Bidah

Bidah - Its Meaning, Aspects, Dangers, and the Solution

The religion of Islam, the religion of Muslims, is based on only one teaching. In other words there is only one 'true' Islam. There is no such thing as different versions of Islam or different types or classes of this deen. The true path is only one way which lies under the shade of the Qur'an, the Sunnah and the understanding of the Companions.

As was illustrated by our beloved Prophet (Saw) and was narrated by Ibn Mas'ud that one day the Prophet (saw) drew a straight line on the ground and He said,"This is the path of Allah." Then he drew some lines to the left and right to it and said,"These are the erred paths and on each of these paths, there is Shaytaan calling to it." Then he recited the following verse from the Qur'an (which means):

"Verily, this is my straight path so follow it and do not follow the other paths that will take you away from the true path."

In fact, if we look in the Qur'an, when Allah (swt) describes the truth, it is always described as singular. For example, the word 'al-noor' which is singular is used for the truth, as opposed to 'zulumath' which is plural. It is a prime example from the Qur'an the clearly shows us that the right way is one way only. Any deviation from the true path is not an acceptable 'branch' of Islam but as the scholars call it, is a 'bida'.

Unfortunately, due to several reasons, the concept of Bida is not as clear to everyone as it should be. A reason for that is a lot of people are confused about 'good' bida or bida-e-hasana.

Secondly, there are many things which we do now that were not done at the time of Prophet (saw). With the outset of such widespread bida, people are confused, and rightly so, as to what is actually sunnah and what in religion is not sunnah- i.e. bida.

These misconceptions call for the need to establish the fundamental step which is to know bida, the concepts of bida according to Ahl-Sunnah Wal Jamah and the aspects of bida.

Bida, its Meaning: (heresy, innovation)
"Any invented act or path in the religion that is made to compete or resemble the Shari'a and that is followed for the same purpose as Shari'a is supposed to be followed."

From this definition and from the statements of Prophet (saw) about bida or innovation, we can come up with some general ideas or concepts about bida that explains this definition.