The Necessity of Knowing the Criterion for Religious Innovation

The Shaykh : But the important point that should be noted is that among these few—by way of example—there are many who fall into religious innovation in the religion, and that is only because they have not established the criterion for religious innovation. He says to himself: "Every innovation is misguidance," as the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said, because he is of the small group who were guided by the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) which declared every innovation to be misguidance. But so that these few do not fall into the very innovation they are fleeing from by adopting the general rule: they must investigate the matter of innovation to distinguish it from what falls under the generality of the text, so that they do not act upon it; because his saying: encompasses it, even if this matter that falls under this general text has a basis in the Shari'ah. The matter becomes confusing for many people when they see some texts encouraging certain righteous deeds, so they take the generality of them, and they do not notice that some of this generality is encompassed by that general text: ; so distinguishing between this encompassing, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): and the encompassing in other texts where they command certain acts of worship or encourage certain acts of worship in a general manner; here much confusion and ambiguity arises for some people.