Every new thing is not misguidance
Question: Starting new deeds, etc. which were not present in the time of the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) and the Companions is an innovation and every innovation is misguidance. Then aren’t the preparations made for the 27th night of Rajab in these times is an innovation as well?
Answer: All those things which were not done in the times of the Companions are wrong and impermissible. Only those things are impermissible in whom some rule/principle of the Shariah is being broken. Offering Salaat, reciting the Holy Quran, other supplications, incantations and sessions of remembrance of Allah Most High are all those things which are very much desired in Islam and the Hadith mention the excellence of these things.
There is no problem in performing virtuous deeds at any time of the day or night. Many things have been started after the era of the Companions without using whom no good works can be done in the present times. In fact, those things are done with a degree of pride that one is engaged in virtuous deeds. Only some new things are being mentioned here which weren’t there in the era of the Companions or the successors:
1. The canons of Hadith were not compiled in the era of the Companions or the Successors. In spite of this, the Hadith-Experts took up this task considering it a means of their deliverance and didn’t declare this as a reprehensible innovation.
2. Codifying the principles of Hadith. Categorizing the Hadith as rigorously authenticated or weakly authenticated. It was through this great accomplishment that the masters of the science of classification of narrators of Hadith (Fan-e-Rijaal) developed principles that safeguarded the corpus of Hadith. This new invention was also not considered as a reprehensible innovation.
3. Development and codification of various sciences and branches of knowledge like morphology, syntax, eloquence, poetic meters, the principles of jurisprudence, etc. Without mastering the aforementioned sciences, forget about understanding the Holy Quran and Hadith, it is well nigh impossible to simply read through them. Without having studied them, no one can become a full-fledged Islamic scholar. All these are inventions of the time after the Companions. In spite of all this, the scholars opine that acquiring them is a Communal Obligation (Wajib Kifaya) and not a reprehensible innovation, as religion can be safeguarded only through these.
4. In Madarsas and Islamic universities, students are taught a particular syllabus and the teachers teach them that particular syllabus with the intention that they are teaching them religious sciences. After completion of that syllabus, the students are termed “soldiers of the faith” and they are sent to various places for propagation of religion. This syllabus was not present in the era of the Companions, the Successors or even their successors. If this is also termed as reprehensible innovation, then what will you term the scholars who have been brought up with that innovation?
5. Many groups and organizations are engaged in what they call as “propagation of religion.” They have few days’ camps to make people aware of religion and they give them various names. Their self-made principles and their practices come under the category of innovations. Nobody decries them as innovations although all these things are done with the intention of reward considering them to be works of religion.
Then if Muslims gather in the mosques on a particular date with the intention of worship, recitation of the Holy Quran, remembering the miracles of the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam), why would this be called a reprehensible innovation?
Alas that gathering in the mosques for remembrance of Allah Most High is being termed as innovation!
Abul Hasanaat Islamic Research Center 