Questioner:

Is there such a thing as a ‘good innovation’ and ‘bad innovation’ in Islam?

Shaykh Ṣāliḥ Fawzān al-Fawzān:

This exists with the mystical innovators, as for the people of Sunnah and Jamāʿah they don’t have good innovations because the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Every newly invented matter is an Innovation and every innovation is misguidance.”

He did not say ‘In every innovation there is good and misguidance’, rather he generalized and said, ‘Every innovation is misguidance’. The one who claims there is such a thing as a good innovation has rejected the Messenger of Allah.