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So welcome to today's special class which I have been planning to do for the longest

time but I felt that might as well get it done in Shia Allah today.

We're going to be talking about the reality of the concept of innovation or bid'a in Islam.

And this topic is actually an entire branch of Islamic theology.

As with every science such as Firk, such as Osul Al Firk, such as Tefsir, it has many branches.

And Akhida or the science of theology has also many branches.

And one of the branches, one of the sub branches of the sciences of Akhida is the topic of bid'a, what constitutes innovation.

Where and when does innovation occur, what is an innovation, what is the categories of innovation, what are the dangers of innovation, the history of innovation.

So you have all of these sub topics under the topic of bid'a which is one of the chapters in the issue of theology.

And many classical books have been written on this topic beginning from the third century of Islam.

And one of the most famous ones is Ba'imah Masha'l-Tabi from Andalus called Adir At-Tislam al-Sha'l-Tabi.

Two big volumes he wrote it 800 years ago, 700 years ago.

And it is considered to be one of the big classics.

So the point being, even to introduce this topic in totality would require at least just an introduction, at least two to three lessons of this nature.

And as with all issues, there's always Iqt-e-Lav.

This is one of the things about our religion, about any science and discipline. You have all of these views.

Therefore, today we literally have one lesson, even half of a lesson because I want to leave time for Q&A.

So the goal is just to shed some very brief light and to get to really some of the more controversial issues in order that we develop empathy,

in order that we understand where and why there are these differing views.

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