بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The prophet (ﷺ) said:
من عمل عملاً ليس عليه أمرنا فهو رد
“Whoever does a deed that is not in accordance with this affair of ours, then it is rejected.” (Sahīh Muslim 1718)
عَنِ الْبَرَاءِ بْنِ عَازِبٍ ـ رضى الله عنهما ـ قَالَ ضَحَّى خَالٌ لِي يُقَالُ لَهُ أَبُو بُرْدَةَ قَبْلَ الصَّلاَةِ، فَقَالَ لَهُ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ” شَاتُكَ شَاةُ لَحْمٍ
Al-Barā’ narrated:
An uncle of mine called Abū Burdah, slaughtered his sacrifice before the ‘Īd prayer. So Allāh’s Messenger (ﷺ) said to him, “Your (slaughtered) sheep was just for meat (and not a sacrifice).” (Sahīh Al-Bukhārī 5556)
Shaykh ‘Abdul-Muhsin al-Abbād said:
“It cannot be said: If the action is sincere for Allāh, and is not based on the Sunnah, and the intention of its doer is good, then it is praiseworthy and beneficial to its doer.
What indicates this is that the noble Messenger (ﷺ) said to the companion who slaughtered his sacrifice before the ‘Īd prayer: “Your (slaughtered) sheep was just for meat.” The Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) did not consider it a sacrifice (for Allāh), because it was slaughtered before the beginning of the time of slaughter, which begins after the ‘Īd prayer.
The hadith was included by Al-Bukhari (5556) and Muslim (1961), and Al-Hāfidh (Ibn Hajr) said in his explanation in Al-Fath (10/17): “Shaykh Abū Muhammad ibn Abī Jamrah said: “It proves that even if an action is in accordance with good intentions, it is not valid unless it is done in accordance with the Sharī’ah.”
And in Sunan al-Dārimī (1/68-69) that Abdullāh ibn Masūd (ﷺ) stood in front of the people in the mosque sitting around with pebbles in their hands. One of them would say: Say “Allāhu Akbar” a hundred times, so they would say “Allāhu Akbar” a hundred times, so he would say: “Al-hamdulillāh” a hundred times, so they would say “Al-hamdulillāh” a hundred times, and he would say: “Subhān-Allāh” a hundred times, so they would say “Subhān-Allāh” a hundred times.
So he (ibn Masūd) said: “What is this that I see you doing?” They said: “O Abū Abd Al-Rahmān! These are pebbles with which we count the takbīr, the tahlīl, and the tasbīh.”
He said: “So count your bad deeds, for I guarantee that none of your good deeds will be wasted. Woe to you! O nation of Muhammad! How quickly you rush to destruction! These are the companions of your Prophet (ﷺ), these are his clothes that have not worn out, and his bowl which has not been broken. By the One in Whose Hand is my soul, you are either following a religion that is better guided than the religion of Muhammad (ﷺ) or you have opened the door to misguidance?” They said: “By Allāh, O Abū Abd Al-Rahmān! We did not intend except good!”
He said: “And how many intend good but never achieve it.”
And this narration has been mentioned by Al-Albānī in as-silsilat al-sahīhah (2005)
(Kitāb Sharh Hadīth Jibrīl of Sh. ‘Abdul-Muhsin pg. 19-20)
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