What is the means of resolving disagreement regarding acts of worship?

The questioner : The third question: What is your opinionThe Shaykh : if one disagrees with others on issues related to acts of worship, such as determining the duration for shortening the prayer, the prayer of lights (Tasbih), and others? He stated that the opinion he rejected is an innovation (bid'ah) because if it is more probable in his view that the duration is not fixed, then fixing it in his view is a contradiction of the Sunnah, and contradicting the Sunnah in acts of worship is an innovation (bid'ah), and so on. Is it permissible to label the dissenting party as an innovator (mubtadi')?

The Shaykh : There is a verbal error in the question, likely a verbal one. Labeling the dissenting party as an innovator (mubtadi') is one thing, and labeling the issue in which the Sunnah was contradicted as an innovation (bid'ah) is another. The distinction is that saying "So-and-so is an innovator (mubtadi')" is one thing, and saying "This issue that So-and-so holds is an innovation (bid'ah)" is another. This distinction is very necessary, because we believe, along with the precise scholars, foremost among them Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), that no scholar is free from error. This is a matter on which no two people differ, as they used to say in old times, "No two camels butt heads in it." No scholar is free from falling into error.
Now, the implications of this agreed-upon matter: The error may be in legalizing what Allah has forbidden, or in forbidding what Allah has permitted, or in denying a Sunnah, or in accepting an innovation (bid'ah). This is a reality that cannot be denied. Therefore, if a scholar, whatever scholar he is, says that this issue is lawful, but he knows that a scholar of knowledge said it is forbidden, he will say that the one who says it is forbidden is in error, without doubt. And he, in turn, is in error, but he is rewarded because he did not say it except through independent legal reasoning (ijtihad). And so the chain of the topic continues until we reach the core of the issue. If a claimant, like me, claims that the issue mentioned above in some examples is an innovation (bid'ah), I do not mean that the one who said this word, and I see it as an innovation (bid'ah), is described as an innovator (mubtadi'). Because the word "innovator (mubtadi')" means that it is his nature and his habit to innovate. And so he took this active participle name. This is a well-known example.
For example, the unjust judge must have been just in some government in his life. We will not say that he is just merely because he was just once. He takes this description only if justice predominates in him, and he is called just even if he was unjust in some cases. The criterion is what predominates in a person, whether good or evil, correct or incorrect, and so on. Therefore, there is no strangeness in saying that So-and-so erred in saying this is lawful while it is forbidden, or vice versa, or in saying that this statement is an innovation (bid'ah) in the religion, because this is our opinion. But we do not mean by this that the one from whom this innovation (bid'ah) came is an innovator (mubtadi'), for the reason mentioned above, that the word "innovator (mubtadi')" means that it is his affair to innovate. Therefore, we must distinguish when we hear this. And I feel that the intent of this question is my statement that I made more than twenty years ago, which is perhaps still printed today, and I am still insistent on it: that placing the hands on the chest after bowing (ruku') is an innovation (bid'ah). This does not mean that the one who adopts this is an innovator (mubtadi'), but I believe that this statement is an innovation (bid'ah). Why? Because the righteous Salaf did not do it. And this is the definition of innovation (bid'ah) according to all scholars. Yes, those who say that this placement is a Sunnah have their evidence. Therefore, their status is like my status and the status of others with us in this issue. They are called to choose between being rewarded one reward or two rewards, or one group is rewarded one reward and the other group two rewards. But this expression that it is an innovation (bid'ah) means that the Salaf did not do it, and it is an act of worship. So I do not know why you object to this issue and do not object, for example, to the statements attributed to Abu Hanifa in which he contradicted the Sunnah, or perhaps contradicted the statements of the Imams of the Salaf and the Companions, and so on. Yet he remains an Imam among the Imams of the Muslims, because the criterion is what predominates in him of correctness, not what slipped out of him of error. And so, as Imam Malik (may Allah have mercy on him) said, "None of us is there who has not been refuted and refuted others, except the occupant of this grave." Perhaps the matter has become clear with this speech regarding that question. Yes.