In Islamic texts, innovation (bid‘a) refers to practices or doctrines considered to lack a precedent in the Qur’an and the sunna of the Prophet. A prophetic hadith (tradition) states that every novelty is an innovation and every innovation is an erroneous deviation (ḍalāl) leading to hell. According to the hadith, innovations are both the product and the cause of the progressive corruption of the community after the Prophet’s death (fasād al-zamān); they are brought about by Jewish and Christian influences, by uncontrolled and inappropriately trained preachers and storytellers (quṣṣāṣ), by women, and more generally by those who are led by their passions (ahwā’). The spread of innovations can be halted by their condemnation by properly trained religious scholars (‘ulama’) and by the social isolation and physical punishment of innovators. (However, physical punishment usually falls short of the death penalty, as innovators are still considered by many to be believers, even if sinful and misled.)
Nonetheless, some scholars held certain innovations to be not only acceptable but also obligatory, such as the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday (mawlid) and the establishment of Muslim schools (madrasas) and hospitals. The possibility of “good innovations” was backed by Shafi‘i (d. 820), who stated that not every novelty (muḥdath) was a reprehensible bid‘a, thus opening the way for the eventual incorporation of the concept of bid‘a into the five legal categories (obligatory, recommended, indifferent, reprehensible, forbidden), which was effected by the Shafi‘i Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam (d. 1262) and the Maliki Qarafi (d. 1285).
Treatises against bid‘a usually concentrated on innovations introduced in the field of ritual practices (‘ibādāt), such as the celebration of non-Muslim festivals, the visiting of saints’ graves, the performance of certain prayers at certain times or places, and certain funerary customs. These were practices subject to intense debates in the Islamic community, and the scholars were divided into two extremes: those who were afraid of widening the scope of Muslim ritual beyond the contents of the Five Pillars (e.g., by allowing the celebration of ‘Arafat outside Mecca) and those willing to accommodate local practices and customs often followed by a majority of Muslims. Many such practices are still discussed in the early 21st century, with the Wahhabis the most vociferous opponents of innovations.
Deviants from correct belief are often labeled “those who indulge in innovations and follow their passions” (ahl al-bidā‘, wa-l-ahwā’) and condemned as such in Sunni heresiographical treatises (al-firaq, al-milal wa-l-niḥal) dealing with the sectarian doctrines of, among others, the Kharijis, the Qadaris and Mu‘tazilis, and the Shi‘is. The emergence and consolidation of the doctrines and practices that came to constitute Sunnism—with its internal varieties—constituted a process that lasted more than three centuries and that cannot be considered closed. Alexander Knysh, in his article “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Medieval Islam: An Essay in Reassessment,” has shown how the construction of orthodoxy in Islamic societies involves “a perpetual collision of individual opinions over an invariant set of theological problems that eventually leads to a transient consensus that already contains the seeds of future disagreement.”
Intellectual criticism and social disapproval could be accompanied by persecution and repression when rulers concluded that those who supported certain beliefs or practices (such as some activist Sufis) constituted a threat to their power or when the fight against “heresy” could provide legitimacy to their rule (such as the fight of Almoravids and Almohads against the Barghawata). Even so, the wars of religion that counted so many victims in Latin Christendom have largely been absent from Islamic societies. The nonexistence of persecuting institutions such as the inquisition went together with a prevalent Sunni pattern of coexistence with “deviant” groups, even in the case of such centralized states as the Ottoman Empire, where sectarians such as the Alevis—in spite of periods of persecution—were able to survive through the centuries.
In the early centuries of Islam, dualists were subject to repression and persecution to such an extent that the name given to them (zindīq, pl. zanādiqa) became the technical legal term for the heretic considered to be a “hidden apostate”—in other words, someone who claimed to be a Muslim while holding views that put him outside the Islamic community. The zindīq had to be sentenced to death because of his hidden apostasy (ridda). The Hanafis thought the zindīq should be granted the possibility of repentance (istitāba), whereas the Malikis rejected this possibility because they felt a zindīq could not be trusted. Accusations of zandaqa became a common resource for discrediting certain views or individuals, and many examples can be found in the biographies of ‘ulama’. Those accusations seldom led to a trial. Scholars who had accused others of religious deviation (zandaqa, ilḥād, zaygh) often attended the funeral of the accused and even pronounced the death’s prayer over him or her, thereby attesting to the general Sunni reluctance categorically to stigmatize others as unbelievers (takfīr).
See also Kharijis; Mu‘tazilis; al-Shafi‘i, Muhammad b. Idris (767–820); sunna
Further Reading
N. Calder, “The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxy,” in Intellectual Traditions in Islam, edited by F. Daftary, 2000; M. Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350, 1994; M. Chokr, Zandaqa et zindiqs en Islam au second siècle de l’hégire, 1993; M. Fierro, “The Treatises against Innovations (kutub al-bida‘),” Der Islam 69 (1992); J. Karolewski, “What Is Heterodox about Alevism? The Development of Anti-Alevi Discrimination and Resentment,” Die Welt des Islams 48, nos. 3–4 (2008); A. Knysh, “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Medieval Islam: An Essay in Reassessment,” The Muslim World 83, no. 1 (1993); H. Laoust, Les schismes dans l’Islam, 1977; B. Lewis, “Some Observations on the Significance of Heresy in the History of Islam,” Studia Islamica 1 (1953); G. Makdisi, “Tabaqat-Biography: Law and Orthodoxy in Classical Islam,” Islamic Studies 32 (1993); V. Rispler-Chaim, “Toward a New Understanding of the Term Bid’a,” Der Islam 68 (1992); A. El-Shamsy, “The Social Construction of Orthodoxy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, 2008; D. Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System, 1998; J. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra. Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, 6 vols., 1991–98.
MARIBEL FIERRO