Bid'a (innovation in religion)

Brief

In the extract, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya holds that innovations at graves revive an old shirk, and that the innovator believes he honours the prophets and the righteous while he contradicts their way ¹ ².

The author's position

He sets out a list that contrasts what the Prophet ﷺ forbade at graves with what people did in his own time: praying there, lighting lamps, building mosques over graves, raising them, writing on them, and making them festivals ¹. He answers those who say that prayer in a graveyard is forbidden because of its impurity: the prohibition is for the shirk that attaches to the one who prays there ³.

Examples the extract gives

The report of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri weeping over what had been introduced in his time ⁴ ⁵.
Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him)'s cutting of the tree under which the Companions had pledged, so that people would not be tempted by it ⁴ ⁶.
The hadith of Dhat Anwat, when some Companions asked for a tree on which to hang their weapons, and the Prophet said that this was the way of earlier peoples ⁴.

For the reader

These are the author's rulings, presented as his. The general definition of innovation in the scholars and the schools is not yet included and needs its own sources.

Opinions on the question

The question: How is what was legislated told apart from what was introduced in worship, and why is an innovation dangerous?

First opinion · Sunni tradition (the museum's frame)Main reference

Every innovation is misguidance, and the worst are those that lead to shirk at graves; the Sunna is the measure

Ibn Qayyim holds that innovations in visiting graves and in praying at them contradict the explicit prohibitions, and that those who innovate distort the text and read it against its sense. He cites Umar's cutting of the tree under which the Companions pledged, and Abu Sa'id al-Khudri's weeping over what had been introduced. He argues that committing a grave sin after shirk is lighter than introducing into religion what God has not authorised.

Held by: ابن قيم الجوزية Ighathat al-Lahfan

Basis: Extract from Ighathat al-Lahfan — Rumi Efendi pp. 6-8 (innovations against the Sunna), pp. 16-17 (the reports of Umar and Abu Sa'id), p. 6 (distortion by the misguided and the ignorant)

Sources

Extract from Ighathat al-Lahfan — Rumi Efendi , p.8

Extract from Ighathat al-Lahfan — Rumi Efendi , p.13

Extract from Ighathat al-Lahfan — Rumi Efendi , p.4

Extract from Ighathat al-Lahfan — Rumi Efendi , p.16

Extract from Ighathat al-Lahfan — Rumi Efendi , p.17

Extract from Ighathat al-Lahfan — Rumi Efendi , p.19

Provision as Lordship's gift and the imamate as the gift of divinity

Sha'rawi separates two gifts: provision is a gift of Lordship that believer and disbeliever both receive, because God called all creatures into life and secured their sustenance, while the imamate and the values of the way are a gift of divinity that only the believer receives. He reads Abraham's prayer for the land's safety and provision as a request that the blessing last, and holds that the enjoyment of this world is small however varied.