Sunnah and Bid'ah
The
Straight Path has been laid out. Our job is only to follow it, not to try to
discover new paths.
Once some Jewish scholars said to Sayyidna Umar bin
Khattab, may Allah bless him, "The Qur'an contains a verse that if it had been
revealed to us, we would have designated a day to celebrate its revelation."
Upon enquiry they mentioned the verse: {This day have I
perfected your religion for you, completed my favor upon you, and have chosen
for you Islam as your religion} [Al-Maida 5:3] "Yes, I know, the time and
place when it was revealed," he replied.
Indeed it was a historic day. It was the day of Arafa during the
farewell Hajj (pilgrimage) of Prophet Muhammad . This
verse announced the completion of a historic process that had started
with the coming to earth of Sayyidna Adam, peace be upon him. Allah sent
His guidance with him and informed him that in the generations to come
there would be additional messengers. The process continued through the
124,000 prophets who were sent to different lands at different times. It
culminated with the coming of the Last Messenger, Muhammad peace be
upon him. He received revelations over a twenty-three year period. Then
during the Farewell Hajj, on the plain of Arafat, in the presence of
nearly 150,000 companions, this verse announced that it was all done!
The full significance of this
message must never escape us. Islam is unlike all previous revealed
religions in one crucial respect. All of them came with expiration
dates. Islam has none. The Guidance from Allah had been completed. The
religion had been perfected. There would be no new message, no new
prophet, no new Shariah, and no new command until the Last Day! The
Straight Path has been laid out. Our job is only to follow it, not to
try to discover new paths. In Jumuah khutbahs this Ummah has been
repeating the hadith: "I warn you of the newly
invented matters (in the religion), and every newly invented matter is
bid'ah, and every bid'ah is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the
Hellfire." (an-Nasaa'ee)
In Islamic terminology, Sunnah and
Bid'ah are antonyms. Sunnah literally means path, and it is the path
shown to us by the Prophet peace be upon him. This includes the Shariah
teachings derived from Qur'an, Hadith, the consensus of the companions,
and the ijtehad of the qualified imams. Bid'ah means adding or changing
articles of faith or religious practices. It can take many forms. One
may change the occasion of a prescribed act, thereby extending it to
occasions for which it was not meant. One may add restrictions on a
desired act that the Shariah had not imposed. One may change the style
or form of such an act. One may start doing something collectively that
was to be performed individually. Or one may change the Shariah status
of an act from permissible to mandatory. Of course, one may also add a
ritual where
none existed. These are all forms of bid'ah. They are all forbidden.
Bid'ah is like fake currency that tries
to drive out the good currency. By design it has the appearance of a
virtuous religious act. But it lies outside the Shariah. So do its
sources, which, in a great number of cases can be traced to non-Islamic
influence from surrounding communities with which Muslim communities
historically came into contact. Hence the telltale signs that set it
apart from Sunnah. First, bid'ahs normally vary from region to region---
and over time--- revealing their local, non-Islamic source. This is
unlike the genuine religious practices that maintain the same form
everywhere. No matter where he comes from, a follower of, say, Hanafi
Fiqh, will be offering salat in exactly the same way, right down to the
minutest detail - like when to raise the index finger. In contrast, the
bid'ah practices
surrounding, marriage or death in the Indo-Pak subcontinent vary from
those in Arabia or Africa.
Second, the bid'ah practices are
largely transmitted through oral tradition. Many of these have a
pseudo-legal, ritualistic framework of their own, but one would be hard
pressed to find it in the standard legal texts! Rather it lives in the
folklore.
This leads us to a simple test for
determining whether a commonly observed practice is sunnah or bid'ah. If
it is performed as a religious ritual, check it out in a reliable book
of fiqh. If it is not there,
most probably it is not a sunnah. Example: consider the practice of
shaking hands after finishing the salat. Open the chapter on salat in
your fiqh book. It lists all the steps, in great detail, involved in
offering salat. Does it mention the handshake as well? No. There is our
clue that it is a bid'ah, which it is. Similarly look at all the rituals
normally performed upon the death of a person. Again the fiqh books
describe in great detail how the funeral and burial should be done. But
do they also mention that on the third day (or the tenth or the
fortieth), a gathering should be arranged where participants should
recite the Qur'an for the benefit of the deceased and after which they
should be served with dinner? Again the answer is no. Again the reason
is that all of these common practices are not part of the Shariah. They
are an addition or bid'ah.
Of course, this is not a legal
principle. (For obvious reasons it can't be for who is to stop someone
from writing a book of fiqh that includes the bid'ahs?) Ultimately one
has to turn to scholars to determine whether an act is a bid'ah or
sunnah. Yet this test can help an ordinary person raise questions about
common practices. One factor that helps the propagation of bid'ahs is
the attitude that treats religion as hobby rather than as the serious
business of submitting to the command of Allah. Pure submission may be
"boring." It demands sacrifice. Bid'ahs are fun. On top of
that they "promise" reward in the hereafter. This makes the bid'ah more
deadly than ordinary sins. From an act we know to be a sin, we can
repent. But how can one repent from a wrong that he considers to be
right?But in reality bid'ahs are a tremendous burden. Islamic teachings are simple and easy. When a person dies, Islam teaches that
others should be providing food to the bereaved family. Bid'ah requires the
exact opposite. Other bid'ahs are also like that. A burden. And the burden in
the Hereafter will be much bigger, for "every bid'ah is in the Fire."
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