بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
و الصلاة و السلام على أشرف المرسلين
و على اله و اصحابه أجمعين
The following text comes from “Mawsu’at ul Kasanzaniyah”:
“Some people have denouncedthe use of the subha through wrong arguments that we will quote and that we will try hard to refute.
They said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ counted the number of tasbih with his fingers because the fingers will testimony the day of Judgement. They based their argument on two hadith. One is reported by Abu Daoud: “He counted his tasbeeh with his right hand” and the other one was reported by Tirmidhi : “He counted his tasbeeh with his hand”.
But even if the Prophet ﷺ was using his hand to count his tasbeeh, he did not prevent his companions from using date stones or small pebbles and other things to perform dhikr. Additionally, using the tasbeeh or no, it is the same hand that will count the tasbeeh. Therefore, the use of the subha does not prevent the testimony of the fingers which held the subha on the Day of the Judgment. Also, the subha does not prevent from the spurt of the Lights linked to the dhikr.”
We can quote Imam Suyuti’s words:
On the subha, if the one who remembers his Lord does not make a mistake on counting his tasbeeh, then counting with his finger is better. Otherwise, it is better to use the subha.
They claimed that the use of the subha lead to showing off. For them, Stopping the subha use would be better and it would allow us to protect our faith. But showing off can affect us in all our pious deeds. Did we stopped pious deeds because of showing off ? They said that it was an innovation that neither the Messenger of Allah ﷺ nor the Sahaba did. They said that every innovation is a misguidance and every misguidance goes to Hell fire.
But the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “He who inaugurates a good practice in islam earns the reward of it, and of all who perform it after him, until the Day of the Judgement”.
Therefore, scholars judged that it was wrong to systematically consider all innovation as misguidance and they said that they were:
- Obligatory (wajeeb):as the installation of rules in the arabic language and its teachings.
- Recommended (mandub) as building schools.
- Unlawful (haram) as reciting the Koran in a different way from how it was revealed.
- Allowed (mubah) as eating on the table.
Some of them even said that making an exact number of tasbeeh was an innovation, then what would it be to count with a subha. For answering, it is sufficient to show to those who denigrate the use of an exact number of tasbeeh to the athar clearly mentioning that some sahaba had a determined wird as sayiduna Abu Hureyra with 12000 tasbeeh, or as sayiduna Khaleed ibn Ma’dan with 40 000 tasbeeh or as Abu Darda with his 100 000 tasbeeh (radi Allah anhu).
Likewise, some tabi’in had a wird with 30 000 tasbeeh and others had a wird with 300, 600 or 1000 raka’at a day.
