How can we tell if a certain worship is innovated in Islam? what is the way to distinguish between a Sunnah and a Bid’ah?
When we come back to Tawhid and Ibadah, worshipping
Allah by maintaining His unity in that worship, we do so in the way that
the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon
him) did.
We do not invent or introduce new ways of worship, as some people for
example; they want to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (Peace
and blessings be upon him). So they say, "this is something good". They
may even bring a verse from the Quran. They will say, "Allah said in the
Quran, 'Indeed, Allah confers blessing upon the Prophet, and His angels
[ask Him to do so]. O you who have believed, ask [Allah to confer]
blessing upon him and ask [Allah to grant him] peace.'" [Noble Quran
33:56] They bring this verse out.
And you say, "Well, where does it say celebrate the Prophet’s (Peace and
blessings be upon him) birthday there?" They say, "It’s there, it’s
there, that’s what it means." It's their interpretation.
The point is that the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and
blessings be upon him) didn't understand that verse that way. And that's
why they never celebrated his birthday. And he himself didn’t
understand that verse that way, and he didn't celebrate his birthday.
And the early generations didn't celebrate his birthday, it wasn't until
some 400 years after the time of Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings
be upon him), that his birthday began to be celebrated in Egypt, in the
Fatimid Shiite rule. So, we say this is not legitimate.
Some people say, "Well, ok leave that aside. Just the idea of
celebrating his birthday, what are we doing in the celebration? We are
only remembering Rasulu Allah (Peace and blessings be upon him), we're
asking Allah to bless him, we remember his Sirah, his life, and all
this. These are all good things; you say this is not good in Islam?"
Yes, these things are good things, but to combine them on that day,
every year, you have now created something new in the religion. This is
Bid’ah.
You have to understand, Bid’ah, sometimes it involves something
completely new, like the idea of the birthday celebration, because we
don't really have any precedence for it at all in Islam. But Bid’ah may
actually have precedence in the religion itself, like for example,
raising your hands in Du’a after prayer. People say, "Well, what's wrong
with that? Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) said,
'Allah is shy, that anyone would raise their hands in Du’a, that they
would put their hands down, without fulfilling their wish.' Isn't that
implying that we should raise our hands in Du’a? Prophet Muhammad (Peace
and blessings be upon him) raised his hands in the Du’a of Istisqa’,
the prayer to seek rain. He raised his hands so high, that they could
see his armpits." They say, "Here is the evidence."
But the point is, we do not find any narration indicating that the
Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him), after every prayer,
raised his hands in Du’a. People say, "This is picky, why are you going
to get so picky? If it said, that you raise your hands, Allah is shy
enough to give you. It said, the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings
be upon him) raised his hands in Istisqa’, why can't we just do it after
every prayer then, what's the problem here?"
We say, the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon
him) is not just what he did, but also what he didn't do. You have
Sunnah Fi’liyyah, the Sunnah of actions which he did, and Sunnah
Tarkiyyah, or Sunnah of actions which he didn't do. Which are things
dealing with the religion, of course there are many things which he
didn't do which he didn't like personally, we're not talking about
those, we're talking about things connected with the religion. The
things he didn't do, it is Sunnah not to do.
Because, if one opens this door, that as long as 'he said this, he said
that' we can put it all together and come up with something which he
didn't do, then the religion becomes innovated, you can now change the
religion at will.
Because I can bring something to you, I say, "Prophet Muhammad (Peace
and blessings be upon him) said, 'Prayer in Jama’ah is worth twenty
seven times prayer by yourself.' He also said, 'Whenever you enter the
Masjid, you should pray two Rak’ahs (units of prayer) before sitting
down.' Let us put the two together, we come into the Masjid, I now
suggest to you, let us make Tahiyyatul-Masjid in Jama’ah."
If I suggest that, what do people say? They say, "No, you can't do
that." I say, "Why not? Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon
him) said, 'The prayer in Jama’ah is worth more than the prayer by
yourself', he also said, 'Whenever you come in you should do these two
Rak’ahs'. Why can’t we put we put them together and do it?" They will
say, "Well the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) didn’t
do it."
That’s why! Yes, he didn’t do it, so we cannot do it. He made Tahajjud
in Jama’ah, this is also Sunnah, and he did it in Jama’ah. We can do it
because he did it. But to do Tahiyyatul-Masjid in Jama’ah, or to do the
Sunnah before Dthuhr or the Sunnah after Dthuhr in Jama’ah, you can't do
it, because the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him)
didn't do it.
And that's emphasized by his well known statement, "I didn't leave
anything which would bring you closer to Allah without instructing you
to do it." That's the bottom line. If it's going to bring you closer to
Allah, Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) told us to do
it. If he didn't tell us to do it, it will not bring you closer to Allah
no matter how good you think this is, how much reasoning you give
behind it, it will not bring you closer to Allah. It will take you
farther away from Allah.
This is the basic principle, based on the statement of the Prophet
Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him), "Whoever introduces anything
new in this religion of ours (not approved by Allah, and by the
messenger of Allah), it is rejected." This is to protect the religion in
its pristine purity from change, deviation, etc., like what happened to
the other messages, which were of Islam, but became distorted in time,
like that of Christianity, Judaism, etc.
Sheikh Bilal Philips
