Sitting with the People of Innovation and the Criterion for Religious Innovation
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: May Allah preserve you, what is the ruling on sitting with the people of innovation under the pretext of getting close to them and teaching them the correct religion?
Answer:
Never get close to the people of innovation. They will influence you; they will influence you, and you will commit a sin by sitting with them. Stay away from them unless there is a need to debate them and clarify the falsehood they are upon, and you are qualified for that, in which case there is no harm within those limits.
But who are the people of innovation? Today, people have reached the point where anyone who disagrees with them is called an innovator, especially the young people (may Allah guide them); anyone who is not of their opinion is called an innovator. Bid'ah (religious innovation) has criteria that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) explained:Sahih Muslim 1718a Sunan Abi Dawud 4607Sahih (Al-Albani) Sunan Abi Dawud 4607Sahih (Al-Albani) The intended meaning is innovation in religion. As for innovation in matters of customs, clothing, industries, and lawful food and drink, this is not called bid'ah. Bid'ah in religion is making something part of the religion that is not part of it; that is bid'ah. Yes.
He says: May Allah preserve you, what is the ruling on sitting with the people of innovation under the pretext of getting close to them and teaching them the correct religion?
Answer:
Never get close to the people of innovation. They will influence you; they will influence you, and you will commit a sin by sitting with them. Stay away from them unless there is a need to debate them and clarify the falsehood they are upon, and you are qualified for that, in which case there is no harm within those limits.
But who are the people of innovation? Today, people have reached the point where anyone who disagrees with them is called an innovator, especially the young people (may Allah guide them); anyone who is not of their opinion is called an innovator. Bid'ah (religious innovation) has criteria that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) explained:
'A'isha reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: He who innovates things in our affairs for which there is no valid (reason) (commits sin) and these are to be rejected.
من أحدث في أمرنا هذا ما ليس منه فهو ردAvoid novelties, for every novelty is an innovation
وإياكم ومحدثات الأمور فإن كل محدثة بدعةevery novelty is an innovation, and every innovation is an error
كل محدثة بدعة وكل بدعة ضلالة
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، محاضرات في العقيدة والدعوة-60-أسباب محبة الله للعبد|صالح الفوزان|العام|كبار العلماء — youtube.com (1:00:45)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.