Is it not an innovation to send blessings upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) other than in the forms He taught us, namely the Ibrahimiyyah form?

The questioner : Our Shaykh, we are commanded by the command of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) to send blessings upon the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), based on His saying: .

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : And when we send blessings upon the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), this is an act of worship. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) came and explained to us how to send blessings upon him, just as He explained to us the obligatory prayer. So it was said: "How do we send blessings upon you, O Messenger of Allah?" He said: These are the hadiths, and they came in several forms. So how is it permissible for us to deviate from this Prophetic command when we say, for example, "O Allah, send blessings upon our master Muhammad" or "O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad" or the like, since the Messenger taught us how to send blessings?

The Shaykh : I mean, do you want to say that He taught us how to send blessings always and forever, and did not teach us how to send blessings in the prayer?

The questioner : I mean, this is what I want to ask.

The Shaykh : May Allah guide you. Answer the question. May Allah guide you.

The questioner : Not at all.

The Shaykh : This is the answer. Sometimes a person speaks in a way that his words can be understood in two ways... I am asking a question to remove the possibility of one of the meanings. He says, "I, this is what I want." How do you want it? I do not understand what you want. Now I have finally answered. I say that our understanding of this Prophetic teaching is that it is what is intended. Then the previous question arises: How do we say, "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said," when we do not say: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad, as You sent blessings upon Ibrahim and upon the family of Ibrahim, etc."? Because this is how we were taught. This is your question, may Allah bless you. It is a good example of what we constantly circle around, always and forever. And I believe that what we circle around is a neglected aspect of jurisprudence among the scholars, let alone those below them. It is that it is not permissible to act upon general or absolute texts that have not been acted upon in their generality and comprehensiveness. If there is a general text that implies acting in a certain situation, but we know that the righteous Salaf did not act upon this concept that we derived from the general text, then the verse says: The hadith, as I said, taught us to send blessings in the form of the Ibrahimiyyah prayer. Now, a student of knowledge like me, do you believe that the righteous Salaf and those after them until today, the Muslims... that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), whenever he was mentioned, one of them would stand to apply this command and say: "O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon his family"? Do you know that this was the case?

The questioner: No.

The Shaykh : Now, the answer, as far as you know, is that this command is not intended to mean "whenever the Messenger (peace be upon him) is mentioned." This generality is not intended. Therefore, it is not permissible for us to rely on our understanding of general texts without referring to the application of these general texts by the Salaf. Otherwise, we would have opened a door of innovation that cannot be closed. And we would establish the argument against ourselves before these innovators, whom we deny many of the acts of worship by which they seek nearness to Allah (Mighty and Majestic). We say to them: "This is an innovation." They will say to you: "What is wrong with us sending blessings upon the Messenger (peace be upon him)? We are remembering Allah." They will argue with us using the same argument you are using now: that the Messenger taught us to do this, and we are not doing this. The answer is that this general text, which you interpreted as the Prophetic teaching, was not applied in this general sense in practice. It was only applied in the prayer. So the teaching of the Messenger to the Muslims in general and to his Companions in particular on how to send blessings upon him is in the prayer, and not in the gatherings of knowledge where, whenever the Messenger (peace be upon him) is mentioned, we stand for a moment. The hadith, for example, might be a concise sentence: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said," or "The Messenger of Allah said: O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad," etc. Where did this become a practice? We have never seen it in the practice of the Salaf or the Khalaf, despite the amount of innovation in the religion among the Khalaf.