ML, I am not going to get bugged down here as to the many things you insinuated as not being bidda. For starters, the Qur'an was revealed and written during the life time of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) completely. the verses are memorised by many scholars and sahabas at the time, the compilation was authorised by a kalifah who has that mandate to institute such high profile edit. The Prophet peace be upon him said, "follow by sunnah and that of the rightly guided sahabas", now which of them did you read or came across authorising a group sing along quranic recitation?
lets not try to confuse clear issues here, many of the thing prevalent in our cultural Islam was innovated by some leading men among of our decent who did those to make religion appealing and interesting to our folk. The group qur'anic recitation contradicts the fundamental injunction of the quran itself, that is, ponder over the verses. Have you ever attended or taken part in such events? I have and the way and manner in which people do it is such that, they complete reading a juz in less than half an hour, you don't have to take my word for it.
It is a money making venture that has now turn into how fast people can read rather than how much they take from reading.
If one person reads and the others listen, that is acceptable. It is a strong sunnah among early and later Muslims to have an Amir (leader) in every occasion. Islam always recommends that, one person should speak and the others listen, this person should be chosen by the group as the lead. In the mosque, the prayer lead by one person, the Imam, sermons are delivered by one person, the imam and many other occasions.
Just for sake of finishing a quran for a deceased shouldn't make us turn things on their head.
Now coming to your assertions that, some scholars confused the bida issues. I will like to make it clear that, bidda is mainly innovations in matters of religion. the manufacturing of weapons, planes and material things is never even contemplated as bidda.
we are talking here about religious matters. The excessive praising of the Prophet Muhammad during the innovated Mawluad is bidda. The sahabas never did it, do we love the prophet more than them? why should people be siting inside mosque with white cloths and seeking the presence of the prophet with strange incantation never heard of during the sahaba's time? There are a thousand and one things that we can do to seek the nearness to God without going through every other way. The prophet says, "follow my sunnah and that of the kulafah rasideen ie rightly guided sahabas" why should we be doing acts which origins we don't know? the likes of Ibn Masoud ban men sitting casually in the mosque doing group incantation, that was considered bidda. why? go into any group qur'anic recitation and be a listener, it is more than futile to pick anything.
We are all making our statements, it is up to people to do what they deem fit, grave veneration, saint over-praise, seeking things from them etc. which sahaba did we heard celebrate the death of a person? a family can pray for their dead, the right people are the deceased offspring, his/her children. in fact a special duaa is recommended for it by the prophet. Bidda in religious matters is what we should avoid. Just like the taleban are misusing Islam, many other people are doing the same by wasting the time of people with endless things never found in the practises of the prophet and the sahabas. We have seen families using their line of birth as pretex to suround themelves with endless venerators, to the extent that, family line is considered more important than uprightness and good behavour. we have seen whole industry open up by families to trade their name and spread desciples across the globe based on innovated practises never found in
Islam, why? the commercialisation of religious acts shouldn't be encouraged. A lot of money is spent now on dead people, just like some other religion or traditions are doing, as muslims, we should stick with our faith, adjust to modern time in the world matters and stay on the sunnah.
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