The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Every newly invented affair is an innovation. Every innovation is an error and every error is in the fire.” This is an authentic hadîth related by al-Tirmidhî and others.
An innovation, linguistically, is any unprecedented matter. In Islamic legal terms, it is defined as: any contrived religious matter that infringes upon the jurisdiction of Islamic Law and is done as an act of devotion.
From this definition, we can see that there are two factors that make a given statement or action a bid`ah:
1. The matter must have something to do with religion.
2. The matter must be something new without a precedent in Islamic Law.
In Islam, innovations in formal acts of worship are forbidden. We cannot worship Allah in any manner except the manner that He prescribed for us by way of His Messenger (peace be upon him). This means that we can only worship Allah in accordance with what we find in the Qur’ân and Sunnah. In such matters, there is no such thing as a "good" innovation.
Therefore, the various customs and practices that people have to facilitate their daily lives and worldly affairs do not constitute innovations as far as Islamic Law is concerned.
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The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Every newly invented affair is an innovation. Every innovation is an error and every error is in the fire.” This is an authentic hadîth related by al-Tirmidhî and others.
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