Bid'ah or Sin?

Bid'ah or religious innovation is more beloved to Iblees than sin and insubordination because the damage of innovation is in the core of the religion. Moreover, it is that type of sin which is not usually repented from because the innovator has deluded himself to believing that he is doing something that is sanctioned and therefore permissible, but in reality it is in opposition to the call of the Messengers and more importantly the call and way of Allaah’s Last Messenger.

Innovation is an entrance to disbelief and associating [partners with Allaah]. Hence, if Iblees obtains the performance of innovation from an individual thus making him an innovator, he then makes that person an agent and one of his callers.

If Iblees falls short [with that] and is unable to ensnare the servant with this type [of trick], and if he is one of those who were given by Allaah the gift of the [Pure] Sunnah and hatred of the people of innovation and misguidance, he [Iblees] continues on to the third kind.

The great Imaam of Ahlus-Sunnah, Sufyaan al-Thawree [d.167H] said:  “Innovation is more beloved to Iblees than sin, since a sin may be repented from but innovation is not repented from.” [al-Laalikaa'ee – ‘Sharh Usool I'tiqaad Ahlis-Sunnah wal-Jamaa'ah’ (no. 238)]