The word · Belief
البِدْعَة
Bid'ah
Innovation in religion: introducing an act of worship that has no basis in what was revealed.
Also written · Bidah · Bidat · Bid'at · Bidaa · Biddah · Bida · Bidah hasanah · Innovation · Religious innovation · Heresy
The meaning
What Bid'ah means in Islam
The Prophet peace be upon him said that whoever introduces into this affair of ours something that is not from it will have it rejected, in Bukhari and Muslim. Everyone agrees that new things in worldly life are not the subject; nobody calls a printing press or a microphone bid'ah. Scholars differ on the categories: many, following al-Shafi'i and al-Izz ibn Abd al-Salam, sort innovations into praiseworthy and blameworthy, while others hold that whatever is correctly called bid'ah in religion is blameworthy, and the good cases were never bid'ah to begin with.
Evidence · Scholars differ · The scholars read this one differently
Read beside it
Words that sit beside it
- SunnahThe Prophet's way in belief, worship and conduct, and the measure against which innovation is judged.السُّنَّة
- Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ahThe main body of Muslims who follow the Prophet's way and the practice of his companions.أَهْلُ السُّنَّةِ وَالجَمَاعَة
- TawassulApproaching Allah through a means, such as His names, your own good deeds, or a living person's du'a.التَّوَسُّل
- HawdThe Prophet's pool, where his community drinks before entering Paradise and never thirsts again.الحَوْض
More from Belief
- Adhab al-QabrThe punishment or ease a person meets in the grave, before the Day of Judgement arrives.عَذَابُ القَبْر
- Ba'thThe resurrection: bodies raised and souls returned, so that everyone stands for judgement.البَعْث
- IstighathahCalling for help, and the disputed question of whom a Muslim may call on when it is not Allah.الاِسْتِغَاثَة
- MahdiA rightly guided leader expected near the end of time, understood very differently by Sunni and Shia Islam.المَهْدِيّ
- QadrAllah's decree: that He knows, wrote, willed and created all that happens, without forcing anyone to sin.القَدَر
- Sidrat al-MuntahaThe Lote Tree at the furthest limit, reached by the Prophet on the Night Journey.سِدْرَةُ المُنْتَهَى