Bidi'a (Innovation in Islam)
BID'A (INNOVATION IN ISLAM) BY MUKHTAR HABIB (Ph.D) My talk will aim to clarify some possible misunderstandings of the concept of innovation (bida) in Islam, in light of the prophetic hadith state, "Beware of matters newly begun, for every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell." The sources I use are traditional Islamic sources, and my discussion will centre on three points: 1. The first point is that scholars say that the above hadith does not refer to all new things without restriction, but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the validity of. The use of the word "every" in the hadith does not indicate an absolute generalization, for there are many examples of similar generalizations in the Qur'an and sunna that are not applicable without restriction, but rather are qualified by restrictions found in other primary textual evidence. 2....