Abdul-Malik bin Marwan summoned me and said, "Abu Asma, we have united the people upon two matters."I asked, "What are they?"He replied, "Raising the hands on the pulpits on Friday, and storytelling after the dawn and afternoon prayers."I said, "These are the finest of your innovations in my view, yet I will not comply with you in either of them."He asked, "Why?"I answered, "Because the Prophet ﷺ said, 'No people introduce an innovation except that the like of it is taken away from the Sunnah.' So holding fast to a Sunnah is better than introducing an innovation."
حدثنا سريج بن النعمان قال حدثنا بقية عن أبي بكر بن عبد الله عن حبيب بن عبيد الرحبي
بعث إلي عبد الملك بن مروان فقال يا أبا أسماء إنا قد أجمعنا الناس على أمرين قال وما هما قال رفع الأيدي على المنابر يوم الجمعة والقصص بعد الصبح والعصر فقال أما إنهما أمثل بدعتكم عندي ولست مجيبك إلى شيء منهما قال لم قال لأن النبي ﷺ قال ما أحدث قوم بدعة إلا رفع مثلها من السنة فتمسك بسنة خير من إحداث بدعة
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Its chain of transmission is daif, because of Abu Bakr bin Abdullah bin Abu Maryam. We have graded his hadith as hasan when corroborated, but I have not found for this hadith any strong supporting witness to strengthen its chain. Still, Ibn Hajar graded it hasan in al-Isabah, after mentioning it in the biographical entry of Ghudayf, and likewise Suyuti graded it hasan, while Munawi disagreed with him, as noted in Fayd Qadir 5/412.Despite the weakness of the hadith, there is a point I want to make briefly here. This hadith, weak as it is, is clung to by rigid people who imagine that they are fighting against innovations. We ask Allah that we be the furthest of people from innovation, but many interpret it to mean that raising the hands in supplication on the pulpit is an innovation, and that speaking after Fajr and Asr is likewise an innovation. That is not so, even if we were to grade the hadith of Ghudayf as hasan, because it has been reported in the Sahih, in the hadith of Ibn al-Lutbiyyah and others, that the Prophet ﷺ raised his hands on the pulpit until we could see the whiteness of his armpits, saying, "O Allah, have I conveyed the message? O Allah, bear witness" and the rest of the hadith, and others like it. Likewise it has been reported in many hadiths that when the Prophet ﷺ finished the Fajr or Asr prayer, he would speak to the people. None of that is innovation in any sense. Rather, innovation is departing from the sunnah, or doing something we have been forbidden to do. So abandoning the sunnah in favor of something we are not commanded to do, even if it is otherwise lawful, is innovation. But doing something, without abandoning a sunnah, and where there is no prohibition or contradiction involved, is not innovation in any sense.Otherwise, we would have to close the door entirely on good deeds, voluntary acts, and supererogatory practices. Whoever says that innovation is whatever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not do has strayed from sound principles. In fact, he has no understanding of the principles at all, for otherwise the companions would be the first innovators, when in truth all of them are free from innovation.