[nicktender]

Dear Brothers, Assalaamoalaikum

Whatever I have read from the above posts, in particular from our Brother Seekerof Guidance, are opinions of people like you and me - albeit people who have spent their whole life for the Deen of Allah(SWT) and with whom,in all probability Allah(SWT) Is very pleased with, Inshallah.

Opinions of people do not send one to hell or to paradise. Only Allah(SWT) Has this prerogative and priviledge. No one can hijack this prerogative and this priviledge. HE is the ONLY MASTER of the Day of Judgment.

Most of the time, when one is confronted with an issue such as that of Bid'a, one undertakes all sorts of acrobacy such as here classifying bid'a as legal, as linguistic, etc .... to justify this interpretation or that interpretation. Bid'a in our case refers to this matter of ours. This matter of ours is the Deen of Allah(SWT) - Al Islam - the only straight path that leads to Allah(SWT). So, when we speak of Bid'a, we are speaking of Bid'a in conjunction with al-Islam. It is as simple as this.

Next, very often, we read about ijma, concensus. And I am tempted to ask: Which Ijma? Which Concensus? Do we have one such ijma, one such concensus?

On several threads I have asked two questions: (a) Why did the Holy Messenger(SAW) not do certain actions? (b) Why did the Sahabah not do certain actions? No answer to date, which incidentally leads me to conclude that even the various authorities (May Allah(SWT) Be pleased with them all) mentioned in the various posts above, did not consider this approach in discussing the Bid'a issue.

Last but not least: I am what my pakistani/indian brothers would qualify as a pakka bid'ati. I participate in mawlid, in group du'a, in group dhikr (loud ones), group salaat-us-salaam, listen to naats/anasheeds, in fact I participate in all that would be classified as bid'a as per above posts. And yet, Allah(SWT) continues to guide me, and to answer my du'as. That would seem to be a contradiction to what is apparent from all that has been said in the previous posts!

And before we conclude: We usually tend to quote certain hadiths to prove our point and we tend to forget certain other hadiths that would counter the points we are trying to make. All sides tend to adopt this strategy.

Brotherly yours
farook

Brother, one thing you should be aware of is that we are in the worst of times, close to the Hour, during which the majority of the scholars are preoccupied in spreading bid'ah and destroying the Sunnah of the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace). The paths to misguidance are many.

Even the non-Muslims were able to develop mystical and magical powers that could easily be interpreted as "guidance" by the unwary. The Mujaddid of this millenium, Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi (rahmatullahi alayhi) stated:

“ Real purification depends on adherence to righteosness as approved by God, and this rests upon the teachings of the Prophets (Allah bless them and grant them peace) as already explained by me. Thus purification of self and heart cannot really be attained without the help of Prophethood. The purification attained by the infidels and the wrong doing people is the expurgartion of self and not of heart. The cleansing of self alone , however , does not increase anything but waywardness. The mysterious and magical powers sometimes devoloped by the infidels and wrong doing people through expurgation of self are surely Istidraj ( illusory magical power) which leads them by degrees to hell and destruction”. ( Maktubat, Vol.I, No. 266 to khwaja Abdullah and Ubaidullah ).

We take our fiqh from the fuqaha, not the sufis, as Mujaddid Alf-e-Thani explains succintly here:

“ No practice of any mystic is authoritative enough to decide which is lawful or unlawful. Will it not be sufficient that instead of reproaching them we pass over their actions and leave them to the judgement of God ? This is a matter in which the opinion of Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Abu Yousuf or Imam Muhammed should be considered authoritative rather than the practice of Abu Bakr Shibli or Abul Hasan Nuri. The half-baked mystics of our day have taken to dancing and whirling as an accepted religious rite and raised it to the level of divine service. These are persons who have taken their religion for sport and pastime “
(Q.VII : 51. ; Maktubat, Vol.I, No. 266 to Khwaja Abdullah and Khwaja Ubaidullah)

Allah has given each one of us sufficient intellect to identify which ulama are occupied in propagating and preserving the blessed Sunnah, eliminating bid'ah, and treading a path that is in between the two extremes.

Imam Bukhari (rahmatullahi alayhi) statement here highlights the one quality which should enable us to easily identify the true ulama, whose likes were prevalent during his era, but are a rarity today:

"I have met more than a thousand scholars.(then he mentioned the names of the more prominent in each of the lands that he travelled in) and I found that they all agreed on the following points: they all used to prohibit bid'ah - that which the Prophet and his Companions were not upon, because of the saying of Allaah, 'and hold fast to the rope of Allaah and do not separate'" [Sharh Usul I'tiqaad]

Our whole journey in this life, is a journey of continually seeking guidance from Allah .

May Allah never cease to increase us in guidance. Ameen