What is the ruling on tasbih with a misbaha, and is it established from Shaykh al-Islam that it is not a bid'ah?

The questioner : Is tasbih with a misbaha considered a bid'ah if the person doing the tasbih believes that there is no extra reward or virtue in it, and is it established from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah that he said it is not a bid'ah?

The Shaykh : It is established from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) that the misbaha is not a bid'ah, but we do not adopt his view in this issue. It is sufficient for us that we follow him in most of his opinions and independent legal reasoning, but we do not agree with him in everything he held, because he is not an infallible prophet whom we must follow in every big and small matter. Furthermore, we are not Taymiyyis. If we wanted to affiliate ourselves to a non-infallible man, each of us would have remained on his old school of jurisprudence. I personally was a Hanafi, so I would have remained a Hanafi, and Zayd was a Shafi'i, so he would have remained a Shafi'i, because these imams are attested to as imams, and for their knowledge, righteousness, and piety, and so on. If we wanted to remain followers of a single imam, we would have remained as we were, following our fathers and grandfathers in that. But Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has guided us to following the Sunnah and to not preferring anything that contradicts this Sunnah.
Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), like many who hold that the misbaha is not a bid'ah, only noted one thing: that it is a means for counting, a means and not an end. However, he (may Allah have mercy on him) missed something, indeed several things, which I have mentioned and pointed out in some of my writings or comments. First, with the acknowledgment of everyone, from Ibn Taymiyyah to those before him and those after him, that the misbaha was not in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), as I established in the first volume of *Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Da'ifah wa al-Mawdu'ah* under the hadith , and I expanded on that explanation in my response to Shaykh Abdullah al-Habashi. I mentioned that the misbaha was not known in the time of the Companions, nor was it known in the language of the Arabs, because the misbaha in the language of the Arabs is the voluntary prayer. As for applying this term to this system, to this chain of beads of different shapes and colors, that is a later linguistic convention, just as the misbaha itself is a later religious innovation. It has been hidden from some people that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: If the view of Ibn Taymiyyah and others regarding the misbaha is from the angle that it is a means for counting, do you not see that the Messenger (peace be upon him) did not come to the people with a Sunnah for counting the dhikr that he ordered his ummah to perform or encouraged them to keep track of and count? No doubt that this came in two ways: by his saying (peace be upon him) and by his action. As for his saying, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) passed by some women, gestured to them with his hand to greet them, and said: This is an order from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to count the dhikr and keep track of it with the fingers. He did not just clarify this legal ruling, but he coupled the clarification with the wisdom, and we can say the operative cause, of the order to count the dhikr and do tasbih with the fingers. He (peace be upon him) said: By this, he (peace be upon him) is referring to the saying of Allah the Exalted: These fingers will be a witness for their owner on the Day of Resurrection that they remembered Allah and did tasbih to Allah, and so on. People are heedless or turning away from this Sunnah. This is the first explanation from the Messenger by his saying and by his action as well, where Abu Dawud narrated with his authentic chain from Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), or from Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-As, and the doubt is from me now, and perhaps the second is closer to the truth, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) or said: So if we look at the misbaha from the side that it is a means for counting and keeping track of the number, the Messenger (peace be upon him) came with a better means that testifies for its owner on the Day of Resurrection with a good, pure testimony. So turning away from this Sunnah, which is established by his saying (peace be upon him) and his action, with the clarification of the wisdom by that testimony, turning away from this and that, and saying that the misbaha, with the acknowledgment that it was not in the time of the Messenger, is a means—we say that means are like ends. If a means is found and the motive for acting upon it exists, but it is not acted upon, did the Salaf, after the misbaha was found, put their misbahas in their pockets, and when the prayer ended, take them out and sit to count the prescribed dhikr with the misbaha? Or did they count the tasbih with their right hands? No doubt they did it this way. And the misbaha is from the innovations of the Sufis, and that is enough. With the contradiction of this bid'ah to the Sunnah, we do not see the correctness of Ibn Taymiyyah's statement regarding the permissibility of using it, nor those who agreed with him in this statement. We have sufficiency in using what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) explained to us of this good means, counting with the right hand, by saying and by action. To this day, we see manifestations of this misbaha that it is an imitation by some Muslims, in the past, of the Christians. The misbaha originated from the Christians; it seeped into the Muslims. The Christians took it from the Buddhists, so it is an old bid'ah from some followers of the previous religions before Islam, which seeped into the Christians and they innovated it, just as they innovated monasticism and other things, and then it seeped from the Christians to the Muslims. So we do not see the permissibility of counting with the misbaha because it contradicts the authentic Sunnah, in addition to what has preceded. The misbaha brings about behavioral deviations for its users. We find many of those who display asceticism, righteousness, and piety hanging them around their necks. We find some Egyptian reciters, in particular, wrapping the misbaha around their wrist and raising their hand like this while reading the Qur'an. You find him doing it like this once and like this once, waving it like this, in various shapes and colors, which falls under showing off in worship. And I know some shaykhs in Damascus, al-Sham, who used to display that he was scrupulous and pious, and among that was that he would put his hand in the pocket of his robe, and the misbaha was in his hand, and the misbaha was in his hand, not showing it, but he had hidden it in the robe. When a passerby passed by him and greeted him, and he did this, "And upon you be peace," the misbaha flew into the air. What was hidden became apparent. This is cold piety and a colder affectation. Why is all this? It is from the whispering of Satan to the children of Adam, and the proof of that is his saying (peace be upon him): Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) count the tasbih with a misbaha? One of the misguidances of the common people is that they say that when the Messenger (peace be upon him) died, he left such and such, and among what he left was the misbaha. This is from their misguidance. All these harms result from turning away from the Sunnah and holding onto the bid'ah. In brief, I say that looking at the misbaha as a means only, while that contradicts the prescribed means, which is counting with the fingers, results in many behavioral harms from using the misbaha that corrupt sound intentions. Therefore, we do not see the permissibility of using the misbaha. Please.