Answer to an Enemy of Islam

We have translated all of the 313 letters in its first volume from
Persian into Turkish, and partly into English, and published them
in Istanbul in 1387 (1968). Also, there is detailed information on
bid’as in the first part of the Arabic book Hadîqat an-nadiyya by
’Abd al-Ghanî an-Nabulûsî. And this part also was published by
offset in Istanbul in 1399 (1979). In the following, a translation of
a part of his writtings on bid’a is presented:
Bid’a means belief, deed or word that is incompatible with the
Sunna [that is, the religious teachings of Muhammad (’alaihi ’ssalâm)].
Allâhu ta’âlâ created His slaves so that they should
worship Him. ’Ibâda (worship) means humiliation and
degradation. In other words, it is man’s offering his humiliation
and incapability to his Rabb (Creator). And this, in its turn, means
to disregard the beauty or uglinesses dictated by mind, by the nafs
and by customs, so as to submit oneself to the Creator’s
description of what is beautiful and what is ugly, and to believe and
obey the Book and the Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) sent by the
Creator. If a person does some action by his own choice without
considering that his Creator has permitted it, he has not offered
servility to Him and has not fulfilled the requirements for being
Muslim. If that action pertains to belief and is one of the facts
which have been unanimously declared to be believed, this belief
of his is a bid’a that causes kufr (disbelief). If that action pertains
not to belief but to words and actions related to the religion, it is
fisq, a grave sin. It is declared in a hadîth sherîf, “If a person
invents something nonexistent in the religion, it is to be rejected.”
This hadîth sherîf shows that if some belief, word, action or
behavior that does not exist in Islam is introduced and believed to
belong to the religion or to be an ’ibâda, or if some addition or
deletion is done in what is communicated by Islam and if it is
expected that doing so will cause thawâb, such an innovation or
change is a bid’a, in which case Islam will have been disobeyed and
flouted. Those novelties which are done not in Islam but in
customs, that is, those for which thawâb is not expected, are not
bida’ (pl. of bid’a). For example, our religion does not reject the
innovations and alterations done in eating, drinking, travelling and
transportation or housing. [Therefore, eating at a table or from
separate dishes; using spoons or forks; travelling by automobiles
and aeroplanes; using any kind of building, house or kicthen
utensils; and all sorts of technological knowledge, tools or works
are not considered as bida’ in Islam. It is permitted, even a fard
kifâya, to make and use them in beneficial fields. For example, it is
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