Guidelines for Ruling on Innovation (Bid'ah) for One Who Commits an Innovation
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
The questioner asks, may Allah grant you success: Is it permissible to declare a person an innovator (mubtadi') for committing even a single innovation? Or are there guidelines for declaring someone an innovator?
Answer:
There is a distinction here. If he committed the innovation while knowing that it is an innovation, then he is an innovator, because he accepted it, whether he was the one who invented it or someone else did and he agreed to it and acted upon it. If he knows that it is an innovation and acts upon it, it is an innovation, even if it was not of his own invention but of someone else's. However, if he does not know that it is an innovation, and he thinks it is not an innovation, and he sees people doing it and thinks it is prescribed due to his ignorance, then he is excused for his ignorance. Yes.
The questioner asks, may Allah grant you success: Is it permissible to declare a person an innovator (mubtadi') for committing even a single innovation? Or are there guidelines for declaring someone an innovator?
Answer:
There is a distinction here. If he committed the innovation while knowing that it is an innovation, then he is an innovator, because he accepted it, whether he was the one who invented it or someone else did and he agreed to it and acted upon it. If he knows that it is an innovation and acts upon it, it is an innovation, even if it was not of his own invention but of someone else's. However, if he does not know that it is an innovation, and he thinks it is not an innovation, and he sees people doing it and thinks it is prescribed due to his ignorance, then he is excused for his ignorance. Yes.
Source
شرح لمعة الاعتقاد [ صالح الفوزان ]، بداية من قوله : وقد أمرنا بالاقتفاء لآثارهم، والاهتداء بمنارهم — islamhouse.com (1:04:07)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.