For many people, the concept of #Bidaah (Religious innovations) is considered a sensitive, hush-hush taboo topic that often results in negative name-calling and labelling, and people end up avoiding the topic altogether to avoid “hot water”.
But instead of looking at the topic of Bidaah as something negative that “challenges” the status quo, instead, let’s look at it from a positive perspective: Perfection.
Ponder upon the ayah of Allah:
الْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِى وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمُ الأِسْلاَمَ دِيناً
“On this day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.” (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:3)
Think about it: How motivating is it to know that we are adhering to something that is perfect! Something that doesn’t need any upgrades, patches, bug-fixing, ironing? No need to revamp, retool, reorg, or conduct tiring surveys to retune to the masses.
Just straight up, flat-out perfect. Use it right out of the box, gunakan tanpa was-was.
Contrast that to EVERYTHING else we have in our worldly lives. For example, the case with software, apps and games. How frustrating is it as users when we experience crashes, glitches, and bugs, and have the developers constantly have to fix the bugs, re-write the code, update the versions. And sometimes they STILL never quite get it right! I mean, they’ve been making Windows and Microsoft Office for over 30 years and it still crashes #BlueScreenOfDeath on the most basic functions!
Consider other matters, like our clothing, our cars, our tools. When things are imperfect there is always that lingering fear of distrust. That it can fail or have its integrity compromised at any moment. Imagine driving an old car you KNOW have a few screws loose.
Consider ever-changing company policies and structures. The minute a leader changes, they pull the rug and revamp the working systems, massive reorganizations, sometimes rendering so much previous efforts to go to waste, and people having go through the pain of readjusting, adapting, figuring it out. Only to have it change once again later on! Imagine working with the thought that “I think it might be useless in the future”.
Consider man-made civil laws, which are readily re-written based on the latest “flavor of the day”. What was completely forbidden today, might be 100% legit tomorrow. And what is considered “norm” today, might be a political taboo tomorrow, and you end up being cancelled!
This dunya is imperfect. It always has to be fixed, upgraded, patched. We've accepted that. That's life.
So now, imagine the peace of mind you get when you adhere and utilize something which is perfect: I have TOTAL CONFIDENCE that the prescriptions are just guaranteed to WORK. I don’t have to challenge it, I don’t have any distrust towards it, I don’t have any fear that it will flip or change. This is the perfection of Allah's favor, as he described, وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِى "and I have completed My Favor upon you"
A Jewish man once said to `Umar bin Al-Khattab,
“O Leader of the Believers! There is one verse in your Book, which is read by all of you (Muslims). Had it been revealed to us, we would have taken that day (on which it was revealed) as a day of celebration!”
This ayah was that ayah we quoted above - الْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ - from surah Al-Ma’idah! (Narrated in Musnad Ahmad)
Even the Jews of the time of Umar knew how valuable it was to have something which was declared by Allah to be PERFECT, and they were so jealous that they said if only they had that, they would have thrown in a huge celebration!
And so, as Muslims, we should rejoice and celebrate at the fact that our religion is perfect. Yet so many of us take this for granted! This is as Prophet Yusuf said,
ذَٰلِكَ مِنْ فَضْلِ اللَّـهِ عَلَيْنَا وَعَلَى النَّاسِ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَشْكُرُونَ
“This is from the Grace of Allah to us and to mankind, but most of mankind are ungrateful” (Surah Yusuf, 12:38)
And so now coming to the topic of Bidaah: religious innovations. You see, when someone adds to the religion or modifies it, and declare it as “something good”, this would immediately imply that you are “improving” upon something. Like a version 1.1, or version 1.02.
And by virtue of “improving” something, you have accidentally declared the original version to be “imperfect” – that version 1.0 isn’t “good enough”. Contrary to the clear-cut declaration of perfection.
And why would we want to do that? Wouldn’t we rather rejoice in the perfection?
Therein are signs for those who reflect. Let's #EmbraceThePerfection Alhamdulillah 😍
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