The following is the text of a talk given by Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim
Keller at Nottingham and Trent University on Wednesday 25th January 1995.
There
are few topics that generate as much controversy today in Islam as what is
sunna and what is bida 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 (Sharia) 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 will aim to clarify some possible misunderstandings of the concept
of innovation (bida) 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 centre 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, "every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation
is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell." Now the word "bida"
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-Anam 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 mid-afternoon 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 bida or innovation in the light of the sunna
of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) concerning new matters. Sunna
and innovation (bida) 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 (bida)
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: Reliance of the Traveller
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
(as when sunna is contrasted with "Kitab", i.e. Koran,
in distinguishing textual sources), or the opposite of the obligatory (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 (dua), 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 to 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: Reliance of the Traveller 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 (bida).
They sometimes term the former a good innovation (bida 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 (who asked to pray two rakas
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 [since the above words were a mere enhancement and addendum to
the known, sunna dhikr].
(3)
Bukhari relates from Aisha (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 (bida), 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 (bida), but rather is of the sunna, even if there
should exist something whose performance is superior to it.
(4)
Bukhari relates from Abu Said 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 would 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 weve tried everything. Do any
of you have something for it?" and one of them replied, "Yes, by
Allah, I recite healing words [ruqya, def: Reliance of the Traveller
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 Said 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 neighbour 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 persons 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 Prophets practice of reciting from the whole Koran was
superior, the mans act was within the general parameters of the sunna
and there was nothing blameworthy about it in any case.
(6)
Ahmad and Ibn Hibban relates 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-Jamaa, 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
(by Izz ibn Abd al-Salam) that innovations (bida) 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 and the like.
(2)
The second category is that of unlawful innovations such as non- Islamic taxes
and levies, giving positions of authority in Sacred Law to those unfit for
them, and devoting ones 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: Reliance of the Traveller
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 ones 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-luluiyya fi sharh al-Arbain al-nawawiyya, 220-21).
I will conclude my remarks
tonight with a translation of Sheikh Abdullah al-Ghimari, who said: In his al-Qawaid
al-kubra, "Izz ibn Abd al-Salam classifies innovations (bida),
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 (bida) 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 Mutazilites, Qadarites, Murjiites,
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 Laws
vast and comprehensive scope. (Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jamaa,
145-47).