Are the lines in the carpets in mosques a type of religious innovation, or are they truly a religious innovation?

The Shaykh : As for adopting lines in some mosques today, and how some manufacturers responded to the desire of some mosque owners or those who built mosques at their own expense by printing white or exposed lines on the carpets, so that when the carpet is laid, the lines are already printed without any cost, I do not see, or I do not doubt, that this line is not only a religious innovation. It is well known that every matter that occurred after the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is a new occurrence and a religious innovation linguistically. However, a new matter, from a sound perspective, may not be a religious innovation but rather a prescribed public benefit. I have actually spoken about this issue many times, sometimes briefly and sometimes at length, and I said: For a thing to be a prescribed public benefit, the motivation for it must not, first, have existed in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and second, the motivation for it must not be the Muslims' negligence in performing some of their religious obligations. An example of this is the non-prescription of the call to prayer for the two Eid prayers. Everyone knows that introducing the call to prayer for the two Eid prayers has a benefit for people so that they know when to proceed to the Eid prayer, just as the call to prayer is for the five daily prayers. In fact, pure reason, independent of following the Sunnah, would say that the call to prayer for the Eid prayer is more deserving than the call to prayer for the midday prayer, for example, or the afternoon prayer, because the time for the Eid prayer is somewhat tight. But despite this, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not establish this call to prayer. So if someone were to say: There is a benefit in legislating this call to prayer, the obstacle to that is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not do it. Therefore, some of the precise scholars among the later generations mentioned a new classification of the Sunnah:
We know that some scholars divide the Sunnah into confirmed and recommended. This is the Sunnah of worship. Then came the latest and new classification of another type, but it is sound:
He divided the Sunnah into two categories: the Sunnah of action and the Sunnah of omission. That is, what the Messenger (peace be upon him) did of acts of worship, it is prescribed to do, and what he (may Allah's prayer and peace be upon him) omitted of acts of worship, it is prescribed to omit. The example is the Messenger's (peace be upon him) not doing or legislating the call to prayer for the two Eid prayers, for the prayer for rain, for the prayer of the solar and lunar eclipses, and so on.
So when we come to the line, what drives people today to extend the line in mosques, whether it is a string as is the case in Jordan and Syria, or printed as is the case with the carpets we see today in some of your mosques? It might be said that there is a benefit in it for straightening the rows. But what drove people to adopt this line?
In my belief, it is the negligence of scholars, on one hand, in following the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), which indicates that he (may Allah's prayer and peace be upon him) had special concern for ordering people to straighten their rows, to the extent that he sometimes exaggerated in that and would say: . So the imams of mosques turned away from such a reminder that is authentic from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in various phrases, all of which converge on the fact that it is obligatory for the imam to have special concern for directing the worshippers and attending to straightening their rows. When the imams of mosques neglected this Sunnah of caring for straightening the rows, except for those whom Allah wills, the result was the disorder of the rows and the lack of training for worshippers in straightening their rows. So they found the solution in that by tying them with a string. This will undoubtedly result in the continued turning away from the old Sunnah, plus the fact that when worshippers go out into the open for some occasion, as we were today, for example, in the camp, they cannot straighten their rows because there is no string there, and we do not go far to remember the prayer in the prayer place. There is no string in the Eid prayer place. Therefore, the imam will find it very difficult if he wants to straighten the rows, because these people have trained and accustomed themselves to praying on the string. And this string is not available in every place. So the meaning of this religious innovation is blocking the Sunnah. The scholars agreed, even those who said of the good religious innovation, that the bad religious innovation is the one that contradicts the Sunnah. And this truly contradicts the Sunnah. It should be a religious innovation by the agreement of the scholars, even those who divide religious innovation into five categories as is well known, and a fortiori those who do not say except the saying of the Messenger (peace be upon him): .