What our akabir teach, in my lowly, uneducated opinion, is that bidah refers to the restricting or generalizing of something that Shariah has made general or specific. The command to do dhikr is a general command in the Quran, so one can make dhikr in any *intrinsically* permissible form, as long as you do not restrict that dhikr and make it into an actual specific act of worship, which it is not. It comes from a *general* command to make dhikr, and therefore has to stay general, meaning that no one can say that such and such act (such as the hadra or the dhikr jahr o dharb) is a *specific* act of worship, meaning that no one can say that it is specifically rewarded. Only the actual dhikr itself is worthy of reward, not the form. In the same way, Shariah has made Zuhr salah a specific act of worship, with a specific number of rakaah. To generalize it and say that now we can add an extra rakaah at the end, because the Quran says establish salah, is bidah, because you are generalizing an act that has been commanded in a specific way.

Take any one of the action you mentioned above and measure if it innovates into any of the actions taught by the Prophet [Peace be upon him] i.e. prayer is 5 times and now someone states it is 6, this would be an innovation.

We know that dhikr is allowed, now the prescription of doing 100x a day of istighfar is just for organisational purposes by a qualified sheikh; this could fluctuate up or down depending on the circumstances. Now if a sheikh states this act is wajib or farz to do 100x istigfar daily and to deter from it is a criminal act then this is problematic and an evil innovation [bidah].

Is this clear for you?

If you try to read more into it then the problem of understanding lies with you since it is not something that requires analytic and analogy, just plain and simple understanding

There is two questions about “bid’a” at which I have never really get an answer which have rest my heart. And it’s in part because of this two things that I’ve never maid bay’at yet.

What about the zikr prescribed by the Mashaykhs (who sometimes ask their murids to do so or so times that zikr) ? Why our deobandis Mashaykhs don’t consider that as bid’ah ? Particularly, I think to the zikr qalbi done in naqshbandi tariqa or about zikr which concentrate on some lataif or zikr with darb in Chisti tariqa. (And despite the fact I don’t know a deobandi shaykh involve in that, what about the hadra held by some syrian or eyptian shaykh ?)
Despite the reading of this article and the fact that I have also read your previous article about the zikr of the name of Allah I still confused.

The second question is also relative to tasawuf. And I know that I seem to have been confused by whose who oppose to tasawuf but what about bay’ah ? Why making it to a Shaykh does not fall into the category of bay’ah ? I know that it was a sunnah of the prophet (saw) and that people made bay’ah to the Khulafas (ra) but so does not this mean that the bay’ah must be done to those who have power ?

If you can reply me here or by mail or in another article and bi iznillah make me feel less confused please.

Jazakumullah.
May Allah reward and accept your efforts in his path.