harm, or indifference, into
the five categories of rulings: the obligatory, recommended, unlawful, offensive, and
permissible; giving examples of each and mentioning the principles of Sacred Law that
verify his classification. His words on the subject display his keen insight and
comprehensive knowledge of both the principles of jurisprudence and the human advantages
and disadvantages in view of which the Lawgiver has established the rulings of Sacred Law.
Because his classification of innovation (bid�a) was
established on a firm basis in Islamic jurisprudence and legal principles, it was
confirmed by Imam Nawawi, Ibn Hajar �Asqalani, and the vast majority of Islamic
scholars, who received his words with acceptance and viewed it obligatory to apply them to
the new events and contingencies that occur with the changing times and the peoples who
live in them. One may not support the denial of his classification by clinging to the
hadith �Every innovation is misguidance,� because the only form of innovation that is
without exception misguidance is that concerning tenets of faith, like the innovations of
the Mu�tazilites, Qadarites, Murji�ites, and so on, that contradicted the beliefs of
the early Muslims. This is the innovation of misguidance because it is harmful and devoid
of benefit. As for innovation in works, meaning the occurrence of an act connected with
worship or something else that did not exist in the first century of Islam, it must
necessarily be judged according to the five categories mentioned by �Izz ibn �Abd
al-Salam. To claim that such innovation is misguidance without further qualification is
simply not applicable to it, for new things are among the exigencies brought into being by
the passage of time and generations, and nothing that is new lacks a ruling of Allah Most
High that is applicable to it, whether explicitly mentioned in primary texts, or inferable
from them in some way. The only reason that Islamic law can be valid for every time and
place and be the consummate and most perfect of all divine laws is because it comprises
general methodological principles and universal criteria, together with the ability its
scholars have been endowed with to understand its primary texts, the knowledge of types of
analogy and parallelism, and the other excellences that characterize it. Were we to rule
that every new act that has come into being after the first century of Islam is an
innovation of misguidance without considering whether it entails benefit or harm, it would
invalidate a large share of the fundamental bases of Sacred Law as well as those rulings
established by analogical reasoning, and would narrow and limit the Sacred Law�s vast
and comprehensive scope. (Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama�a (y119), 145-47).
Wa Jazakum Allahu khayran, wal-hamdu lillahi Rabbil �Alamin.
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