Taken from Majmoo' Fatawaa wa Rasa'il - Volume Two, Number 345
Translated by Editorial Staff at tazkiyah.org
Written by/Said by Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-'Uthaymeen (Rahimahullaah)
Edited by Editorial Staff at tazkiyah.org
His eminence, Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Saalih al-'Uthaymeen (Rahimahullaah) was asked concerning bid'ah (innovations).
Then he answered the sayer: The Prophet (Sallallahu 'Alaihi Wa Sallam) said regarding innovations: "Be careful about the invented matters for every innovation is misguidance and every misguidance is in the fire."
And if this is so, then one has to be warned from following any innovation, whether it is initial or continual, for it is, as the Messenger (Sallallahu 'Alaihi Wa Sallam) said: "in the fire", meaning that misguidance is the cause of the punishment in the fire and the Messenger (Sallallahu 'Alaihi Wa Sallam) warned his nation from the innovations necessitating that that they are a sheer corruption because the Messenger (Sallallahu 'Alaihi Wa Sallam) said generally concerning this: "every innovation is misguidance".
Therefore the innovations in reality are indirect criticisms of the Shari'ah; because they necessicate the implication that the Shar'iah is incomplete and that the innovation is a more perfect form of worship to seek nearness to Allaah as the innovator claims.
Then to the innovator we say: "Every innovation is misguidance and every misguidance is in the fire". And it is a duty to warn about all the innovations and that mankind not worship Allaah except by what Allaah and His Messenger (Sallallahu 'Alaihi Wa Sallam) have legislated.
In this way, one's imam will truly be the Prophet (Sallallahu 'Alaihi Wa Sallam), for whomsoever follows the path of innovation then he has made the innovator his imam in this innovation, instead of the Prophet (Sallallahu 'Alaihi Wa Sallam).
url reference:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041023004636/www.tazkiyah.org/readarticle.php?II=BDAH-00006
