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What is the Meaning of Bidʿa?

December 16, 2010 Leave a comment

What is the Meaning of Bidʿa?
Answered by Shaykh Wahba Al-Zuḥayli 1
Translated by Mahdi Lock
Translated from Fatāwā Mu’āsira by Shaykh Wahba Al-Zuḥayli p.264-266, Dar Al-Fikr, Damascus, 2003
Question: What is the meaning of bidʿa (innovation) and is it permissible or forbidden?
Answer: Bidʿa, as Al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbdasslām 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’

2 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’ ( ر ا      
آ), 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-Jumuʾah (v.5 p.275-278). This line is also not found in any edition of the
Arba’īn Al-Nawawiyyah, ḥadīth no.28, with the exception of maybe two. As for Abdassamad Clarke’s translation
[The Complete Forty Hadith, Taha], please read Sidi Abdassamad’s blog entry
[http://www.bogvaerker.dk/wordpress/?p=593] on the matter. I mention this because members of the Salafī cult
tend to insist that this line be said in the Friday khuṭbah

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.

on the matter. I mention this because members of the Salafī cult
tend to insist that this line be said in the Friday khuṭbah.
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 ḥasana (good) and ghayru ḥasana (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.[3Al-Fatāwā Al-Ḥadīthiyyah by Imām Ibn Ḥajar Al-Haytamī, p.205]
In summary, we have what can be understood from the words of Al-Shāṭibi: ‘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.’