The ruling on using prayer beads and imitating the Sufis
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: Is it better in these days to leave off the prayer beads, because there may be imitation of the Sufis in them?
Answer:
No. Sometimes a person takes the prayer beads to count the tasbih and dhikr, just as he counts with pebbles or with his fingers. If a person takes them merely for counting and tallying, there is nothing wrong with that, provided he does not believe there is any special merit in them. He does not believe there is any special merit in them. They are equal to pebbles and equal to fingers in counting the tasbih and takbir. There is nothing wrong with that. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: Is it better in these days to leave off the prayer beads, because there may be imitation of the Sufis in them?
Answer:
No. Sometimes a person takes the prayer beads to count the tasbih and dhikr, just as he counts with pebbles or with his fingers. If a person takes them merely for counting and tallying, there is nothing wrong with that, provided he does not believe there is any special merit in them. He does not believe there is any special merit in them. They are equal to pebbles and equal to fingers in counting the tasbih and takbir. There is nothing wrong with that. Yes.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل ومن كيده : أنه يُحسّن إلى أرباب التخلي والزهد والرياضة العمل بها — islamhouse.com (1:10:35)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.