The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 625
624 Ā'ĪNA-E-KAMĀLĀT-E-ISLĀM―DĀFI‘UL-WASĀWIS age, Nadhir Husain himself undertook a two-hundred kos¹ journey, arriving in Batala to feast at the walimah [wedding reception] of [Maulawi Muhammad Husain] Batālawī, and that journey is deemed absolutely legitimate. Similarly, the Shaikh of Batala runs off to Shimla year after year to meet the British, seeking worldly fame, and that jour- ney is not considered forbidden and ḥarām [unlawful]. In the very same fashion, some maulawis travel here and there to the east and the west in the name of giving sermons to earn their living and that journey is not considered objectionable, and no one issues fatwas of them being innovators or evil-doers, or being worthy of condemnation. However, when my humble self, being appointed under Divine guidance and command to call unto truth, invites the members of my Community to seek knowledge, then that journey is declared ḥarām, and I am called an apostate on account of that act. Is this the way of taqwā [righteous- ness] and God-fearing virtue? It is a pity that these simpletons do not even realize that planning and management cannot be inserted under the heading of bid'ah [inno- vations in the Faith]. Every time and age calls for new arrangements. If new types of challenges arise, then what can we do outside of new types of plans? So, would these plans be categorized as innovations? When the original Sunnah is safeguarded, and for its [continued] safeguard- ing we are compelled to make various plans, would such plans be called innovation? God forbid-not at all. An innovation is something which, in its essence, hinders or opposes the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet, or for which there is a warn- ing or limitation attributable to the Holy Prophet. If you want to label any new arrangement or plan as innovation, then keep counting the innovations in Islam-there is no limit to them. Knowledge of gram- matical conjugation and syntax would be counted as innovation, as would be the art of composition. Moreover, documenting the aḥādīth 1. A kos is a measure of distance, the length of which is approximately two English miles. [Publisher]