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
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 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).
Wa Jazakum Allahu khayran, wal-hamdu
lillahi Rabbil Alamin.