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Our duty against Bid'ah

shuaybi

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Needless to say, before we can perform our duty against bid'ah, the pre-requisite step is to be able to see and identify it. How many people are aware of the dangers of bid'ah but due to lack of understanding are nevertheless a victim of it. The reason is that bid'ah is extremely deceptive - it is disguised as a praiseworthy act that promises to earn abundant reward for the performer and bring him closer to Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام). The deception is increased because we see each and every Shia around us performing these acts. To add to this, the popular scholars keep promoting bid'ah as their standing and livelihood depends on it. 

It is sad to say that bid'ah has been so strongly established in the Shia religion that the actions performed under it are now considered to be pillars and foundation of religion. Anyone who dares speak against these actions risks being ridiculed and ostracized. If a Shia were to give up all the innovations practiced in the name of religion, he would find himself isolated, cut-off and lonely. But such is the path on which a true Shia must tread in order to prove his loyalty to Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام).

Please refer to our previous two articles on bid'ah:

    Definition and Scope of Bid’ah
    Dangers of Bid’ah


Scholars must speak against bid'ah

Quote

رسولُ الله صلى الله عليه وآله : إذا ظهَرتِ البِدعُ في اُمّتي فلْيُظهِرِ العالِمُ علمَهُ ، فمَن لَم يَفعلْ فعَلَيهِ لَعنةُ اللّهِ

Rasool Allah (s) said: When the innovations appear in my community (ummah), the scholar must manifest his knowledge (I.e. speak against them). So the one who does not do so, upon him be the curse of Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى).

[Al Kafi V 1 – The Book Of Intellect and Ignorance CH 19 H 2]

Quote

امام على عليه السلام : أفضَلُ عِبادِ الله إمامٌ عادِلٌ، هُدِِِىَ، فَأقامَ سُنَّةً مَعلومَةً، وأماتَ بِدعَةً مَجهولَةً

Imam Ali (عليه السلام) said: The most virtuous of Allah's servants near Allah is a just leader, who is guided and guides others, and who has established the known traditions, and who has abolished the doubtful/problematic (majhool) innovations.

[Nahjul Balagha, Serman 164]

Quote

رسولُ الله صلى الله عليه وآله : من أتى ذا بدْعةٍ فعطَّمهُ فإنَّما يَسْعى في هَدْمِ الإسلام

Rasool Allah (s) said: If one comes across an innovation and appreciates it (sides with it), so rather he has assisted in the demolition of Al Islam

[Al Kafi V 1 – The Book Of Intellect and Ignorance CH 19 H 3]


We must disassociate from the people of bid'ah
Below is a very strong hadith that highlights the danger of bid'ah.

Quote

مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ الْحُسَيْنِ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ أَبِي نَصْرٍ عَنْ دَاوُدَ بْنِ سِرْحَانَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللَّهِ ع قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص إِذَا رَأَيْتُمْ أَهْلَ الرَّيْبِ وَ الْبِدَعِ مِنْ بَعْدِي فَأَظْهِرُوا الْبَرَاءَةَ مِنْهُمْ وَ أَكْثِرُوا مِنْ سَبِّهِمْ وَ الْقَوْلَ فِيهِمْ وَ الْوَقِيعَةَ وَ بَاهِتُوهُمْ كَيْلَا يَطْمَعُوا فِي الْفَسَادِ فِي الْإِسْلَامِ وَ يَحْذَرَهُمُ النَّاسُ وَ لَا يَتَعَلَّمُوا مِنْ بِدَعِهِمْ يَكْتُبِ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ بِذَلِكَ الْحَسَنَاتِ وَ يَرْفَعْ لَكُمْ بِهِ الدَّرَجَاتِ فِي الْآخِرَةِ

The Messenger of Allah (s) said: When you will find people of bid'ah (innovation) and doubt/suspicion after me, do baraa' (disassociate) from them and increase in your insults (sabihim) to them, and oppose (them) and bring evidences against them so they may not become greedy in bringing fasaad (corruption) to Islam. You must warn people against them and do not learn their bid'ah (innovation). Allah will write for you hasanaat (good deeds) for this, and will raise you darajaat (levels) in the next life.

[Al Kafi V 2 – The Book Of Belief and Disbelief CH 163 H 4]

Quote

أَبُو عَلِيٍّ الْأَشْعَرِيُّ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَبْدِ الْجَبَّارِ عَنْ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنِ أَبِي نَجْرَانَ عَنْ عُمَرَ بْنِ يَزِيدَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللَّهِ ع أَنَّهُ قَالَ لَا تَصْحَبُوا أَهْلَ الْبِدَعِ وَ لَا تُجَالِسُوهُمْ فَتَصِيرُوا عِنْدَ النَّاسِ كَوَاحِدٍ مِنْهُمْ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص الْمَرْءُ عَلَى دِينِ خَلِيلِهِ وَ قَرِينِهِ

Abu Abd Allaah (عليه السلام) said: Do not befriend the Ahl Al-Bid'ah (People of Innovation), and do not sit with them, so you may become like one of them (according) to the people. The Messenger of Allaah (s) said: A man is upon the religion of his friends and associates.

[Al Kafi V 2 – The Book Of Belief and Disbelief CH 163 H 3]


Aabid vs Aalim

Quote

رسولُ الله صلى الله عليه وآله :  فَضلُ العالِمِ عَلى العابِدِ بِسَبعينَ دَرَجَةً، بَينَ كُلِّ دَرَجَتَينِ حُضْرُ الفَرَسِ سَبعينَ عاماً ؛ و ذلكَ أنَّ الشّيطانَ يَضَعُ البِدْعَةَ لِلنّاسِ فيُبصِرُها العالِمُ فَينهى عَنها، و العابِدُ مُقبِلٌ عَلى عِبادَتِهِ لا يَتَوَجَّهُ لَها و لايَعرِفُها

The Prophet (s) said: The knowledgeable man (aalim) is superior to the worshipper (aabid) by seventy degrees, the distance between two degrees spanning the gallop of a horse for seventy years; and this is because Satan plants an innovation (bid'ah) amongst the people which the knowledgeable man (aalim) notices and prohibits, whilst the worshipper attends to his worship neither taking any notice of it nor recognizing it.

[Rawdhat al Waaizin, #17]


An Aalim abolishes bid'ah because of his knowledge of the hadith. His knowledge leads him to limit his actions to those dictated by the Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام) and will never overstep the defined boundaries. Of all the popular speakers today who are quick to jump on to the Mimbar, how many are true Aalims as defined by Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام)?

(Also published on blog: https://ahlulbaytmission.org/2019/08/24/our-duty-against-bidah/)

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Jaane Rabb

Jaane Rabb 239

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Completely agree. Reading about the severity of innovation is what opened up my eyes initially and then I started analysing our stance towards innovation and acts in our practise not justified by the sources. Acts that I myself used to perform.

Shia love to quote "everything is allowed unless explicitly forbidden" but I don't think they actually understand what that means [me included]. The problem I find with that hadith in principle as mentioned once before, is why the act of congregational tarawih had to be performed before it was outlawed [as per Sunni narrations, not sure about Shi'I text]? Had congregational tarawih not been performed in front of divine eyes, would we have not had a judgement passed on it?

So the question arises, how many more acts in religion have we innovated which haven't taken place before divine eyes and so it is impossible to know of their permissibility and whether it brings us closer or takes us further away from Allah's pleasure. Because had congregational tarawih not taken place at that time and thus hadn't been outlawed, we'd probably be performing it ourselves today thinking; "What harm is there in reading tarawih together?!"

As for the scholar, while I don't hold a grudge against any, I do not trust them either. A family member of mine, who has studied in hawza for over 10 years and is a devout muqallid of one such very popular scholar told me something interesting once. He told me that a community said to that scholar that "if you don't give us permission to use khums money towards our matrimonial services then we will stop giving you khums money altogether". And thus that scholar agreed. And here I am to entrust my neck upon such scholar?

It has affected me so much that I'm even doubting the hadith science and want to stick to the absolute basics as laid out in the Qur'an. With the amount of forgeries, contradictions, discrepancies, accounts attributed to taqiyyah, etc. the hadith corpus doesn't fill me with certainty. One positive to come out of this test is that I've gotten closer to the Qur'an, which I had neglected and abandoned before.

May Allah guide us all.

Fi Amanillah

  • Advanced Member
shuaybi

shuaybi 50

Posted

  • Advanced Member
5 hours ago, Jaane Rabb said:

It has affected me so much that I'm even doubting the hadith science and want to stick to the absolute basics as laid out in the Qur'an. With the amount of forgeries, contradictions, discrepancies, accounts attributed to taqiyyah, etc. the hadith corpus doesn't fill me with certainty. One positive to come out of this test is that I've gotten closer to the Qur'an, which I had neglected and abandoned before.

Br Jaane Rabb -

Even the Qur'an can only be understood through the hadith of Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام). 

The allegation of hadith corruption is overplayed. The corruption is minor and detectable easily through simple litmus tests which the Imams (عليه السلام) have shown.

Please refer to the following article on my blog: https://ahlulbaytmission.org/2016/10/18/resolving-disparities-in-hadith/

Also refer to: https://ahlulbaytmission.org/about/

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      By Haji 2003 in Contemporania
         0 comments
      In 2010 we did a little project that involved analysing the content of Shiachat posts over the preceding few years to capture what people were saying about Music on Shiachat.
      The final report is attached.
      Music in Islam v.1.pdf
    • Haji 2003
      Prophet Yusuf's (عليه السلام) policy options
      By Haji 2003 in Contemporania
         10 comments
      [amended 19 August 2023 to include references to the Irish potato famine and two Bengal famines]
       


       
      Images taken at the Egyptian Museum, Tahrir Sq, Cairo. June 2024
      Surah Yusuf
      Prophet Yusuf (عليه السلام) advised Pharoah to hoard grains during the years of plenty. I think this episode is a noteworthy one because it shows how a State can intervene in the marketplace in order to improve the welfare of the wider population.
      But as we shall see below, the government intervention that Prophet Yusuf (عليه السلام) instigated favoured some sections of the population over others - it was not neutral in terms of how it spread gains and losses across the population.
      https://www.al-islam.org/sites/default/files/singles/633-yusuf.pdf
      While there is other material in the Qur'an that deals with transactions within the marketplace between individual participants - this story stands out in terms of its focus on state intervention. 
      I'll be coming back to this issue later - but I think it informs the discussions we have about Islam and contemporary socio-economic theories. In particular, I think it illustrates that Islam does see the State as an active market participant and that in an Islamic state, the role of government is not one that is hands-off or laissez-faire.
       
      What policy options did Prophet Yusuf (عليه السلام) have?
      We should not take the story as presented 'for granted'. In reality, the Prophet (عليه السلام). had a range of choices open to him, and thinking those through helps us better understand the reasons for the policy he undertook and the reason why. 
      No government interference
      Let's start with the simplest and easiest option that Pharoah's government could have pursued once they knew that there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine (as predicted by the Pharoah's dream which was interpreted by Prophet Yusuf (عليه السلام).) .
      Pharoah could have left the entire issue to the 'market'. During the years of plenty, the price of food would have fallen and people would have enjoyed a higher standard of living. For example, the lower grain prices could have led to people rearing more cattle and their diets would have improved with more meat.
      However, during the years of famine, grain prices would have risen and those people who had accumulated assets in the years of plenty would be able to pay the higher prices in the famine years. Those who had not had such assets would have starved.
      This assumes a fairly high level of self-discipline on the part of the population, but as Milton Friedman would say, the people would have been 'free to choose'. This is not a hypothetical option. The British lack of action to the Irish potato famine has been attributed to the British government's ideological adherence to a laissez-faire approach to macro-economics:
      https://kenanfellows.org/kfp-cp-sites/cp01/cp01/sites/kfp-cp-sites.localhost.com.cp01/files/LP3_BBC Irish Famine Article for Lab.pdf
       
      The Bengal famine is another one where government policy was different to the one Prophet Yusuf ((عليه السلام).) prescribed to Pharoah. In this instance, it was lack of government restriction over the action of privateers:
      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study
       
      Going back still further, the Great Bengal Famine of 1770 has been directly attributed to British government laissez-faire economic policy.
      https://worldfinancialreview.com/the-political-economy-of-famines-during-the-british-rule-in-india-a-critical-analysis/
       
      Light interference - provision of information
      A common policy option nowadays, where people do not want direct government intervention is to recommend improving the provision of information to the population who will then be better able to make the correct decisions for themselves. The government could have mounted an information campaign during the years of plenty and told people to hoard food themselves, hoarding when there is no shortage is allowed in Islam.
      However such attempts to influence awareness about the famine to come and changing peoples' attitudes so that they saved more than they were used to, would likely have run against increased social pressures on people to do the opposite. For example typically in societies as wealth increases there is social pressure to spend more, in this case, for example, have more lavish weddings.
      Also providing information would have been a practical benefit for the better off e.g. those with storage capacity, but not so good for the poor (who would not have room to store grain, for example).
      The government (using a bit more intervention) could have given tax breaks to people who owned granaries, to help the poor who needed such facilities. Again this solution would be to focus on market-based interventions and simply alter the working of the market using incentives. Current economic theory holds that people discount future risks very heavily i.e. they don't perceive them as much of a threat as they should. So, for example, just telling people they should save for a pension does not work. 
      So we can likely predict that the solutions described above would not have worked had they tried them.
      Heavy interference
      This is what they actually did.
      In times of plenty, Pharoah's government did not let prices fall as would have happened under free market conditions. They kept prices higher than they otherwise would have been because the government intervened and took excess stocks of grain out of circulation.
      All people (rich and poor alike) had no option but to pay the usual higher prices - effectively, the government was taxing everyone, but this was not seen as a loss by anyone because the prices were no higher than usual.
      The government stored the grain centrally and then they decided to release the grain according to their own policies.
      Assumptions made by Prophet Yusuf's government
      If you leave people to their own devices they may not make the best decisions (whether they are rich or poor), this could be due to: People do not have the resources to cater for future shocks (mainly the poor) People do not have the discipline to address future shocks (applies to both the rich and the poor) The government can make better decisions than individuals acting in their own self-interest because: The government can have access to more and better information than individuals do The government may not be as susceptible to a lack of self-discipline  
      Conclusion
      Of all the policy options open to Prophet Yusuf (عليه السلام) he advised Pharoah to pursue the most interventionist one. Some people may be tempted to call this socialist or communist, but I think those terms carry a lot of excess baggage, so I won't bring them into the discussion.
      What I think can be safely inferred from his choice of policy is a fundamental principle that could inform economic policy in any Islamic state.
      Facing an external shock to the Egyptian economy, he went for the option that would cause the least pain to the worst off in society. Other policy options would have caused more pain for the poorest but somewhat less for the better off.
       
       
    • shadow_of_light
      From Earth to Heaven
      By shadow_of_light in From Earth to Heaven
         0 comments
      Final part of my book, narrated by my dear friend, Mrs. Solmaz Rezayi
      Music: Below the Horizon by Guy Sweens
      Images created by ai bing image generator
    • Haji 2003
      Surfacing Satan
      By Haji 2003 in Contemporania
         3 comments
      Gains and losses
      It's tempting to think of human experiences, in terms of gains or losses, especially those which involve dealing with other people and groups. Some exchanges lend themselves to this calculus e.g. trade or war. However, a focus on the material element of the equation can often ignore the intangible aspects of the encounter or the trade. The latter can often have longer-term and more profound consequences.
      For believers faced with what can seem to be a loss in the material world, it's worth reflecting on what has been gained in the spiritual world. At the moment, in the Middle East there is a dynamic movement of politics and people being played out. Certain groups are gaining power, others are losing. Some people are dying and others are killing them. It's easy to construct the balance sheet in terms of human casualties, square kilometres of land and who holds power.
      But this ignores the bigger picture.
      Spiritual vs. material
      What is also happening is the surfacing of opinions, standpoints and, most importantly, behaviours. In a world at equilibrium, peoples' discourse can often hide their true beliefs and they can avoid engaging in behaviours which make explicit where they stand. 
      However, standing as we are in a world where there is disequilibrium, where the stakes are high for a reconfiguration of the Middle East as the tectonic plates shift, so people become more willing to disclose who they really are. 
      This is a win for the believers. Tempted by the greed for gain, this is where Satan's mask drops, and reality becomes evident. People motivated primarily by gains in this world no longer hide where they really stand - they believe they can achieve far more by grabbing as much as they can possibly have.
      The speed with which events take place makes it impossible for aggressors to hide their tracks. More importantly they believe that they no longer need to do so because the victory is so overwhelming that they will never be brought to account.
      Understanding reality
      Knowing the objective reality of this world can often be quite difficult; it's usually shrouded by our limitations and weaknesses. Often, believers are tempted to ask God for 'signs' to substantiate their belief. We think how easy it must have been for the ancients who lived in a world of miracles to have belief.
      But the miracles are all around us.
      As Satan's mask drops, we can see the people who would typically protest about human rights as part of their overall 'belief system' but are utterly silent about genocide. We can see that people who were horrified by the death of a single Iranian woman are now completely silent about the deaths of thousands.
      And indeed, it's not just silence - there's active subterfuge on their part to protect the aggressor. We see evidence of social media algorithms being changed. We see evidence of the identify of the aggressor being hidden where typically it would not be. Journalists who held themselves to be paragons of integrity have been seen to be weak and supine. Newspapers that used to criticise other countries for censorship have been found to be self-censoring with abandon.
      It's now been left to ordinary people often those with no interest in that part of the world taking note of journalists who have been summarily removed simply for asking Israeli representatives the wrong questions. And just as technology has enabled aggressors to have superior weapons so we are able to better measure and compare the published narrative and have no doubt about what is happening.
      And that's just the media.
      As for political leaders, we can see the people who claim leadership of Muslims but who show none when world events demand it. We can see the leaders who not only fail to protect the oppressed but who take an active part in the oppression. Their followers are left having to make excuses or alternatively make up new ideologies to replace those found to be wanting.
      Crumbling in front of us is the whole edifice of human rights, feminism, democracy, freedom of the press, international system of crime and justice and all those other things that have been used to beat up Muslims for decades. Of course, there is nothing wrong with them per se - but it's now obvious that there was never any principle underpinning their use. They were only a weaponised tool whose promoters were kept on a tight leash and allowed to attack some countries while we now see them willingly held back from applying the same rules to others.
      Claims of a 'superior civilisation' (whose superiority above Islam we were told we should accept) are now an embarrassment except to those with no reason or shame. Its promoters have traded them for gains in this world and have given up whatever echoes they wished to leave for eternity. And even those gains will prove to be short lived. The moral high ground needs legitimacy which has now disappeared.
      Implications for us
      It's at times like this that we might be saddened by the loss of people and places. But at the same time, our faith should be reinvigorated by the knowledge that what others believe is false, whose hypocrisy is made manifest and most importantly, whose ethical and moral position is so weak that it requires extreme violence to uphold.
      Shias more than anyone know that gains and losses on the battlefield are not the end of the story.

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