What is the ruling on using prayer beads for dhikr?

The questioner : Is using prayer beads for dhikr considered a religious innovation if the person using them believes that there is no extra reward or merit in them? And is it established from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah that he said they are not an innovation?

The Shaykh : It is established from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) that prayer beads are not an innovation, but we do not adopt his view on this specific 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 major and minor matter. Furthermore, we are not Taymiyyis. If we wanted to affiliate ourselves with a non-infallible man, each of us would have remained with his original 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 leaders in knowledge, righteousness, and piety, and so on. If we wanted to remain followers of a single imam, we would have stayed as we were, following our fathers and grandfathers in that. But Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has guided us to follow the Sunnah and not to prefer anything that contradicts this Sunnah. Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), like many who hold that prayer beads are not an innovation, only noted one thing: that they are 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, while everyone, from Ibn Taymiyyah to those before and after him, acknowledges that prayer beads were not in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)—as I established in the first volume of *Series of Weak and Fabricated Hadiths* under the hadith "The prayer beads are a good reminder"—and I expanded on this in my response to Shaykh Abdullah al-Habashi, where I stated that prayer beads were not known in the time of the Companions, nor were they known in the language of the Arabs, because in the Arabic language, *al-sabha* means the voluntary prayer. Applying this term to this system, this chain of beads of different shapes and colors, is a later linguistic convention. Likewise, the prayer beads themselves are a later religious innovation. Some people have overlooked that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: If we look at the view of Ibn Taymiyyah and others that prayer beads are a means for counting, did the Messenger (peace be upon him) not come to the people with a Sunnah for counting the dhikr that he commanded his Ummah to perform or encouraged them to count? Undoubtedly, that 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 a command from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to count and tally the dhikr with the fingers. He did not merely explain this legal ruling, but he coupled the explanation with the wisdom. We can say that the operative cause of the command to count the dhikr and tasbih with the fingers is that he (peace be upon him) said: By this, he (peace be upon him) referred to the saying of Allah the Exalted: Thus, these fingers will be a witness for their owner on the Day of Resurrection that they remembered Allah and glorified 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 Abu Dawud narrated with his authentic chain from Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), or from Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As—I am uncertain now, but the second is likely closer to the truth—that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) used to count the tasbih with his right hand, or he said: "I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) counting the tasbih with his right hand". If we look at prayer beads from the side that they are a means for counting and tallying 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 and pure testimony. Turning away from this Sunnah, which is established by his saying (peace be upon him) and his action, with the explanation of the wisdom of that testimony, and turning to this, namely the prayer beads—while acknowledging that they were not in the time of the Messenger—is a means. We say that means are like ends. If a means exists and the reason for acting upon it is present, but it is not acted upon, did the Salaf, after prayer beads came into existence, keep their prayer beads in their pockets and, when the prayer ended, take them out and sit to count the prescribed dhikr with the prayer beads? Or did they count the tasbih with their right hands? Undoubtedly, they did the latter. Prayer beads are an innovation of the Sufis, and that is enough. Since this innovation contradicts the Sunnah, we do not see the correctness of Ibn Taymiyyah's statement regarding the permissibility of using them, nor that of those who agreed with him on this statement. We have sufficient means in what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) explained to us of this good means of counting with the right hand, both in saying and action. To this day, we see that the manifestation of these prayer beads is an imitation by some Muslims in the past of the Christians. The origin of the prayer beads is from the Christians, who took them from the Buddhists. It is an old innovation from some followers of previous religions before Islam, which seeped into the Christians, and they innovated it just as they innovated monasticism and other things. Then it seeped from the Christians to the Muslims. Therefore, we do not see the permissibility of counting with prayer beads because it contradicts the authentic Sunnah, in addition to what has preceded: prayer beads bring about behavioral deviations for their owners. We find many people who display asceticism, righteousness, and piety hanging them around their necks. We find some Egyptian reciters, in particular, wrapping the prayer beads around their wrist and raising their hand like this while reciting the Qur'an. You find him doing this once and like this another time, waving it like this, in various shapes and colors, which falls under showing off in worship. I know some shaykhs in Damascus, al-Sham, who used to display that he was scrupulous and pious. One of the ways he did this was by putting his hand in the pocket of his robe, with the prayer beads in his hand, keeping the prayer beads in his hand but not showing them; rather, he hid them in the robe. When a passerby would pass by and greet him, he would do this: "And upon you be peace," and the prayer beads would fly 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 prayer beads? One of the misguidances of the common people is that they say that when the Messenger (peace be upon him) died, he left behind such and such, and among what he left behind were prayer beads. This is part of their misguidance. All these harms result from turning away from the Sunnah and holding onto the innovation. In brief, I say that looking at prayer beads as merely a means, while that contradicts the prescribed means, which is counting with the fingers, results in many behavioral harms from using prayer beads that corrupt sound intentions. Therefore, we do not see the permissibility of using prayer beads.
Please go ahead.