The republishing of this translation
Question: What is the meaning of bidʿa (innovation) and is it permissible
or forbidden?
Answer (Imam Wahbah az-Zuḥaylī): Bidʿa,
as Al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbdassalām said, is an action that did not exist in the time of
the Prophet, may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him, and it carries five
rulings. The means of knowing this is to subject bidʿa to the rules of
the Sharīʿah, so whatever ruling it falls under then that’s what it is. An
example of obligatory bidʿa is to learn the grammar with which the
Qurʾān and Sunnah can be understood. An example of impermissible bidʿa
is to study the doctrines of the people of disbelief (kufr) and misguidance
(ḍalāl) such as the Qadariyyah and the Shīʿah and the ways of heresy. An
example of recommended bidʿa is the founding of schools and praying tarāwīh
in congregation. An example of a permissible bidʿa is shaking hands
after the prayer (ṣalat). An example of discouraged bidʿa is
decorating masjids and muṣḥafs with other than gold, while decorating them with
gold is impermissible. The ḥadīth: ‘Every bidʿa is misguidance and
every misguidance is in the Fire’[1]
only applies to the impermissible bidʿa and nothing else.
A mubtadiʿ
(innovator) is someone who invents something in Islām that the Sharīʿah does
not see as good, such as oppressive taxes and acts of injustice.
Some people
have explained bidʿa to be that which has no legal (sharʿī) proof
for it being obligatory or recommended, whether it was done in his, may Allah’s
prayers and peace be upon him, time or wasn’t done, such as expelling the Jews
and the Christians from the Arabian Peninsula. This isn’t bidʿa, even
though it wasn’t done in his time. The same goes for gathering the Qurʾān in muṣḥafs
and praying night prayers in Ramaḍān in congregation and other examples which
are affirmed as being obligatory or recommended based on a legal proof.
When ʿUmar,
may Allah be pleased with him, said regarding tarāwīḥ: ‘What a good bidʿa
this is’, he meant bidʿa in the linguistic sense, which is something that
is done without a precedent, and not in the legal sense, because bidʿa
in the legal sense is misguidance.
Those of the
scholars who divide bidʿa into ḥasanah (good) and ghayru ḥasanah
(not good) do so with the understanding of bidʿa in the linguistic
sense. As for those who say: ‘Every bidʿa is misguidance’, their
understanding is in the legal sense.
There is no
objection whatsoever to bidʿa in the linguistic sense or according to
custom, because ‘Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, used to say: ‘Such and
such rained a storm upon us’ and what he meant was that Allah had made the
celestial body a sign for such and such according to what had been affirmed by
custom. This is not impermissible. If one were to say such a thing believing
that the celestial body has some intrinsic effect on its own, or alongside
Allah the Exalted, such a person would be a kāfir. This is what Imam
Ash-Shāfiʿī, may Allah be pleased with him, mentioned.[2]
In summary,
we have what can be understood from the words of Al-Shāṭibī: ‘Bidʿa in
the true sense is that which has no foundation in the Sharīʿah, and it is the bidʿa
of misguidance. When the word bidʿa applies to something that does have
a foundation in the Sharīʿah it is only meant figuratively, such as gathering
the Qurʾān in muṣḥafs, writing down the ḥadīth and the sciences of Arabic, and
writing down account books for the treasury in the time of ʿUmar, may Allah be
pleased with him.’
[Translated from Fatāwā Muʿāṣirah by Imam Wahbah Az-Zuḥaylī (Damascus:
Dār al-Fikr, 2003), p.264-266]
[1] The first sentence is narrated by Muslim, Al-Bayhaqī and others.
Translator’s note: As for the second sentence, i.e. ‘every misguidance is in
the Fire’ (كل ضلالة في النار), it is not found in most narrations of the ḥadīth,
i.e. not in Muslim (see Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi Sharḥ Al-Nawawī v.6 p.134 Bāb
Takhfīf al-Ṣalāt wa Al-Khuṭba from Kitāb Al-Jumuʿah, for example),
the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad, the Sunan
of Abū Dawūd, the Sunan of At-Tirmidhī, the Mustadrak
of Al-Ḥākim, or the Muʿjam of Al-Ṭabarānī,
and so forth. Furthermore, Imam
al-Nawawī does not mention this line in Al-Majmūʿ Sharḥ Al-Muhadhdhib, Bāb
Ṣalāt al-Jumuʿah (v.5 p.275-278). I mention this because members of the
Salafī cult tend to
insist that this line be said in the Friday khuṭbah.
[2] Al-Fatāwā
Al-Ḥadīthiyyah by Imām Ibn Ḥajar Al-Haytamī, p.205
